Learn about drug recalls

People can be affected by any number of defective products. This applies to medications that people take by prescription or buy over the counter. When defective medications are subject to a drug recall, it can be a scary thing for people taking those medications. For this reason, it is important to know how drug recalls happened.

Drug recalls happen when prescription and over the counter medications are determined to be defective. This can happen when the manufacturer of the drug realizes that something went wrong and they need to get it off the market before it causes problems. It can also happen when consumers who bought it notice problems and inform the FDA. The FDA will then make a request for a recall.

There are multiple reasons for drug recalls. One is that the drug itself is discovered to be a health hazard. This has happened with a lot of drugs. Additionally, the drug might be mislabeled, have poor instructions, or be packaged poorly. Any of these conditions can make the drug itself or the usage of it unsafe.

The drug should also be recalled if it is contaminated. Contamination can easily happen at the inadequately run plant of the drug manufacturer, or it might happen in transit, or at a distribution facility. All kinds of things can happen to drugs between the manufacturer and the consumer.

Of course, the drug to be recalled may have simply been poorly manufactured in the first place, with the manufacturer paying little attention to purity standards that could cost money to adhere to and interfere with pharmaceutical profits. Unfortunately, some manufacturers do operate this way, resulting in drug recalls. Anyone adversely affected by drugs that need to be recalled should see their doctor first, get comprehensively examined, and then go see their attorney.

Source: WebMD, “What Is a Drug Recall?,” accessed March 25, 2016