[November 21, 2018, by Caroline Cornell, Class Action . com]
“…..another blood pressure drug recall was announced, the third since July.”
“Losartan is the latest drug to be recalled for possible nitrosamine contamination, a class of chemicals that may cause cancer. It follows the recalls of irbesartan earlier in November, and valsartan in July.”
“In 2012, experts estimated that 80% of ingredients in U.S. pharmaceuticals are made abroad, and 40% of finished pharmaceutical drugs are made outside the U.S. It’s likely that these numbers are higher now as 80% of the active ingredients in U.S. medicine comes from China and India alone.”
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“As the number of FDA inspections increases, so do the number of warning letters to drug manufacturers. In 2016, 44 warning letters were sent to Chinese and Indian manufacturers, and in 2017, 61 warning notices were issued.”
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“In the case of Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceuticals, which makes losartan and valsartan, an FDA inspection didn’t do much good. In May 2017 the company received a warning letter from the FDA that their drugs did not meet U.S. quality standards after a problematic inspection.
A similar incident happened at Sichuan Friendly Pharmaceutical which received a warning letter from the FDA in June 2018 for their failure to meet safety standards. Two months later, Westminster Pharmaceuticals recalled their thyroid drugs Levothyroxine and Liothyronine, citing quality issues with the ingredients they used from Sichuan Friendly Pharmaceutical.”
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“Inspections don’t guarantee quality medicines,” Rosemary Gibson, author of China Rx and Senior Advisor at The Hastings Center, told us.”
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“In 2013, Ranbaxy Laboratories in India, a large supplier of generic drugs used in the U.S., agreed to pay $500 million in criminal and civil penalties after an eight-year investigation uncovered falsified records and failure to meet multiple drug safety standards. In 2016, Chinese-based Xiamen Origin Biotech was also caught lying to FDA inspectors when they falsely reported that they had stopped relabeling drugs in January 2015, when in fact they were still distributing them one year later. “
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[Dr. Donald Light, 2013…..Risky Drugs: Why The FDA Cannot Be Trusted….University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey….Harvard University Center For Ethics]
“Every week, about 53,000 excess hospitalizations and about 2400 excess deaths occur in the United States among people taking properly prescribed drugs to be healthier. One in every five drugs approved ends up causing serious harm…..The further corruption of medical knowledge through company-funded teams that craft the published literature to overstate benefits and understate harms, unmonitored by the FDA, leaves good physicians with corrupted knowledge. Patients are the innocent victims.”