The Food and Drug
Administration have advised all patients on Friday to continue taking a widespread
cholesterol drug even though there had been concerns that the drug might
contain specks of glass, retreating advice it gave just a day earlier. Millions of people are taking Ranbaxy
Pharmaceutical's generic Lipitor, or atorvastatin, and numerous have been
calling the pharmacies because they were confused about whether or not to take
the drugs in which they have in their medicine cabinets. Ranbaxy originated a recall on November 9 and
told all the pharmacies to stop distributing the drug, but gave no feedback to
the clients about what to do with what was in their medicine cabinets. Dr. Janet Woodcock, the director of the FDA's
Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, thought the agency would review how it
handles communication to the public during recalls. It took them some time to think out what was
going on. They realised that they needed to fix their processes a little bit. Between 3 million and 4 million people have taken
Ranbaxy's atorvastatin, according to Ross Muken, who is the senior managing
director at ISI Group. The company has greater than a 40% share of the generic
Lipitor market. The FDA made no public declarations
on the recall until Thursday, when the agency said anxious patients should stop
taking their medicine if their pharmacist established it was from a recalled
lot. After a conference call Friday
afternoon with pharmacies and other groups, the agency decided to change their direction. It caused people to believe that they should
stop taking their medicine. The glass
particles are as small as a grain of sand, she added. Ranbaxy has stopped
making atorvastatin while they investigate how the glass got into the drug,
according to the FDA.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/30/health/fda-generic-lipitor/index.html?hpt=he_c2
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