Pfizer announces birth-control recall

To say that some women of childbearing age got a bit concerned this week is probably an understatement.

Imagine what it must be like to be on a drug that’s supposed to prevent unplanned pregnancies and to learn that, gee, your package may have placebo pills placed where the active ingredients belong. Anyone who has ever been a day or two late when they weren’t expecting to be a parent can tell you the panic that sets in when you realize, “Ack! I might have a kid!”

Yet, more than one million packages of birth-control pills manufactured by Pfizer Inc. have been recalled “to be safe” because about 30 packages were believed to have been packaged incorrectly. The recall affects Lo/Ovral-28 and Norgestrel in packages containing 21 active and seven inert pills,The Wall Street Journal reports. A list of batch numbers is available on this FDA release.

News sources worldwide are spreading the word, with some speculating the recall could spur huge lawsuits against the pharmaceutical company.

We wondered what approach Pfizer was taking, so we visited its website. A link on the home page leads to a YouTube video with the company’s chief medical officer Freda Lewis-Hall:

The company used press releases to announce the recall and issue its statement. It posted this tweet on its @pfizer_news Twitter account:Chief Medical Officer Freda Lewis-Hall Addresses Company's Voluntary Recall of Contraceptive Products http://youtu.be/zcLIbeVHGgY

How is your organization responding?

If your organization dispenses these contraceptives, how are you sharing the information your patients need to know—whether your pharmacy or practice dispensed the recalled lots, other contraceptive methods they should use if they had the batch numbers affected, if they should see their doctors?

Blanchfield Army Community Hospital at Fort Campbell, Ky. put this reassuring message on its Facebook page: BACH pharmacy patients not affected by birth control recall . It includes a link to additional information.