Consumer watchdog group U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) is criticizing the FDA for “missing their timeline” to review potentially carcinogenic blood pressure medications like losartan, valsartan and irbesartan, arguing the agency needs to step up its efforts to ensure pharmaceutical companies are distributing safe drugs.
CBS News reported Oct. 10 that the FDA has evaluated just 26% of BP drugs on the market since March, when the agency first announced it would temporarily increase allowable levels of nitrosamine while it conducted a more exhaustive investigation. But it’s been more than a year since drug manufacturers started systematically pulling “sartan” drugs from the market due to trace amounts of nitrosamine, and U.S. PIRG member Adam Garber told CBS the FDA owes it to the public “to meet its own self-imposed safety timeline.”
“The FDA is saying we think there would be a larger public health crisis if we pull all [the blood pressure drugs] from the marketplace—and that’s a fair calculus for them to make,” he said. “But then they need to move more quickly to ensure manufacturers are not creating medicine that has cancer-causing chemicals, and they have missed their timeline to do so.”
CBS reported that, to date, the FDA has declined to respond to U.S. PIRG’s comments. According to the agency’s calculations, if 8,000 patients were to take the highest dose of one of the most contaminated batches of sartans for four years, it would result in one additional case of cancer.
Find more information about the latest BP drug recalls here. Read CBS’ full story below:
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.