Gulf News has reported that the phamacies in DUbai did not know about the removal of the Drug
Pharmacists on Sunday were unaware of the massive recall of Tylenol, an over-the-counter painkiller, across the UAE. Most said that they did not get any instructions so far from the Ministry of Health.
“We have no information,” said Nawaz Valiyakath, pharmacist at Boots in Ibn Batuta mall. One pharmacist said she only came to know about the issue from the internet and that there was no communication from the Ministry.
McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a unit of the U.S. pharmaceutical giant J&J, said it was voluntarily recalling some 500 batches of the products from the UAE, the Americas and Fiji after customers reported an “unusual, moldy” odor that had been linked to gastrointestinal disorders, including stomach pain, nausea and diarrhoea, according to Arabian Business.
Consumers who have an item on the recall list have been urged to stop using the product and contact the company for a refund, the report said.
The drugmaker said it believed that the smell was related to a chemical on wood pallets used to transport and store product packaging material.
“The health effects of this chemical have not been well-studied, but no serious events have been documented in the medical literature,” the company was quoted as saying in a statement.
It will stop using the pallets to ship products with the same chemicals, it added.
The recall followed a “warning letter” from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Friday, which
accused the firm of failing to investigate the contamination of some of its popular over-the-counter drugs. The FDA said McNeil knew of the problem inearly 2008 but made only limited inquiries.
The move expanded an earlier recall of the Tylenol arthritis pill that was initiated in December last year after customers reported an unusual smell emanating from the products, Arabian Business said.