Patients taking medications used for blood pressure and sleep disorders that have been linked to chemicals that cause cancer should talk to their doctors and pharmacists if they have concerns about the drugs, two Long Island health officials said Friday.
Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, which makes prazosin hydrochloride, and Amerisource Health Services, the drug’s distributor, issued a nationwide voluntary recall of more than 500,000 bottles of the drug earlier this month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said.
Dr. Hal Skopicki, chief of cardiology at Stony Brook University Hospital and co-director of the Stony Brook Heart Institute, said the recall was triggered by prazosin capsules containing nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are found in small amounts in many everyday products, including meat, cheese, beer, and shampoo, but long-term exposure to high levels increases the risk of cancer.
Skopicki said the recall was based on an abundance of caution to protect Americans from another factor that increases cancer risk.
“I don’t want to sound any alarms,” Skopicki said. “This chemical is present in many things in our lives.”
Lisa Mulloy, vice president and chief pharmaceutical officer of Northwell Health, said news of the recall involving the cancer-linked compound was “scary.” However, this month’s recall does not cause much concern.
“We want to keep people calm,” she said. “When they hear stories like this, they get angry.”
Mulloy urged people to avoid giving advice through social media and instead talk to their pharmacists and health care providers about their concerns. Your pharmacist can tell you if your prescription is made by Teva and if your lot of capsules is on the recall list.
Doctors may write new prescriptions for prazosin, a generic drug made by several manufacturers, Mulloy said. Teva was the only company to announce a recall.
Doctors prescribe prazosin, which relaxes blood vessels, to lower blood pressure, Skopicki said. It was widely used to treat high blood pressure in the 1980s, but its use as a blood pressure medication declined significantly after a 2000 study found that other drugs were more effective.
Prazosin is also prescribed to patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, which causes nightmares and disrupted sleep, Skopicki said.
