Hospira recalls drug because of storage glitch during shipping

Hospira's Lake Forest, IL, headquarters--Staff photo

Not all drug recalls track back to quality issues during manufacturing. A glitch in the supply chain can also come into play, and that is what happened with a lot of vancomycin hydrochloride injection being recalled by Hospira ($HSP).

The product, the Lake Forest, IL-based company said, may have been exposed to temperature fluctuations during transit because of "uncontrolled storage." Hospira said that there really isn't any data on how temperature fluctuations might degrade the treatment for bacterial infections and so can't say what the potential medical effects might be. It said there have not been any reports of adverse reactions.

Hospira did not say who or how the product was shipped. It did say that once it went to the customer, it was redistributed, so any provider, either human or veterinarian, should quarantine it and contact the company.

Temperature extremes were blamed for a recall by Bausch + Lomb in July. It recalled 880,000 tubes of Muro 128 eye ointment--plus 35,000 tubes of an unbranded sodium chloride product sold by Major Pharmaceuticals--after users complained of a "gritty, sandlike feeling" in the eye. Unable to find any source of the problem in its manufacturing process, it finally decided it was probably that extreme cold over the winter caused crystals to form in the product during shipping. Muro 128 is shipped in boxes warning distributors to keep the products from freezing, but with temperatures falling below -37°F in Minnesota, the company believed some of it must have been affected.

- here's the recall notice