Pfizer birth control recall

Pfizer Inc is reaching out directly to women consumers to warn them about its U.S. recall of one million packets of birth control pills as concerns mounted that a manufacturing error could raise the risk of unplanned pregnancies.
 
Vanessa Cullins, vice president for external medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
"If pills come from those lots, she should consider those pills ineffective from the standpoint of preventing pregnancy," Cullins said. Pfizer manufactures and packages the birth control pill, but it is sold by Akrimax Pharmaceuticals.

The pills were distributed nationwide with no specific geographic concentration, Pfizer said.

Pfizer Inc. The problem affects 14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and 14 lots of generic Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol tablets. Oral birth control products use a series of 21 drug tablets and 7 inactive sugar tablets to regulate the menstrual period while providing contraception

Each packet contains 28 days’ worth of the prescription, with 21 pills containing the active ingredient that prevents pregnancy and seven placebo pills. The pills are normally color-coded to note the difference.

Women are supposed to take the pills in order and not mix the placebos with the active pills. The brand Lo/Ovral ranked 64th in U.S. birth control sales last year. The generic version, called norgestrel and ethinyl estradiol, ranked 30th, according to data firm IMS Health.
 
Company spokeswoman Kristen Neese said the drug maker learned about the problem when a customer called late last year to report finding a pink placebo tablet in the middle of her white birth control pills.