We left town early, and so we at least saved our own weekend from the gigantic )#($%ing freakout that is the massive recall of liquid infant's and children's Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec, and Benadryl products issued Saturday. Wait, Saturday? What the hell kind of government agency issues a sweeping recall of some of the most popular children's medicines on a Saturday?
And what kind of government agency doesn't even list the recalled medicines on their recall announcement page, but instead, just puts a link to the McNeil website? And which agency announces its recalls, not to the general public, but to the press? As press releases?
That would be the FDA. This is not the first time the FDA has had ineffective, hard-to-follow recall announcements; I hope someone's trying to fix that place.
Consumer Reports says the recall covers basically "all unexpired lots," that it's related either to improper overdoses of active ingredients or possible contamination. Which, coupled with a similarly massive recall a few months ago, makes it sound like McNeil's brands are the names you can trust...to have totally screwed up manufacturing and quality control processes.
FDA News Release: FDA provides consumer advice following recall of products for infants and children [fda.gov]
[mcneilproductrecall.com]
Recall: All lots of children's liquid Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl, Zyrtec [consumerreports via @dadcentric]
the announcement was actually made late in the day on Friday... and I just read on NPR that the FDA found *bacteria* in the lots they inspected. Second time's the charm, huh?