The Food and Drug Administration is again expanding its recall of widely prescribed blood pressure drugs due to contamination with a cancer-linked chemical.
Monday's announcement targets an additional five lots of the generic drug losartan made by Torrent Pharmaceuticals Limited. The lots include losartan potassium tablets and losartan potassium/hydrochlorothiazide tablets.
The recalled lots contain trace amounts of N-methylnitrosobutyric acid, or NMBA, which has been linked to cancer.
This is the fifth time in 2019 that Torrent Pharmaceuticals has expanded its voluntary recall of losartan. The recall was first announced in January.
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Losartan is a generic angiotensin II receptor blocker, or ARB, and is used to treat high blood pressure, as well as heart failure. Over the last year, scores of batches of generic ARBs have been withdrawn from the market due to the presence of chemical contaminants called nitrosamines, which have been linked to an increased risk of certain kinds of cancer.
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