SAN ANTONIO -- Some news today may prompt you to check your medicine cabinet. There’s a huge recall of some popular over the counter medications.
At pharmacies and grocery stores all over South Texas, it was the same ritual today. Workers pulled four popular over the counter medications off the shelves after a sweeping recall.
Pharmaceutical giant Novartis is voluntarily yanking four pills: Excedrin, Bufferin, Gas-X and NoDoz.
“They are very popular,” said pharmacist Chris Alvarado, of Oakdell Pharmacy in San Antonio. “Excedrin for headaches, Gas-X for the stomach pains and NoDoz, which is popular for college students back in school to stay up and study.”
FDA officials today warned that some of the over the counter pills may have been packaged accidentally with powerful prescription painkillers made at the same facility.
No adverse health effects have been reported, but there have been complaints of broken and chipped pills and inconsistent packaging.
“Whenever something comes up, they right away alert people so that nothing will happen,” Alvarado explained. “Nothing has happened to this point. They caught that and good thing they sent out this voluntary recall.”
Included in the recall are bottles of Excedrin pills and NoDoz caplets with expiration dates of Dec. 20, 2014 and packages of Bufferin and Gas-X with expiration dates of Dec. 20, 2013.
If you have some of the medications involved in the recall, you can take them back where you bought them, contact the company for a refund or simply dispose of them.
