The British Medicines and Medical Devices Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued a warning on pills for high blood pressure.
These drugs were produced by the British company Actavis (now it is called Accord) and contain the drugs Hydrochlorothiazide and Irbesartan.
According to the warning, these pills can cause cancer because they contain "toxic chemicals used in rocket fuel."
In total, a warning was issued for 4 types of drugs containing hydrochlorothiazide and Irbesartan. All are used to treat hypertension - high blood pressure.
Details on how large the dose of hazardous substances are in these drugs are not given. However, it is reported that similar has been identified in other tablets around the world and have already been removed from the market.
It is also reported that the cancer-provoking substance found in the tablets is N-nitrosodiethylamine, which was listed as carcinogens and mutagens in the 90s.
It is also found in tobacco smoke and is an integral part of it.
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While preventing possible panic from patients, the MHRA convinces people that in reality there has not yet been found "any real evidence" that someone got cancer from the use of the above drugs.
However, in the UK alone, in 2017, about 2 million prescriptions were issued for medicines containing Hydrochlorothiazide and Irbesartan, including 165,000 prescriptions for the Irbesartan Hydrochlorothiazide tablet, which was listed.
Earlier in the US, they also found traces of N-nitrosodiethylamine in irbesartan from Aurobindo Pharma Limited. In October 2018, 22 batches of drugs were recalled from the market.
In the summer of 2018, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) discovered the same carcinogen N-nitrosodiethylamine in the popular drug Valsartan for the treatment of hypertension, made in China.
The scandal thundered all over the world. After that, in Russia, Roszdravnadzor withdrew from circulation 561 series of drugs with a Chinese substance.