August 30, 2012 | 12:23 PM |

BMS Recalls Units Of Chemotherapy Drug

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Personal Health, chemotherapy, drug recall

(A-4 Nieuws.nl/flickr)

The New York Times reports that Bristol-Myers Squibb is recalling an injectable chemotherapy drug used to treat several types of cancer:

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is recalling more than 31,000 units of a chemotherapy drug after discovering one vial was overfilled, putting patients at risk of an overdose.

The company’s action affects 10 lots of BiCNU, an injection of the drug carmustine, used to treat brain tumors, multiple myeloma, Hodgkin’s disease and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Bristol-Myers said taking too much of the drug could result in lung or kidney toxicity, though no adverse events have been reported yet.

For more information, the AP report says to call this number: 1-888-896-4564.

About the author

Blogger, CommonHealth Rachel Zimmerman worked as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal for 10 years, most recently covering health and medicine out of the paper’s Boston bureau. Rachel has also written for The New York Times, the (now-defunct) Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the alternative newspaper Willamette Week, in Portland, Ore., among other publications. Rachel co-wrote a book about birth, published by Bantam/Random House, and spent 2008 as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. Rachel lives in Cambridge with her husband and two daughters. View all posts by Rachel Zimmerman →