Are you aware that there has been a Pfizer recall in the last couple of months? I wasn’t either…so, do you still trust the Pfizer vaccine?
The reason for this newfound skepticism would have to be due to the fact that Pfizer is now recalling one of their most popular products, one that has been on the mark for at least 14 years. That’s right. Their popular anti-smoking drug Chantix is now being taken off the shelves because it was recently found to contain high levels of cancer-causing agents called nitrosamines.
A notice posted on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website on a Thursday last September illustrates just how perilous this anti-smoking drug could be, because Pfizer is “voluntarily recalling all lots of Chantix 0.5mg and 1mg tablets to the patient level due to the presence of a nitrosamine, N-nitroso-varenicline (NDMA), at or above the FDA interim acceptable intake limit.”
Then, there was another update posted that following Friday where the FDA advised “patients taking the recalled varenicline to continue to continue taking their current medicine until their pharmacist provides a replacement or their doctor prescribes a different treatment.”
“The health benefits of stopping smoking outweigh the cancer risk from the nitrosamine impurity in varenicline,” it added.
Pfizer paused the distribution of Chantix as far back as July after they found elevated levels of nitrosamines in these pills. Thus, they announced that they were recalling 12 lots of this well-known anti-smoking drug.
Obviously, this drug giant is currently best known for their COVID-19 vaccine, but they insisted that there was no immediate risk to patients that were on this medicine and they said that this recall is only out of an abundance of caution.
Chantix was originally approved by the FDA in May 2006 as a prescription drug that will help adults over 18 quit smoking, and it is normally used for three to six months.
Pfizer also said that those who smoke cigarettes are 15 to 30 times more likely to develop lung cancer than those who do not.
These nitrosamines are usually naturally found as an organic compound in such foods as meat, dairy, and vegetables as noted by the FDA. Thus, everyone is exposed to these chemicals on some level.
However, if this compound is ingested in high amounts over a long period of time, these same nitrosamines could increase someone’s risk of developing cancer.
Pfizer did not divulge how the nitrosamines ended up in the Chantix. The source of the chemicals in this medication could have very easily came from the manufacturing process, the chemical structure, or even the conditions in which it was stored.
Pfizer first announced plans of this recall of the drug on June 24th after they discovered this likely carcinogen.
This leads us to COVID-19…
It was on June 16, 2020 that the first doses of COVID-19 were going to be offered to the elderly patients and other members of the vulnerable population. It was on December 18, 2020 that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine had received an emergency use authorization, and it was on August 23, 2021 that Pfizer’s CONIRNAATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA0 had been approved. They approved both of these vaccines under emergency use authorization.
This leads us to our next question…
What are the ingredients in this Pfizer vaccine?
Just how, pray tell, do we know that all of the ingredients used to create this COVID-19 vaccination are safe? Do you trust these pharmaceutical companies to make these vaccines safe? It definitely makes one nervous when they recall a popular drug that has been on the market for ten years. Do you think that there will be another Pfizer recall in the future?