Health Canada issues recall for Alysena birth control pills

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      It’s a product recall many will find just as terrifying as a deadly e coli contamination.

      Health Canada has issued a statement describing a problem with a common type of birth control.

      The recall is for Alysena birth control packaged in a strip of 28 tablets. It was issued by Apotex, the manufacturer of the pill, on April 3. However, consumers only learned of the recall via Health Canada today (April 9). There is still no word about the recall anywhere on Apotex's website.

      According to Health Canada, Alysena 28 is designed to carry three rows of active contraception pills and one row of placebos. The recall was issued because some packages sold recently contain two rows of placebos.

      Products affected by the mistake are easily identifiable because the placebo tablets are white, whereas the active pills are pink. A strip of Alysena birth control targeted for recall will have two rows of white sugar pills.

      “Ingestion of only 14 tablets of active instead of intended 21 of oral contraceptive would most likely result in reduced efficacy for contraception and therefore possibility of unplanned pregnancy cannot be ruled out,” reads a letter sent from Apotex sent to distributors and obtained by the Toronto Star.

      The recall applies to British Columbia and every province in Canada with the exceptions of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

      Health Canada is advising women (or anybody sexually active) relying on Alysena for pregnancy prevention to use a non-hormonal method of contraception such as condoms. If you suspect you accidentally continued on the sugar pills for a second week, a pregnancy test is also a good idea.

      You can follow Travis Lupick on Twitter at twitter.com/tlupick.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      RUK

      Apr 11, 2013 at 12:25pm

      Vasectomy is cheap, easy, fast, has practically no health consequences, and puts the burden of birth control where it ought to be. Men, let us use this simple and nearly foolproof method, that does not put our partner at risk of having a baby. Women, demand better of your man. Hormones are a useful medicine at times, but does it make sense to you that you should be taking medicine when you aren't sick, just because your guy is a coward and/or won't wear a thingie on his thingie?