• Question: Can you explain what happened with the recent scare in chemotherapy drugs?

    Asked by 473drud32 to Florence, Anne, Mark, Neil, Sinead on 6 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Mark Collins

      Mark Collins answered on 6 Nov 2015:

      There was a contamination in a vessel that may have led to some bacteria to get into some drug products. the reaction vessels used for producing these products are swabbed and tested constantly and huge amounts of checks performed to prevent this. There are even test mixtures passed through and tested before the vessels are used to prevent this. There are so many products produced across the world and never a problem! You should feel very safe as the checks performed and the analysis done to prevent this occurrence is extensive and I would be confident this will never happen again!

    • Photo: Sinead Balgobin

      Sinead Balgobin answered on 11 Nov 2015:

      As Mark says, it was a case of contamination. This is where something that isn’t supposed to be in the equipment for making the drugs was is there, and could be dangerous. It is very rare though, because scientists are very careful about keeping everything safe and clean, so that medicines only contain the things we want.

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