When generic drug manufacturers have issues like contamination, it is difficult for those who take the medications to know if they are affected. There is no standardized way to look up the data for where the pills in your bottle came from. ProPublica made an app that makes the lookup more straightforward.
Even though generic drugs make up 90% of prescriptions dispensed in the U.S., the FDA only provides piecemeal information about them. It’s scattered across different websites with no easy way to link drugs to their manufacturers, factory locations and regulatory track records. Over many months, our journalists connected that data. In one case, ProPublica had to sue the FDA in federal court and received a partial list of factory locations.
You can use this app to connect your own medication to the manufacturer that made it, to the specific factory where it was made and to any FDA inspection reports and serious compliance violations linked to that facility that ProPublica has obtained.
