The ‘inactive' ingredients in your pills could harm you
Pill casings, or even the machinery they're made with, can have unexpected effects on patients. (Adam Nieścioruk/Unsplash /)Yelena Ionova is a postdoctoral fellow in quality of Medical Products, University of California, San Francisco. This story originally featured on The Conversation.There are many more ingredients in every pill you take than what is listed on the bottle label. These other ingredients, which are combined with the therapeutic one, are often sourced from around the world before landing in your medicine cabinet and are not always benign.Earlier this year, the US Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which requires manufacturers to report real or potential drug shortages to the FDA. Manufacturers are now required to report disruptions in the manufacturing of an active pharmaceutical ingredient—the part of the medicine that produces the intended therapeutic benefit.But the CARES Act doesn’t include excipients—the “inactive” ingredients that make up the bulk...