Lipitor recall shares pallets, Puerto Rico with Tylenol, Glumetza

Musty odors are at it again, this time driving a Pfizer recall of the cholesterol-fighting blockbuster Lipitor.

Musty odors are at it again, this time driving a Pfizer recall of the cholesterol-fighting blockbuster Lipitor. The drug giant recalled 191,000 of the 40-mg, 90-count bottles in August, following three complaints.

This may be a case of bad luck coming in threes: the three-complaint Pfizer recall marks the third musty-odor recall this year from what appears to be three Puerto Rican manufacturing sites.

The three complaints yield a malodorous-bottle frequency of less than one in a million, the company says. Three additional lots supplied by Pfizer to a generics-maker also were recalled. All of the recalled bottles originate from the same batch.

Pfizer says it is working with the bottle maker to determine the cause, which is unlikely harmful. But the October 6, 2010, FDA enforcement report cites chemical contamination and names 2, 4, 6 tribromoanisole as the culprit. That's the same transgressor fingered in the Depomed recall of diabetes drug Glumetza last June.