How to check if your medication has been recalled

By the Pillcounted team · Updated September 27, 2026

The FDA announces drug recalls almost every week, and most of them never make the news. They’re usually generics, recalled for problems like contamination, a wrong strength, an impurity, a failed quality test or a labeling mistake. Here’s how to check whether one affects the medicine in your cabinet.

1. Get the details from your bottle

A recall almost never covers every pill of a drug. It covers one manufacturer’s product, and often only certain lots. So you need more than the drug’s name:

• Drug name and strength, for example “lisinopril 10 mg”.
• The manufacturer. Most pharmacy labels list it, sometimes after “Mfr” or “Manufactured by”.
• The NDC number, if your label shows it. It’s a 10 or 11-digit code that identifies the exact product and package.
• The lot number and expiration date. These are printed on the manufacturer’s box or stock bottle. A pharmacy vial usually doesn’t show them.

2. Search the FDA’s lists

• FDA Recalls, Market Withdrawals and Safety Alerts. This page has the press releases companies publish. It covers the larger recalls, but not all of them.
• The FDA Enforcement Report. This is the complete weekly list, and it’s where most drug recalls show up. Search it by drug name, then compare the manufacturer, NDC and lot numbers with yours.

If a recall matches your drug and manufacturer but you can’t see the lot number, call your pharmacy. They can check which product they gave you and tell you whether yours is affected.

3. Read the class and the level

Every recall has a class that says how serious it is:

• Class I: the most serious. There’s a reasonable chance the product could cause serious harm or death.
• Class II: the product could cause temporary or reversible health problems, and serious harm is unlikely.
• Class III: unlikely to cause any harm, such as a labeling error.

A recall also has a level: how far down the supply chain it goes. Many recalls stop at the wholesale or pharmacy level. The pharmacy pulls the affected stock from its shelves, and patients who already have the medicine at home are told to keep taking it. A consumer-level recall is the kind where you’re asked to return or stop using the product. The recall notice says which one it is.

4. Don’t just stop taking it

For many medicines, stopping suddenly is riskier than the problem behind the recall. That’s true of blood pressure medicines, blood thinners, seizure medicines, antidepressants and others. Call your pharmacist first. In most cases they can swap your supply for the same drug from an unaffected lot or a different manufacturer.

If you think a medicine made you sick, tell your doctor and report it to the FDA through MedWatch. If someone has severe symptoms, call 911.