Big Pharma’s Little Secret: Drug Cross-Contamination Is Rampant
Machines that make one kind of pill often have traces of others—an issue so serious it can jeopardize Olympic dreams.
Freshly printed capsules at a plant in South Carolina.
Photographer: Ariana Lindquist/Bloomberg
Brady Ellison, a three-time U.S. Olympic medalist in archery, is going for gold in Tokyo, though he was almost disqualified. Pills he takes for a thyroid condition contained traces of a drug banned by anti-doping authorities. “I had absolutely no clue,” says Ellison, 32.
While few have access to Olympics substance testing, many would find themselves in a similar situation if they did. The trillion-dollar prescription-drug industry has a problem it doesn’t like to talk about and doesn’t fully understand. Manufacturers stamp out pills for one condition on the same machines they use to stamp out pills for a different one, and while they’re supposed to clean between production rounds, trace contamination is common and, some argue, inevitable.