A drug marketed to wildland firefighters exposed to smoke or PFAS shows no evidence of being effective, leading the International Association of Firefighters and the Food and Drug Administration to warn against its use.

The drug, called glutathione, is marketed to fire fighters to remove toxins, but the IAFF says there are no scientific studies showing it can reduce forever chemical levels or relieve occupational exposures.

“Because glutathione is not an FDA-approved drug, consumers should be cautious about product safety and claims that glutathione can treat or prevent diseases,” the IAFF said in a safety advisory.

The association referenced a nationwide recall of the drug made on Aug. 5 by Victory Medical Center Pharmacy in Austin, Texas, after pharmacists found elevated bacterial endotoxin levels in the drug.

“There is reasonable probability that injectable products with elevated endotoxin levels could cause significant medical events including fevers, hypotension, inflammatory reactions, anaphylactic shock and death,” the pharmacy said in a risk statement shared by the FDA. “To date, Victory Medical Center Pharmacy has received reports of adverse events including fever, chills, severe headache, nausea, vomiting, tachycardia, changes in blood pressure, body aches, and instances of injection site reactions.”

The IAFF also shared an FDA alert from 2019, warning compounders not to use the drug in injectable drugs due to patients who used the drugs experiencing adverse effects, also due to high levels of endotoxins. Patients reportedly experienced symptoms of varying degrees, including nausea, vomiting, lightheadedness, chills, body aches and sneezing, with one patient being hospitalized after experiencing low blood pressure and difficulty breathing.

“Accompanying the initial adverse event reports were endotoxin test results from a third-party laboratory, which FDA found concerning,” the FDA alert said. “All samples tested by an FDA laboratory were found to contain excessive bacterial endotoxin with some results as high as five times the appropriate limit, which the agency calculated based on the L-glutathione dose received by the patients.”