FACT CHECK: No, 600,000 Ventolin Inhalers Have NOT Been Recalled

Lots of people, including local medical professionals, have been sharing this story.

It's not, as some people would call it, "fake news." AKA, it's not a fabricated story...kind of.

I saw several friends, including some doctors and medical pages, sharing this story within the last 24 hours. I'm an asthma sufferer myself (and a runner) with a Ventolin albuterol rescue inhaler, so of course, this caught my eye.

The article claims that over 600,000 inhalers with a March 2018 expiration date and certain serial numbers have been recalled and that people who have said inhalers should return them to their pharmacy. The original recall last year wasn’t even directed at patients.

In fact, there is no current recall. There WAS a recall of said number of the GlaxoSmithKline inhalers, but it was in April of 2017, and people were not required to return them to their pharmacies.

First of all, the story was shared via a site called todayviral.news. Does that REALLY sound trustworthy to you? Before I panicked and tore my inhaler apart looking for an expiration date, I Googled this story and quickly found out that it was old and mostly untrue.

Please, PLEASE fact check before you share something like this. Why on earth anybody would create a fake story to scare people just for clickbait is beyond me; it strikes a nerve with me particularly because I have walking pneumonia right now and my inhaler is my lifeline.

Again, there's a difference between "fake news" and a story that you just don't like. This is fake news, period.