Consumer Confidential: When your prescription drug is tainted with a chemical 'used to make rocket fuel'

Wayne Pearl, like millions of people with high blood pressure, takes the widely prescribed generic drug valsartan.

So it was with more than a little concern that he recently learned the Chinese supplier of the drug's active ingredient for years had been hiding the fact that its product was contaminated with a carcinogenic material once found in rocket fuel.

If that was the whole story, it would be sufficient to spark worry among all Americans about the safety and reliability of the pharmaceutical supply chain. But it gets even worse.

Pearl, 65, a Westlake Village resident, discovered that when the generic