Fact-check: Viral image claiming specific Ferric Carboxymaltose brands were declared NSQ by CDSCO is misleading
Fabricated post misuses Medical Dialogues logo to wrongly suggest brand-specific Not of Standard Quality action by CDSCO
Claim :
Several branded Ferric Carboxymaltose injections have been flagged in a drug alert report published by Medical DialoguesFact :
The claim is misleading. CDSCO did not declare any specific Ferric Carboxymaltose brands as NSQ, and Medical Dialogues did not publish or name any branded products
An image circulating widely on WhatsApp associates multiple Ferric Carboxymaltose brands with a drug alert report purportedly published by Medical Dialogues. The viral image circulating on social media claims that certain branded Ferric Carboxymaltose injections, namely Irozorb FCM (Macleods), Redulid FCM (Torrent), Imax FCM (Aristo), Fur FCM (Corona Remedies), and Vitcofol FCM (FDC), have been declared Not of Standard Quality (NSQ) by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO). The image carries the Medical Dialogues logo, displays product images and brand names, and presents the content as an official Medical Dialogues drug alert, thereby implying that brand-specific regulatory action has been taken against these products.
Below is a screenshot of the viral image.
The viral image has also been archived.
Fact Check:
The claim is misleading. Our investigation found that the list of medicines shown in the viral image has been selectively extracted from the CDSCO’s NSQ list. Medical Dialogues did not publish any brand names, product images, or logos in its report on the NSQ alert.
To verify the claim, we conducted a keyword search for NSQ alerts published by Medical Dialogues. Medical Dialogues is an India-based healthcare news platform that provides up-to-date information for healthcare professionals, students, and the public. Our search revealed a report published on 20 December 2025 on Central Drugs Standard Control Organization's (CDSCO) alert on 64 drug batches including metformin, paracetamol which was declared Not of Standard Quality in November. The report listed multiple drug samples that were declared NSQ following laboratory testing.
We found that this report was based on verified information sourced from the official CDSCO website, which publishes monthly drug alert notifications detailing batch-wise and sample-specific quality test results conducted by government-approved drug testing laboratories across India.
We also reviewed the list of medicines published by CDSCO for November and confirmed that neither the Medical Dialogues report nor the CDSCO notification included product logos, brand names, or images.
Further investigation revealed a clarification published by Medical Dialogues stating that the viral image was neither generated nor published by them. According to the clarification, the medicines shown in the viral image were selectively picked from the CDSCO NSQ list, and brand names and product images, none of which appeared in the official CDSCO list, were added and falsely attributed to Medical Dialogues.
Meghna A. Singhania, Chief Editor, Medical Dialogues, stated that the viral claim falsely using the Medical Dialogues logo was maliciously created and that the original report did not include brand names or product images.
The viral image claiming that Ferric Carboxymaltose injections of specific branded formulations have been declared Not of Standard Quality (NSQ) by the CDSCO is misleading. The CDSCO did not name any specific brands, nor did Medical Dialogues publish any product brand names or images in its report.
