Last year on April 5th, 2004 Janssen Pharmaceutical Products announced that it was recalling several of their popular Duragesic pain control patches because of a major flaw that caused leakage of the active chemical fetanyl. One edge of the patch leaked fetanyl into the bloodstream, which is a chemical 100 times more potent than conventional morphine. Fetanyl is mostly used to combat the acute and debilitating pain that comes along with many forms of cancer. This recall affected almost 2.2 million patches and about 20% of those patches were still in active use.

This Duragesic transdermal patch provides a constant and exact dose of fetanyl directly onto the patient's skin by the process of gel infused with the chemical. This gel is then suspended between an outer and inner lining. However, due to defect in the manufacturing process, the seal that connects these two linings together is very prone to leaking. This can expose patients to a potentially fatal dose of the extremely powerful opiate.