, '' said Deborah Autor , director of the office of compliance within the FDA 's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research . `` We will continue to take aggressive action against those firms that do not have the required FDA approval for their drugs . Today 's warning letters are another demonstration of our commitment to remove illegal , unproved drugs from the market . '' Although the FDA does not know whether these drugs are unsafe , it has not approved them so can not certify that the products are 100 percent safe and effective . `` Consumers have a right to expect that their drugs meet the FDA 's safety and effectiveness standards , '' said Dr. Janet Woodcock , director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research . `` Doctors and patients are often unaware that not all drugs on the market are backed by FDA approval . It is a high priority for the FDA to remove these products from the market because they may be unsafe , ineffective , inappropriately labeled , or of poor quality . '' The FDA believes Americans have access to plenty of legal narcotics for pain relief and
WHITE OAK , Maryland -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Seeking to remove unapproved drugs from the marketplace , the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday ordered nine companies to stop manufacturing narcotics whose therapeutic claims have not been proved . The FDA ordered nine companies to stop selling unapproved drugs marketed for pain relief . The FDA 's warning letters notified the companies they may be subject to legal action if they do not stop manufacturing and distributing `` prescription unapproved products '' that include high-concentrate morphine sulfate oral solutions and immediate-release tablets containing morphine sulfate , hydromorphone or oxycodone . This action does not include oxycodone capsules . All of these drugs are used for pain relief and are forms of previously approved medications . The agency says this is not a recall , but is instead a warning to manufacturers . The companies have 60 days to pull these pain-relief drugs from the market . Distributors have 90 days to stop shipping them . If these drugs are not off the market by those deadlines , a company could face seizure of the narcotics and legal action . `` We estimate there are several hundred unapproved drugs out there