Chloramphenicol: uses, dosing, side effects & brands
Chloramphenicol is a medicine sold in the U.S. under 2 brand and generic names. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.
Key facts
- Available as
- Drops · Injectable · Topical
- Sold as
- 2 products — Chloroptic and Chloromycetin
- Prescription?
- Prescription only
- Generic available?
- Not in our catalog
Every chloramphenicol product we track (2)
Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.
| # | Drug | Rating | Type | Form | Generic? | Pharmacy pays | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 72/100 | Prescription | Drops | No data | — | View → | |
| 2 | Not yet rated | Prescription | Injectable | No data | — | View → |
Combination products containing chloramphenicol
A combination is a different drug — different dosing, different warnings. It is listed here so you can find it, not so you can substitute it.
Chloramphenicol and breastfeeding
From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.
Full LactMed record for chloramphenicol: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider insteadAdverse reactions such as vomiting, excessive intestinal gas and falling asleep at the breast have been reported in breastfed infants whose mothers were taking oral chloramphenicol. Milk concentrations are not sufficient to induce "gray baby" syndrome, but since chloramphenicol-induced aplastic anemia is not dose-related, this might occur, but has not been reported. An alternate drug is preferred to chloramphenicol during breastfeeding, especially while nursing a newborn or preterm infant. If the mother must receive chloramphenicol during nursing, monitor the infant for gastrointestinal disturbances and adequacy of nursing. Monitoring of the infant's complete blood count and differential is advisable. In some cases, discontinuation of breastfeeding might be preferred.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, record revised March 17, 2021. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.
What people report to the FDA about chloramphenicol
The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 2,551 reports naming chloramphenicol, and the FDA flagged 96% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:
- vomiting328 reports
- nausea296 reports
- dyspnoea226 reports
- hyponatraemia212 reports
- sepsis207 reports
- abdominal pain202 reports
- general physical health deterioration197 reports
- multiple organ dysfunction syndrome195 reports
Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean chloramphenicol caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.
Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 25, 2026.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
Can you take chloramphenicol with other medicines?
It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run chloramphenicol against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.
What brand names is chloramphenicol sold under?
We track 2 chloramphenicol-containing products in the U.S.: Chloroptic and Chloromycetin. They are the same active ingredient; they differ in form, manufacturer, price and FDA recall record.
What forms does chloramphenicol come in?
Across the brands we track, chloramphenicol is currently marketed as drops, injectable and topical, per the FDA's National Drug Code Directory. Each form is dosed differently — follow the label for the exact product you were prescribed.
Is there a generic chloramphenicol?
We do not currently list a generic-labelled chloramphenicol product. That does not always mean none exists — it means none appears under a generic name in the FDA data we track. Ask your pharmacist.
Cite this page
- APA
- pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Chloramphenicol: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/chloramphenicol
- MLA
- “Chloramphenicol: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/chloramphenicol.
We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.
Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.
Read the full FDA label for chloramphenicol on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.