Public release date: 14-Jun-2007
In this week’s BMJ, a senior doctor advises caution over the use of the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu).
His concern follows advice by the Japanese authorities in March 2007 against prescribing oseltamivir to adolescents after the separate suicides of two 14 year olds who jumped to their deaths while taking the drug.
Before 2007, there had already been more than 100 reports of neuropsychiatric events (including delirium, convulsions, and encephalitis) with oseltamivir in children, almost entirely from Japan, which has the highest usage of oseltamivir worldwide. But a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review concluded that these events were not clearly drug related.
Since last November, the FDA has required that doctors be warned that patients should be closely monitored for signs of abnormal behaviour throughout the treatment period and the European Medicine Evaluation Agency (EMEA) took similar steps in February.