Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Adverse reactions to antibiotics send more than 140,000 Americans to the emergency room every year, according to a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and reported this month by Natural News.

Researchers centered their focus on antibiotics that were either ingested or injected rather than those that are applied to the skin. Data was pulled from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance project. The data showed that 19 percent of all emergency visits for adverse reactions to drugs were due to antibiotics.

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The mother of 11-year-old Sabrina Johnson was clearly agitated when last summer a jury found Johnson & Johnson and McNeil Laboratories not liable for her daughter’s strong adverse reaction to over-the-counter medicine that left her blind. To Sabrina’s mother Joan, who was quoted by ABC 7 Eyewitness News, the ruling sent a painful message: “It means that nobody cares that she has been blinded. It means that nobody cares that she was almost tortured to death. That’s got to matter to somebody. And no, you should not see children, or mothers watching their children die. You’ve got to look into some of these cases.”

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Children treated with lamotrigine for epilepsy who have a medical history of skin reactions to medication, use multiple drug therapies including the drug valproate, and cannot be adequately control their seizures with medication may be at greater risk for adverse skin reactions, according to Peer View Media Bar.

Lamotrigine is an anticonvulsant drug to treat partial seizures, primary and secondary tonic-clonic seizures in epilepsy and seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. It also is FDA-approved to treat bipolar disorder.

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Canadian Kim Oake was bitten by a feral cat while working at her job as an animal control officer for the city of St. John’s, Newfoundland. The bite began to swell and become infected, so she received a tetanus shot and a round of antibiotics.

Within days, everything changed. Kim started having severe headaches and then target-like blotches sprang up on her skin.

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Elizabeth Patton, 17, was a popular and athletic high school student in Brentwood, Tenn. She enjoyed playing basketball and helped lead her Ravenswood High School softball teammates to their first District 11-AAA regular season title last spring. But last week she met an untimely death by a most unexpected and rare autoimmune reaction to medication, according to News Channel 5.

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About 300 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) each year. It is a serious and life-threatening disorder often caused by an allergic reaction to prescription and over-the-counter medications, and it can affect people of all ages, including children. Those afflicted by the disease experience severe and often painful inflammation of the mucus membranes and, if left untreated, it can result in blindness, serious health problems, and death.

Julie McCawley became a victim of SJS when she was just 11 months old. Her mother, Jean McCawley, established the SJS Foundation in 1995 to provide the public and medical communities with information about the adverse allergic drug reactions and to serve as a support outlet for victims of SJS and their families. Today, Julie is 14 years old and as a result of SJS has lost vision in one of her eyes.

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A Chinese dermatologist believes he may have found a human protein that can lead to treatment for the severe and progressive skin disease, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS), according to the Taipei Times.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating the possibility that phenytoin and fosphenytoin sodium increase the risk of serious skin reactions, such as Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), according to FDA MedWatch. Phenytoin and fosphenytoin are used to control tonic-clonic (grand mal) and complex-partial seizures in epilepsy.

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New reports from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and cancer patients have put Revlimid, an oral medicine given to patients with multiple myeloma, on a list of medications that could possibly cause Stevens Johnson Syndrome when used by itself or mixed with other drugs. Stevens Johnson syndrome is a serious, potentially life-threatening skin disease that can start with flu-like symptoms and eventually cause a rash that spreads and blisters.

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The FDA’s post-market safety review has uncovered a link between lenalidomide (marketed as the drug Revlimid) and serious skin reactions, including Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN).

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