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Fifteen-year-old Hannah remembers last March like it was yesterday. She was staying with a friend while her mother was out of town, and she began to come down with what she calls flu-like symptoms. “But I started to get even more sick then I already was,” she said. Rashes were forming on her skin and blisters in her mouth. Her friend’s mother was alarmed and took her to the hospital. Hannah was transferred to a room and underwent tests.
The FDA recently approved safety labeling revisions for darunavir tablets, also known as Prezista, to warn of adverse reactions including skin rashes and Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS), according to MedScape.
The serious adverse reaction to medication known as Stevens Johnson Syndrome, or SJS, is rare in the U.S. and most countries, occurring in about one person per million each year. However, doctors at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taipei, Taiwan, have seen as many as 40 to 50 cases of SJS in only a year. “Sometimes we see two or three in a single week,” says Ghung Wen-Hung, a researcher at Chang Gung, who was quoted in the Taipei Times.
Researchers like Wen-Hung are asking why.
The FDA has approved labeling for a drug to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), to include a warning of a rare but life-threatening reaction to medication known as toxic epidermal necrolysis, also known as TEN, according to MedScape Today. TEN is the most severe form of Stevens Johnson Syndrome, or SJS, a condition that affects the skin and mucus membranes. Rashes appear on the skin and blister over, causing the skin to peel off in sheets. More than 200 drugs are linked to SJS and TEN, the most common being ibuprofen, antibiotics and anti-seizure medicines. The reported incidence of SJS or TEN is about one case per million people per year.
Natural health products may be all the rage in alternative medicine, however many herbal remedies are linked to serious adverse reactions and potential health risks, according to the January 2009 edition of Health Canada’s Canadian Adverse Reaction Newsletter.
A stimulant-type drug recently was added to the list of medications that may cause Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS), a rare but life-threatening condition affecting the skin and mucus membranes, causing the skin to blister and peel away in sheets. MedPage Today reported that drug maker Cephalon has agreed to update the drug’s label to warn of the potential risk of SJS and other serious rashes and hypersensitivity reactions.
“Each day is a victory,” writes Lisa Oakes, sister of Kim Oakes, the Canadian animal control officer who took antibiotics for a cat bite last month and ended up in the hospital struggling for life. Kim had suffered a rare adverse reaction to a commonly prescribed antibiotic which resulted in toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), a severe form of Steven Johnson Syndrome (SJS). Since we first told you about Kim, the family has formed the Kim Oake Support Group on Facebook to provide updates on Kim’s struggle and to educate others about the debilitating condition usually caused by over-the-counter medications such as ibuprofen, and antibiotics.
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.
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.”
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.
