Tamiflu Linked to Death of 2 Teens

Tamiflu linked to deaths of 2 teens


Saturday, November 12, 2005 at 17:44 JST
TOKYO — Two teenage boys who took the antiviral drug Tamiflu exhibited abnormal behavior that led to their deaths, with one jumping in front of an oncoming truck last year and the other falling from the ninth floor of a building earlier this year, health ministry and other sources said Saturday.

The drug in Japan carries a note listing impaired consciousness, abnormal behaviors, hallucination and other psychological and neurological symptoms as possible serious side effects. The ministry is considering making a fresh warning about them, following its decision to increase the stockpile of the drug amid growing fears about a possible pandemic of a new type of influenza as bird flu deaths rise across Asia.

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=355181

you die by behaving abnormally? I'll have to read up on that drug.

I don't remember it making me feel weird at all. I already had the flu, which impaired my consciousness all on its own. Did they take too much of it, I wonder? :shrug:

That is part of the problem with dealing with them.

Wouoldn't want Rummy to lose any money...

:kick:

Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer

Tuesday, November 15, 2005


An expensive, hard-to-find flu drug that nations are stockpiling against a possible influenza pandemic has been linked to 64 cases of psychological disorders and two teenage suicides in Japan, according to media reports there.

The drug is Tamiflu, also known as oseltamivir, which will become the world's first line of defense if the avian influenza now spreading among migrating birds from Asia to Eastern Europe ever mutates into a form that transmits readily to people.

In February 2004, according to an online edition of Japan Times, a 17-year-old high school boy under treatment with Tamiflu died after he jumped in front of a truck.

A year later, a 14-year-old junior high student, also taking the drug for influenza, jumped to his death from the ninth floor of his condominium.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/15/MNG29FO9K71.DTL

so were both of them incredibly happy teenagers before taking tamiflu . . . or are japanese teenagers just as screwed up as the amerikan model?:nopity: :nopity:

Japan can be a very stressful society if you won't or can't follow the approved routes to success.

and had never been happier to be alive! I had a wish-I-was-dead type flu and and bronchitis and the Tamiflu brought me out of it with a quickness I couldn't believe. (That and Zythromax)

Strange story. We'll have to watch for more like it. -JJ