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Accutane Side Effects

According to an article in USA Today, 66 suicides and 1,373 psychiatric cases among Accutane users were reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as of December 2000. In 1998, the FDA recommended that physicians prescribing Accutane monitor their patients for signs of depression. Shortly after, Accutane's manufacturer, Hoffman-Laroche, alerted doctors that the drug "may cause depression, psychosis, and, rarely, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and suicide."

Despite the warnings, Accutane's dangerous potential did not become apparent until a congressman's son committed suicide; Representative Bart Stupak believes his 17-year-old son's suicide could be related to Accutane use. Bart Stupak Jr., a popular student and football player, shot himself in the head with his father's gun after a prom party. Estimating the number of suicide cases that could be connected to Accutane, Rep. Stupak said, "We are up over 100 reports. That's just what is coming in to us. So, I believe there are probably over a thousand cases. The average time is 88 days from when you start taking it, and the effect is very sudden; you are doing strange things at 3 a.m., and you are dead at 7 a.m."

The warning issued on Accutane's packaging originally declared the potential correlation between the drug and depression in 1986. In spite of the fact that French government ordered Hoff-LaRoche to mention the suicide risk on the European version of Accutane's accompanying documents in March 1997, the FDA didn't enforce this rule in the US until 1999.

By 2001, the FDA announced that new warning labels and consent forms would become a fixture with Accutane prescriptions. The forms encouraged patients to look for signs of depression like feelings of sorrow, irritability, excessive tiredness, or loss of appetite.

• Brain damage
• Organ failure
• Stroke
• Vascular thrombotic disease
• Heart palpitations
• Tachycardia
• Negative effect on blood sugar levels

For more information regarding Accutane, read the frequently asked questions.