Oseltamivir - Adverse Effects

Adverse Effects

Common adverse drug reactions (ADRs) associated with oseltamivir therapy (occurring in over 1 percent of clinical trial participants) include: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and headache. Rare ADRs include: hepatitis and elevated liver enzymes, rash, allergic reactions including anaphylaxis, and Stevens–Johnson syndrome.

Various other ADRs have been reported in postmarketing surveillance, including: toxic epidermal necrolysis, cardiac arrhythmia, seizure, confusion, aggravation of diabetes, and haemorrhagic colitis.

There are concerns that oseltamivir may cause dangerous psychological, neuropsychiatric side effects including self-harm in some users. These dangerous side effects occur more commonly in children than in adults. This stems from cases in Japan, where the drug is most heavily prescribed, consuming 60 percent of the world's production. Concern has focused on teenagers, but problems have also been reported in children and adults.

In March 2007, Japan's Health Ministry warned that oseltamivir should not be given to those aged 10 to 19. The Ministry had previously decided, in May 2004, to change the literature accompanying oseltamivir to include neurological and psychological disorders as possible adverse effects, including impaired consciousness, abnormal behavior, and hallucinations.

According to Japan's Health Ministry, between 2004 and March 2007, fifteen people aged 10 to 19 have been injured or killed by jumps or falls from buildings after taking oseltamivir, and one 17-year-old died after he jumped in front of a truck. A renewed investigation of the Japanese data was completed in April 2007. It found that 128 patients had been reported to behave abnormally after taking oseltamivir since 2001. Forty-three of them were under 10 years old, 57 patients were aged 10 to 19, and 28 patients were aged 20 or over. Eight people, including five teens and three adults, had died from these actions.<

In October 2006, Shumpei Yokota, a professor of pediatrics at Yokohama City University, released the results of research involving around 2,800 children which found no difference in the behavior between those who took oseltamivir and those who did not. Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. (which produces oseltamivir in Japan) gave Yokota's department 10 million yen (about US$105,000) over five years.

To determine whether to lift the 2007 ban, a research team from the Japanese Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry studied 10,000 children under the age of 18 who had been diagnosed with influenza since 2006. The study was finalized in April 2009. Taking into account all degrees of abnormal behavior, including minor behavioral problems such as incoherent speech, the study found children who took oseltamivir were 54 percent more likely to exhibit abnormal behaviour than those who did not take the drug. When the team limited its analysis to children who had displayed serious abnormal behavior that led to injury or death, it found those who had taken oseltamivir were 25 percent more likely to behave unusually.

In November 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) amended the warning label to include the possible side effects of delirium, hallucinations, or other related behavior. This went further than the FDA's previous pronouncement, from a year before, that there was insufficient evidence to claim a causal link between oseltamivir use and the deaths of 12 Japanese children (only two were from neurological problems, although more have died since then). The change to a more cautionary stance was attributed to 103 new reports the FDA received of delirium, hallucinations and other unusual psychiatric behavior, mostly involving Japanese patients, received between August 29, 2005 and July 6, 2006. This was an increase from the 126 similar cases logged between the drug's approval in 1999 and August 2005.

Roche points out that oseltamivir has been used to treat over 50 million people since 1999, and states the influenza may itself cause psychological problems.

In March 2007, the European Medicines Agency said that the benefits of oseltamivir outweighed the costs, but that it would closely monitor reports from Japan.

In April 2007, South Korea issued a safety warning against prescribing oseltamivir to teenagers except in special cases.

A joint investigation by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and British TV Channel 4 published in the BMJ on December 8, 2009, concluded that in otherwise healthy adults they "have no confidence in claims that oseltamivir reduces the risk of complications and hospital admission in people with influenza" and believe it should not be used in routine control of seasonal influenza. There was also concern about underreporting of side effects of the drug. In contrast, according to the BMJ, Roche has stated in media briefings that oseltamivir reduced hospital admissions by 61 percent; secondary complications (including bronchitis, pneumonia, and sinusitis) by 67 percent in otherwise healthy individuals and lower respiratory tract infections requiring antibiotics by 55 percent.

BMJ editor Dr. Fiona Godlee, said "claims that oseltamivir reduces complications have been a key justification for promoting the drug's widespread use. Governments around the world have spent billions of pounds on a drug that the scientific community has found itself unable to judge."

There is evidence that oseltamivir has a modest effect in reducing some minor flu symptoms and contagiousness in otherwise healthy adults by about one day, but this is probably not the main reason most doctors are prescribing the drug for their patients. This less important benefit may well be offset by the risks of the drug.