The Story of Influenza Antivirals: Part 24. Tamiflu and neuropsychiatric adverse events

Why access to regulatory data rather than published articles is essential and why asking pharma if their products cause problems is like asking a fox to guard the henhouse.

A controversial issue with use of Tamiflu was whether it could cause neuropsychiatric adverse events. Prior to the 2009 influenza pandemic, most Tamiflu usage occurred in Japan. Reports of accidental deaths related to abnormal behaviour of Japanese teenagers after ingesting Tamiflu began sporadically occurring in 2004 and hit the mainstream news in many countries. This eventually led to the drug being banned in Japan for teenagers and FDA asking the manufacturer (Roche) to conduct safety studies on their product. This is akin to asking a fox to guard the henhouse. 

Neuropsychiatric adverse events include things like abnormal behaviour, psychosis, hallucinations, agitation, depression, anxiety, suicide ideation, and delirium but they also include more obscure events like alcoholic hangover. They do not include headaches which are classified as neurological adverse events.  

A Japanese physician and researcher, Dr Rokuro Hama, had been studying the neuropsychiatric effects of Tamiflu earl…