Commonly prescribed antibiotic can cause drug-induced insanity

FDA fails to act as antibiotic literally drives people crazy

Bradley Colas was a well-respected officer with the Virginia Beach police department.

That is, until he took an antibiotic his doctor prescribed for bronchitis, called clarithromycin.

By the last dose, Colas started claiming he was a “prophet,” and could even drive with his eyes closed, since he had “supernatural powers.” He finally crashed into a road sign and ended up shooting and stabbing several firemen who tried to assist him.

But Colas wasn’t alone in how he reacted to this drug.

In fact, since this med was approved by the FDA over two decades ago, dozens of journal articles have been published describing reactions similar to what the officer experienced.

Now, a recent study has found out just how big the risk might be of exhibiting bizarre behavior while on clarithromycin.

And it turns out to be much, much higher than was previously imagined.

Drug-induced insanity

Clarithromycin, which also goes by the brand names Biaxin and Prevpac, is prescribed for treating lots of conditions, including ulcers, pneumonia, sinus infections and even ear infections in kids!

And people of all ages have been suffering horrific psychiatric side effects when taking it for about as long as it has been on the market. Things like extreme anxiety, delusions, and hallucinations.

One patient who was prescribed the med for bronchitis said he saw sharks coming after him.

As you can imagine, some people end up in the hospital psych ward after taking it. And for most, thank goodness, these terrible symptoms go away once it’s discontinued.

So you would think that by now the FDA would have had enough time and evidence to step in and at least warn us.

Yeah, you would think.

But even many doctors and pharmacists remain unaware of the damage clarithromycin can do.

When Officer Colas first started suffering the effects of the drug, he called his doctor’s office and the pharmacy where he filled the Rx. And both a nurse and his pharmacist told him that that they had never heard of this kind of reaction.

And while the label for Biaxin lists side effects such as “abnormal behavior, confusional state, hallucination (and) manic behavior,” the information is buried way down on page 17 under the heading “postmarketing experience.”

Unbelievably, drugmaker AbbVie, which made billions off of Biaxin, has the gall to state that those symptoms may not even be caused by the drug!

Well, I wonder what they’ll say about this.

A new study that looked at well over 60,000 people who took clarithromycin discovered that those prescribed it are five times likelier to experience a “psychotic episode.” Also, patients on the med have a three-time greater danger of suffering from “cognitive impairment.”

But even that is probably a low-ball figure, as the researchers only checked for these episodes in people who ended up in the hospital. Can you imagine what they might find if they could count the true number of those affected?

The only good thing that we learned from this study is that your risk drops fast once you stop taking the drug. But since so few doctors know about it, some patients are even given antipsychotic meds as a treatment!

Although Officer Colas spent three months in jail, all charges against him were subsequently dropped. The experts who testified on his behalf (including the court-appointed psychiatrist) all agreed that he had a textbook case of “drug-induced psychosis.”

The clarithromycin story is another classic example of why we can’t count on the FDA to protect – or even warn us — and need to take matters into our own hands.

So please take a moment and forward this eAlert to those you care about.

Just think what Officer Colas could have been spared had he only known what this drug was capable of doing to him.

“Commonly used antibiotic can cause serious psychiatric side effects” Worst Pills Best Pills Newsletter, November, 2016, worstpills.org