The deadly secret behind this best-selling OTC allergy med

Like a lot of people, Cody Miller suffered from the itchy, watery eyes and runny nose caused by an allergy to ragweed.

So the teen’s doctor recommended something to help.

After taking the allergy drug he was prescribed for about a week, Cody started getting cramps in his legs. By the second week, he seemed a bit agitated. But no one made the connection.

After all, how could a simple drug for hay fever cause such problems?

But after a little over two weeks of taking the med, a drug called Singulair, the unthinkable happened.

Cody took his own life at just 15 years of age.

Killer allergies

Two months after Cody’s suicide Merck added “suicidality” to the drug’s warning label.

But that’s not enough for his mom, Kate.

Not enough to tell the whole story — in a way people will understand — about what Singulair can do. “They water them down, then the patient doesn’t put two and two together,” she said.

So two years ago, two members of New York’s congressional delegation, Sen. Kirsten Gillbrand, and Rep. William Owens, introduced the Cody Miller Initiative for Safer Prescriptions Act.

The bill would have required that the FDA “standardize” drug labels so that a drug’s risks would be stated in plain “consumer-friendly language.” And it would be updated and in the same format no matter where a prescription was filled.

But the bill never saw the light of day.

Sadly, Cody isn’t the only one to have taken his life while on Singulair. Over the 17 years the drug has been on the market, there have been reports of suicides and suicidal thoughts, anxiety, depression, nightmares, and uncontrollable rage — in both children and adults.

Fully aware of all that, the FDA recently convened another committee to see what could be done to make the drug “safer.”

But in case that gives you any comfort, consider this:

Some of the committee members were Googling Singulair side effects on their phones during the meeting.

When they turned off their wifi, the committee decided that perhaps the label should be reviewed once more, maybe even worded in “plain language” so all these “important side effects” will be better understood by consumers. And that sending out another letter to warn doctors might be a good idea, too.

But all those ideas are just “possibilities.” In the meantime doctors are still zipping off millions of prescriptions for the drug.

It’s even given to kids as young as six months old!

And most doctors still seem to be clueless about the side effects it can cause.

Take the doctor who was treating Jenna Markle’s son, Zachary.

Zachary became depressed while on Singulair, saying — at the age of eight — that he “wanted to die.” Still, Markle was never told the drug could be the cause.

Finally, his five-year “struggle with symptoms of mental illness” disappeared once he was taken off Singulair.

Markle started a group called Parents United for Pharmaceutical Safety and Accountability. And they’ve been contacted by hundreds of people, many the parents of small children who have suffered from similar “trauma” because of Singulair.

Most want to know if their child will suffer lasting damage or ever return to normal.

The good news is that it seems all these terrible reactions do go away once the drug is discontinued. One mother wrote to the group that the transformation in her son was “astounding” once he stopped taking Singulair.

“The hyperactivity and irrational temper tantrums are a distant memory,” she said.

The bad news is that since Singulair has lost its patent protection, it’s now available as a cheaper generic that’s being made by no fewer than 10 different drug companies.

So now you have to watch out for more than just the name Singulair, but also its generic name “montelukast sodium.”

We talk a lot about drugs that are too dangerous to take. But Singulair may be the most extreme example ever. If your doctor tries to give your child or grandchild a prescription for it or a generic, there is only one thing to do: Tear it up.

Sources:

“Montelukast’s underrecognized adverse drug events” March 2, 2015, Medscape, Medscape.com
“Popular asthma drug’s deadly side-effects revealed (once Merck stopped making money from it)” Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet, alternet.org