Several years ago, Emory University psychiatry and radiology professor Doug Bremner was immersed in a long-running controversy over Accutane and links to suicide. His research vexed the drugmaker, Roche, and he wound up as an expert witness in litigation. The experience and subsequent scandals about undisclosed side effects prompted him to write a book, “Before [...]

A New Jersey state court jury today awarded $10.6 million in compensation to a Utah woman who claims to have developed inflammatory bowel disease from taking Roche’s Accutane acne drug, according to Mealey’s.
The nine-member jury in the Atlantic County Superior Court ruled that the pill cause IBD, and Hoffman-La Roche failed to adequately warn the [...]

The folks at Mental Floss, the provocative web site that prompts you to laugh and tax your brain all at once, are daring us to match drugs with side effects. Perhaps they think everyone is paying attention to those fast-as-lightning disclaimers announced at the tail end of TV ads. In any event, here is the [...]

The acne med is being blamed for the brutal October 2006 murder of a Chicago dermatologist, David Cornbleet (pictured to the left). He prescribed the med to Hans Peterson, 29, who took Accutane just once or twice and later returned to the doctor’s office, allegedly killing him, according to media reports from Chicago.
An e-mail released [...]

The allegation that Accutane is somehow linked to suicidal thoughts and behavior has largely been a sideshow compared with the birth defect risks associated with the popular acne med, but it has lingered for nearly a decade. And this morning, US District Court Judge James Moody, who is overseeing multi-district litigation filed in Florida, ruled [...]

A New Jersey jury earlier today found the drugmaker failed to adequately warn an Alabama man of the risk of bowel disease associated with its acne med and awarded him $2.5 million in damages. The jury also found that the failure to warn was a major contributing reason he contracted the bowel disease and awarded [...]

Mark your calendars. On April 16, the first Accutane trial gets under way in Madison County, Illinois, and two weeks later, another begins in Atlantic City, NJ, before state court Judge Carol Higbee, who is overseeing most of the 400 Accutane lawsuits that have been filed.
These first two trials involve men who say the acne [...]

The Michigan congressman pushed an amendment to a bill, which passed the House last night, that would protect whistleblowing scientists involved in federally funded research and scientific meetings.
A long-standing critic of the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA, Stupak cited Vioxx and the agency’s battle with its own medical reviewer, David Graham, as an example of [...]