Posted February 15, 2010 on Carey & Danis
Worried that animal studies would link the antidepressant Paxil with birth defects, an executive with the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline, suggested burying the evidence, Bloomberg News reports.
Written in 1997, the memo urged scientists to withhold information about the birth defect risks the drug posed to pregnant women. A company scientist had noted that rat studies of the Paxil compound in 1980 showed that young rats often died after receiving low doses of the drug. Those deaths could suggest birth defects.
Three years later, a woman who was prescribed Paxil during her pregnancy wrote the company to inform them she aborted her fetus because of birth defects. An internal Glaxo report concluded that Paxil “almost certainly” cause the birth defects.
Incredibly, Glaxo still did not alert the FDA.
Paxil belongs to a group of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Although the entire class of drugs has come under fire for undisclosed side effects, Paxil is believed to be the most harmful of the SSRIs.
Paxil has been linked to persistent pulmonary hypertension in newborns, a rare, life-threatening condition that affects the baby’s heart and lungs.
