Covid has taken over the news cycle for the last two years and now we have Ukraine to worry about. All this means that harmful fluoroquinolones have taken a back seat. No matter that these medications are a life and death concern for anyone who takes prescription pills.

Let’s get attention focused on our issue. And that is to warn as many as possible, including the medical community and media, that Levaquin, Cipro and other fluoroquinolones are risky and can cause permanent injuries. As always, your feedback is welcome at perilouspills.com. We’d love to hear from you!  Marilyn Beardsley Heise, Editor

Are We Losing Growing Numbers to FQ-Related Suicide?

Experts say thousands more than thought may be dying by suicide after taking fluoroquinolones. Patients, unaware that suicide is one of the adverse effects, may fall into the dark hole of taking one’s life to relieve untold suffering. A drug can do this?  

Nationally-recognized medication safety expert Dr. Charles Bennett, petitioned the FDA in 2013 and again in 2019 for increased suicide warnings for Cipro and Levaquin without success. This worse-case life scenario is buried in fine print on prescription information pages. Unless you read all pages, you could unwittingly risk the ultimate life ending outcome. Just like these patients:

Dawn Mendoza’s husband told a tv news interviewer that his wife had never suffered from depression during their 27 years together, exercised regularly and fiercely loved her family. She had major anxiety attacks after taking just one dose of Cipro, suffered insomnia and began having suicidal thoughts. Ultimately, she lashed herself to a chaise lounge and rolled herself into the pool, her husband said, who found her at the bottom when he came home from work.

WRTV, Indianapolis, featured the heartbreaking story of Shea McCarthy’s untimely suicide following the taking of Levaquin. Deciding in his second year at Purdue to have surgery to correct a serious nasal congestion caused by a deviated septum, he was first prescribed a high dose of 750 mg Levaquin for 21 days as an infection preventative. After surgery, he was prescribed it for another 21 days. High anxiety and a host of other symptoms arose. He told doctors that he thought it was the drug that was messing with his mind.  Nevertheless, he was misdiagnosed with bipolar disease and endured a series of more drugs, which increased the anxiety and other symptoms. The ultimate outcome was his suicide. A bright young man whose life was destroyed by a drug and a medical community that ignored its warnings as well as listening to their patient.

Suicide should never be an approved “adverse effect” when taking a fluoroquinolone. . . or any other prescription drug. 

Did you know?

You can easily find and purchase books about fluoroquinolones and other medical issues in the Resources section at perilouspills.com.

Now it’s Being Called “The Great Patient Handoff”

That’s what healthcare has become, reports Kathleen A Hallinan, MD, MPH in MedPageToday. Medicine is so fragmented that there is now a great web of care including hospitalists, physicians, and mid-level caregivers. No single provider has total responsibility for your healthcare. Patients have become a conglomeration of body systems and parts to be fixed or addressed in fragmented fashion, reminiscent of an assembly line.  Hallinan points out that we no longer have a system that values attention to the person. The system prefers to value a patient database that can be mined both for profit and publication. This impacts the meds we are being prescribed.  Always ask what medicine you are being given before taking it and then inquire whether it is safe to take with your other meds, especially when you have a quinolone or other drug “allergy.”

What’s the difference between a fluoroquinolone and a quinolone? 

Quinolones were the original drugs. When fluoride was added to make them more powerful, they became fluoroquinolones. The latter, which have caused untold harm, are one of the most commonly prescribed medications in the world.

New Antibiotics in the Pipeline?

One would think that pharmaceutical companies would rise to the occasion and start creating new antibiotics. These meds are increasingly encountering patient resistance because of overuse, which means that they are no longer healing as they once were. It’s a growing problem across the planet called “antibiotic resistance.” 

The World Health Organization reports that none of 43 antibiotics currently being developed targets the most dangerous bacteria.  When the most powerful antibiotics fail and there aren’t replacements, patients fail, too.  For those of us who become seriously ill, it is likely that we may not recover if drugs no longer work. Antibiotic resistance killed 1 million people worldwide in 2019, according to The Lancet, more deaths than from HIV or malaria. 

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers is reintroducing legislation that supporters hope will jump-start development of antibiotics to combat drug-resistant bacteria, STAT reports.  It’s called the PASTEUR Act, which would provide payments of up to $3 billion to a drug developer in exchange for unlimited access to its new antibiotic. This model would enable pharmaceuticals to recover research and development costs and still earn a profit without having to promote and sell large quantities to survive financially. Consider sending letters of support to your legislators.

High Percent of Antibiotic Prescriptions Unnecessary or Inappropriate

In the US, at least 30% of antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary or inappropriate for patients in the ambulatory care network, according to an article in Open Forum Infectious Disease. For outpatients, nearly 40% of prescriptions for uncomplicated infections were for longer than recommended durations. Specific conditions most often associated with prescribing days or weeks longer than needed were sinusitis, uncomplicated UTIs, cellulitis and cutaneous abscesses. You can ask your doctor or pharmacist if a shorter antibiotic therapy would be appropriate. 

An Epidemic of ADRs

The general population as well as the medical community remain largely uninformed of the growing global epidemic of people experiencing severe ADRs (Adverse Drug Reactions).  “Shameful,” according to FQ Toxicity Research’s Facebook page, “when there have been warnings by the FDA for decades as well as hundreds of articles and resources available about the risks of using antibiotic FQs.” Enough said.

The European Medicines Agency Gets it Right

This esteemed regulatory organization, the EMA, has put strict restrictions on the use of fluoroquinolones.  EMA states that FQs should not be used to:

1. treat infections that aren’t severe

2. treat non-bacterial infections

3. prevent travelers’ diarrhea or recurring lower UTI’s

4. treat mild or moderate bacterial infections

5. treat patients that have had serious side effects with an FQ or quinolone.

In addition, EMA recommends special caution in treating the elderly, patients with kidney disease, and those who have a transplant because they are at higher risk of tendon injury.  Using a corticosteroid with a fluoroquinolone increases risk and should also be avoided.  If only the US had such restrictions.

US healthcare ranks last

According to an analysis by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, the US spends more of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care than other high-income countries yet ranks last in access to care, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes.  

Are the Risks of Taking Ciprofloxacin Being Heard?

The FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) shows an upward trend of adverse events reported between 2020 and 2021 for Cipro. These are events reported to the FDA by patients, doctors and Big Pharma. There were 3,587 cases in 2020 and 3,611 in 2021, a small increase. Keep in mind, however, that the FDA says that only 1% to 10% of all cases are reported to their site. This means that there may have been up to 358,700 serious adverse effects or deaths from Cipro in 2020 and 361,100 in 2021. Too many bad outcomes after years and years of FDA warnings. 

Until we chat again…Stay well. Stay safe.

Marilyn Beardsley Heise is a journalist who became interested in the risks of taking fluoroquinolones after suffering a severe adverse reaction to one of them. She used her investigative and writing skills to uncover heartbreaking stories from other victims and shocking revelations about Big Pharma, the FDA, hospitals, pharmacies and even physicians. Marilyn is the author of Perilous Pills, Protecting Yourself from Fluoroquinolone Injury.