2023-10-07 21:00:00
Tamiflu, a flu treatment drug made by Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche. There are still concerns regarding hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, and abnormal behavior when children and adolescents take Tamiflu. Experts believe that it is not a side effect of the medicine but an effect of the high fever of the flu./News 1
A, an elementary school student, was surprised while talking with his friends. He said he said or did this or that yesterday, but he mightn’t remember it at all.
Ms. B, 5 years old, waved her hands in the air and repeated, “Mom, my hair is flying.” Unlike usual, her eyes were blurry.
Ms. C, a middle school student, was a child who had good friends and studied hard. But one morning, he was found crashed on the first floor. The window was open.
Group A, Ms. B, and Ms. C were all diagnosed with type A influenza infection and were taking the antiviral drug Tamiflu (ingredient name: oseltamivir).
The above story is a case that can be easily found by searching for ‘Tamiflu side effects’ on a portal.
The flu, which is prevalent only in the winter from December to March every year, is spreading throughout the year like never before due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts believe that there was an unusual flu outbreak last summer as herd immunity to the virus disappeared as almost everyone wore masks and kept their distance.
There is a definite cure for the flu. It is ‘Tamiflu’. Tamiflu is so effective that flu symptoms subside following taking it for regarding 5 days. However, the story that children and adolescents taking it can cause hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, abnormal behavior, and even suicide has been an issue for decades.
However, domestic and international academic circles believe that there is no significant relationship between Tamiflu and these symptoms. Rather, the explanation is that it is not a side effect of the drug, but rather an effect of the influenza virus that causes the flu.
◇Even now, “observe carefully” in outpatient clinics… no causal relationship has been scientifically proven.
How Tamiflu works. Oseltamivir, the main ingredient in Tamiflu, prevents baby viruses (influenza viruses) that multiply in human cells from escaping./University of Georgia, Viruses (2023)
The influenza virus infects the cells of a host, such as a human or bird, and then uses the cell’s organelles to multiply baby viruses. Baby viruses born inside a cell escape from the host cell and infect a new host through coughing, sneezing, or runny nose. Tamiflu treats the flu by preventing young viruses from escaping from host cells.
However, in 2007, news broke that a teenager fell to his death following taking Tamiflu for the first time in Japan. Afterwards, news was reported in Korea that teenagers who took this drug complained of hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, or fell to their deaths. Afterwards, several similar news were reported in 2015, 2016, and 2018.
For this reason, even in 2023, when Tamiflu is prescribed at a hospital, both doctors and pharmacists recommend, “Be sure to keep an eye on children and adolescents as they may exhibit abnormal behavior,” or “Do not leave them alone for long periods of time.”
However, the academic world’s position is that there is no scientific causal relationship between Tamiflu and these symptoms.
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which once banned the prescription of Tamiflu for teenagers, formed an expert team in May 2018 to investigate Tamiflu and abnormal behavior, but disbanded the ban, saying there was no clear causal relationship.
In March of that year, researchers at the University of Illinois in the U.S. investigated 251 cases of suicide among children and adolescents aged 1 to 18 from 2009 to 2013 with regard to 251 people who had taken Tamiflu, but found that there was no significant causal relationship, published in the international academic journal ‘Annals of Family Medicine’. ‘ was announced.
Similar research results were found in Korea. A joint research team from the Department of Infectious Diseases at Samsung Seoul Hospital, the Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Convergence Center at Gachon University Gil Hospital, and the Department of Neurology investigated 3,352,015 people infected with the flu between 2009 and 2017 and found that there was no clear causal relationship between Tamiflu and abnormal behavior. The researchers analyzed that the rate of suicide attempts by self-harm in the group that was prescribed Tamiflu (37.8%) was 0.86%, but in the group that was not prescribed Tamiflu (62.2%), the rate was slightly higher at 1.16%. This means that taking Tamiflu does not increase the risk of abnormal behavior such as self-harm or suicide. The results of this study were published in the international journal ‘Clinical Infectious Diseases’ in December 2020.
◇ It is highly likely that the culprit is not Tamiflu but an influenza virus.
Related information in the Tamiflu dosage instructions./Reporter Lee Jeong-ah
Experts believe that among those who took Tamiflu, only a small number of people engage in abnormal behavior, especially attempts to commit suicide by harming themselves, and that the cause is not the Tamiflu itself, but the effects of the flu.
Kim Woo-joo, a professor of infectious diseases at Korea University Guro Hospital, said, “In particular, when teenagers catch the flu, they suffer more high fever than adults,” and added, “There is a possibility that they experience hallucinations and auditory hallucinations while having a high fever.”
Shin Dong-hoon, a professor of neurology at Gachon University Gil Hospital who participated in the study on the causal relationship between Tamiflu and abnormal behavior, said, “The typical side effects of Tamiflu are vomiting, nausea, and headaches, which are symptoms that can always appear even when taking other antiviral drugs.” He added, “There are cases of youth suicide.” He explained, “It is highly likely that it spread as sensational news because I happened to be taking Tamiflu when this happened.” He said, “Tamiflu is a drug designed to perfectly fit the three-dimensional structure (with the enzyme that the virus uses to exit the cell), so its function in treating the flu is close to perfect.” “If you deliberately do not take Tamiflu following getting sick, you are actually making the disease worse,” he pointed out.
Professor Kim Woo-joo said, “It has already been more than 20 years since Tamiflu was used around the world, and countless people have taken it,” and added, “If a clear causal relationship was discovered that it causes abnormal behavior or thoughts of self-injury and suicide, it would have already been withdrawn from the U.S. and Europe.” said.
reference material
Annals of Family Medicine(2018) DOI: 10.1370/afm.2183
Clinical Infectious Diseases(2020) DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciaa055
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