Last spring, another Propecia lawsuit was filed in federal court by a man from Utah who took the hair-loss medication. In his lawsuit, the man claims he began experiencing cognitive impairment, depression and sexual dysfunction after taking the drug.
The Propecia (finasteride) lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey under Judge Anne E. Thompson on April 10th, 2013. However, the lawsuit was later moved to the multidistrict litigation (MDL) currently underway in the US District Court of the Eastern District of New York. An MDL still allows each individual plaintiff to have a trial by jury, but it also enables resources to be shared by claimants who have taken Propecia and experienced similar side effects by consolidating the pretrial proceeding.
Men Taking Propecia Experienced Lasting Cognitive Deficits and Sexual Dysfunction
According to this latest Propecia claim, the plaintiff began taking the prescription medication to treat his male pattern baldness in 2005 at age 38. Up until that point, the plaintiff had never been suffered from or been diagnosed with cognitive impairment, depression, or sexual dysfunction. After taking Propecia, he was later diagnosed with all three and immediately stopped taking the drug thereafter. However, all of the adverse side effects persisted. His lawsuit also states that using Propecia resulted in a lower quality of life and an increase in mental anguish.
Other Propecia lawsuits have similar claims stating that men who took the drug developed similar side effects that remained in place even after they stopped using the medication. Additional side effects that have been reported by some patients include suicidal thoughts, psychological trauma, anxiety, loss of memory, loss of concentration and insomnia.
The Propecia lawsuit names Merck & Co. as the defendant and blames the company for making a drug that was defective in design and unreasonably dangerous. It also charges Merck with having previous knowledge of the medication’s potentially dangerous side effects, but failing to warn doctors and patients. The lawsuit further alleges that Merck did not properly label the hair loss drug to include adequate warnings.
FDA Discovers Lasting Side Effects, Orders Label Change
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received over 400 reports of Propecia causing notable sexual dysfunction in men who take it since it was first introduced to the market. Furthermore, 60 of those patients reported they continued to experience persistent sexual side effects after they stopped taking Propecia. In 2011, the FDA ordered Merck to update Propecia’s warning label to reflect the complaints of the sexual side effects that were reported. Later that year, in June of 2011, the FDA advised Merck to update the Propecia warning label to read:
“Erectile dysfunction . . . continued in patients after discontinuation of treatment.”
It had previously been stated that erectile dysfunction was a potential side effect of using Propecia, but that the effects would end once patients stopped taking the medication. After reviewing more Propecia side effect reports, as well as relevant studies concerning side effects in patients who took Propecia from 1998 to 2011, the FDA concluded that sexual dysfunction in patients who were prescribed Propecia could last as long as 40 months after they stopped taking the drug.
