Takes a Strong, Brave Man to File a Propecia Lawsuit

February 16th, 2011. By AbiK

Think about it. To step up to the plate and serve as lead plaintiff in a Propecia class action, a man’s got to bare his sole a bit. He’s got to come out of the proverbial closet on a few things. Well, two to be exact: male pattern baldness and sexual dysfunction. How many red-blooded men—in their prime mating years (i.e., their 20′s) would have the you-know-what’s to do that?

Enter Michael Miller of Vancouver. Maybe it’s the beer, cold weather, ‘BC bud’, or just the sheer sense of humor of our neighbors in the Great White North that brings a man—a young man—to lead a pack of over 80 Canadian men in charging Merck Frosst Canada with failing to adequately warn Canadians of the possible risks associated with taking Propecia. (By the way, Propecia is also known by another brand name, Proscar; both are the generic drug Finasteride.)

Miller is apparently quite open in sharing his tale of woe. Seems he was noticing some hair thinning going on (those of you who’ve been to your five or ten year high school reunion have no problem visualizing this). So Miller’s doctor put him on Proscar (Propecia). And about a month later, he experienced what’s possibly a twentysomething’s worst nightmare: he lost interest in sex.

According to the release put out by his law firm, Klein Lyons, Miller stated, “I lost my interest in sex and I felt anxious in social situations for no particular reason.” He also says that after stopping Proscar, the symptoms did not go away: “My sexual functioning has not recovered, I have seen specialists and have tried treatments but nothing has worked.”

All kdding about male prowess aside, it’s one thing to have adverse side effects from a drug and know that they are non-life-altering and circumstantial—that they’ll only be present during the time in which you’re actively taking the drug. It’s another thing to come to the realization that those side effects are not going to go away. It’s like that whole Zicam mess a while back when there were complaints about not just temporary loss of smell, but permanent loss. Michael Miller has apparently had that rude awakening moment in which he’s realized his libido just isn’t awakening any more. Period.

At the crux of the lawsuit is that Merck failed to warn (via proper labelling) about the risk for sexual side effects. And while it’s easy to joke about the drug causing erectile dysfunction (ED), the possible sexual side effects, as reported at nih.gov, go beyond those associated with sexual pleasure: inability to have or maintain an erection, decreased sexual desire, decreased volume of ejaculate (amount of semen), pain in the testicles. That third one about ‘ejaculate’ becomes increasingly important should a young man in his twenties (say, Michael Miller) want to ever have children sans medical intervention, aka fertility treatment. Suddenly when viewed through that lens, it’s no longer a laughable matter.

According to Merck’s website, Propecia sexual side effects occur in less than two percent of patients taking the drug—and that these side effects went away after the men stopped taking Propecia. Seemingly small numbers, but for men like Michael Miller and the 80+ others like him in Canada, for which the side effects did not just go away, either Merck’s number underestimates or misstates Propecia’s potential negative side effects, or at the very least aims to minimize them.

And p.s., there’s been a similar Propecia lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in NJ.