CDC Says Two More Medications Linked to Stevens Johnson Syndrome

Atlanta, GAEarlier this month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta announced that two additional medications have come under suspicion of triggering Stevens Johnson Syndrome, a devastating and potentially fatal skin condition akin to a serious burn.


Salient News, a weekly news magazine founded in 1938 and published by the Students' Association of the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, summarized the newly identified meds in relation to the potential for SJS.

Neptazane (methazolamide) is a medication to treat ocular conditions, while the MMRV vaccine is used to control measles-mumps-rubella and chicken pox in children. Both medications, the CDC warns, have the potential to cause Stevens Johnson Syndrome.

SJS often begins with flu-like symptoms and can lead to a painful rash that spreads over the body and causes the top layer of skin to blister and shed.

Some SJS patients have not survived. Manute Bol, the famed basketball player, died earlier this summer of complications from Stevens Johnson Syndrome after suffering an allergic reaction to an unidentified medication.

However, the CDC reports that some fatalities have occurred with Neptazane, due in large part to severe reactions to the sulfonamides in the drug (Neptazane methazolamide). Neptazane is contraindicated in cases where sodium and potassium serum levels are depressed, when kidney or liver disease is present, adrenal gland failure and hyperchloremic acidosis.

As for the MMRV vaccine, it has been shown to trigger febrile seizure (caused by a high fever) within five to ten days after vaccination. The CDC says that one in five children experience side effects, including Stevens Johnson Syndrome, following injection with the MMRV vaccine.