Somerset, NJOn the heels of recent studies associating Propecia (finasteride) with permanent Propecia sexual dysfunction, The US National Institutes of Health now recognizes post-finasteride syndrome (PFS) and has added the hair loss medication to its Genetics and Rare Diseases Information Center.
A study published in June 2015 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) determined that clinical trials on finasteride did not sufficiently report on Propecia side effects. Lead author Steven Belknap, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said,
“People who take or prescribe the drug assume it’s safe, but there is insufficient information to make that judgment.”
In a JAMA Dermatology interview online, Thomas Moore, Senior Scientist, Drug Safety and Policy, Institute for Safe Medication Practices, said that “We know now, more than 20 years after [finasteride] was first approved, that it is unequivocally true that the drug impairs male sexual function. And we can see this in all our standard references: the package insert, the major textbooks. So the facts are clear. The question is, why didn’t they show up more clearly in the clinical trials?”
And another question: what took the feds so long to recognize that Propecia sexual dysfunction is not as rare as the Propecia manufacturer would have men with baldness issues believe? The Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation PFS was founded in 2012. It contains reports from health professionals dating back to 2010 warning about permanent finasteride sexual dysfunction, including Propecia impotence.
Also published in June 2015 is a study in the Hormone Molecular Biology and Clinical Investigation, which found that “Finasteride...increases severity of erectile dysfunction and decreases testosterone levels in men with benign prostatic hyperplasia.” The lead researcher on this study, Abdulmaged M. Traish, professor of urology at Boston University School of Medicine, said that “Our findings suggest that finasteride therapy is associated with undesirable and, in some cases, detrimental sexual side effects and reduced quality of life.”
If you have taken Propecia, you might want to visit PFSFoundation.org - the US National Institutes of Health did. The foundation has so far funded three research initiatives regarding PFS and provides patient-recruitment information on active clinical studies, published research, research goals and media reports about PFS. And if you are suffering from PFS, you might want to contact an experienced Propecia attorney.
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