Came across these law suits against Merck for the side effects of Finasteride that so many people online love to downplay or say that only a minority/small amount are affected:
If Merck can cover up stuff like this, I'm highly sure they wouldn't hesitate to cover up any other negative results from studies, inflate positive results and thereby downplay the % of users experiencing negative side effects.
Lawsuits claim baldness drug Propecia causes sex problems, depression. The judge sealed evidence – viewed by Reuters – suggesting the maker downplayed risks. A widow wants the truth out.
www.reuters.com
1100 law suits!!! And this was only from America!! I mean a law suit is a lot of effort, 95% of people who have issues with a drug wouldn't take the effort to resort to going through a whole law suit. Maybe at best a small percentage will maybe post their negative experiences online or on hair loss forums. So imagine how many other people would actually be experiencing side effects from Finasteride.
let people know the truth!!!!!
"More than 1,100 Propecia-related lawsuits filed across the U.S. against Merck were consolidated before Judge Cogan in so-called multidistrict litigation (MDL). Merck agreed to settle most of them last year for $4.3 million, to be divided among the plaintiffs. Prior to the settlement, plaintiffs’ lawyers cited internal company communications to allege that in revisions to the drug’s original label, Merck understated the number of men who experienced sexual symptoms in clinical trials, and how long those symptoms lasted. Merck settled before responding to the allegation in court."
Reuters asked a U.S. judge on Thursday to unseal documents filed in court regarding potential risks associated with Propecia, Merck & Co's popular baldness drug.
www.reuters.com
So much for all that bullshit about only a" minority" get side effects on Finasteride lol.
Thank you for posting this. As a lawyer, I am more than familiar with the putrid issues in our legal system. It is corrupt from top to bottom. I will go through this carefully. I am puzzled by the lack of references to dutasteride, however. I also note, that as is common when treating the subject of medications and suicide, often in reference to meds like Effexor and Wellbutrin, the article mentions nothing about all of the suicides possibly prevented by the use of medications. Look at Tressless and look at the abject pain and yes, suicidal articulations on that site and tell me what your answer is. It might be argued that finasteride not only saved the lives of people like me, but that it also made my life much more productive and made my life something that I could cope with, thereby saving me from having to deal with the issue of suicide.
There's no way to do cost-benefit analysis with what is alleged here. Furthermore, the term sexual dysfunction in itself is vague. All men know that penetrative sex can be achieved with a variety of erectile states. Indeed, drunkenness for many is part of the sexual experience. Between a skin bald head and a life-time of slightly less firm erections with a full or semi-full head of hair, many males would take the full head of hair every time. What are the incidences of suicide among completely bald 20 year old-men who lose their looks completely in as little as two years? What's it like to go from prom king to goofy bald incel in this scant period of time? I know the powerlessness of watching hair fall and not having a single thing to be done about it. I started balding in 1983 when there were all but literaly ZERO treatments for hair loss for males.
And what does this say for saw palmetto? How dangerous is unbridled use of any therapeutic substance that interferes with the full processing of testosterone? We see this also in the male to female transgender community where people think ingesting huge amounts of phytochemicals is somehow safe when there has been little or no testing. Mostly we assume it is just spent urine down the toilet but nobody knows for sure.
These are also prostate cancer meds and meds used daily by FtM's and MtF's. Should they be banned for these purposes? And if not, then what about off-label use? Off-label use is fully legal in U.S. law and presumably in most western nations. Off-label use is how both minoxidil and finasteride began in the baldness community. I eagerly wait for Reuters to write an in-depth article about the lack of baldness research in general and about why baldness research is always derivative of cancer and birth control research and also pure chance as in the case of minoxidil.
It is far from uncommon for balding 18 year-olds to lose all sexual function without taking any meds at all? Confidence plunges and anxiety goes through the roof and sexual performance even solo, can be completely lost. One thing that I try to raise again and again on threads related to the use of hormonal meds to combat baldness is that baldness is first of all in young men, primarily a problem of caucasian and Semitic men and appears to have a nucleus around the Mediterranean Sea that cascades outwards. The farther the distance,
ceteris paribus the less baldness encountered. Native Americans, Siberians, Asians and black Africans suffer from far, far less baldness than do whites, Arabs and Jews. Next, I try to inform others seeking a cure for baldness or even a palliative process that hormonal processes are intensely complex and that it isn't just an issue of finding the right fertilizer. Stopping baldness can also stop beard growth entirely. Most of us care little comparatively about beards but the point is that this is a fine tuned process related to puberty and reproduction and it is not something easily altered. There are many genes associated with hair loss and rewriting one, might cause worse problems or different problems that can't be easily addressed.
There is no excuse for any corporation for hiding pertinent information obviously. Maybe articles like this can be the impetus for taking the issue of premature baldness--and note, this fellow was 40, well within the age group where the stigma of hair loss should be fading since even females begin struggling with hair in their menopausal years. Because the vast majority of us suffer from no sides from reductase inhibitors except increased sexual performance, yes, it is easy for people like me to disbelieve the strength of such sides in others. We need better information about the placebo effects of all medications so that we can evaluate them better. But if this med were yanked from the market, I am willing to bet that suicides increase substantially, not fall. I am wiling to be that many men struggle more to find partners and to find success in life instead of there being this happy community of the bald brotherhood embraced by young females the world over. So, yes, if Merck has sinned, then so be it. Like the opiod scandals, no one thinks about the veterans full of constant pain now unable to get sufficient meds who now commit suicide to avoid the pain. The focus is only on the other aspect.
Baldness in many ways, has been the most notable aspect of my post-pubertal experience and many of you would smack me if you saw pictures of me up into my late 40's because it isn't even visible particular in my pics, certainly from the front but I saw it and my wife say it and my children saw it in spite of my never having any slick bald spots. My father continues at 82 to have a full head of hair like Ronald Reagan's. I heard the comments at 22, supposed to be funny about him looking like the son and me looking like the father. How many in that suicide might contemplate hopelessness? The other thing overlooked here is the aspect that impressed me so much about many of the guys on Tressless. What did they do to try to fix this? They went out and figured out how to titrate dosages all the way down to tiny, tiny amounts and often doses taken days if not weeks apart. That's the way to deal with this situation, more so than anger. People need to know the relevant risks, of course. But the anti-finasteride cohort is in my opinion far worse than those who minimize possible risks because these folks actively try to demean others who seek perhaps to prevent their own spiral downward into depression and hopelessness by exaggerating their own experiences. "Tried finasteride last night and my nuts shrank to raisins" again and again and again, I see variations of this phrase on Tressless.
Ultimately, articles like this hopefully will raise consciousness that baldness is a serious health concern, not just a cosmetic concern as this article tries to claim. It goes far past that.