Israeli victims of finasteride speak out: “I woke up in a nightmare”

Israel’s Haaretz News covered the issue of Post-Finasteride Syndrome this week in an excellent article. You can find the full article here.

The article shares the experiences of Uri, Erez and Gil, all PFS patients who experienced devastating long-term symptoms after taking finasteride for hair loss. Sadly Erez took his own life in 2016.

A thorough exploration of the symptoms patients experience, as well as the regulatory and safety issues surrounding the prescription of finasteride, we highly recommend those interested in the issue read the article.

Prof. Mayer Brezis, an internal medicine expert at the School of Public Health and the Faculty of Medicine at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, highlighted an important issue regarding the slow regulatory response to the clear and demonstrable harm being caused by finasteride.

““It always takes a long time for a consensus to form on a causal relationship between side effects and a medication, and opponents will crop up along the way – forces that usually have a connection to the industry. It is a gradual process, because at first people do not tend to make the association between a medication for baldness and the symptoms that are happening to them, like depression, anxiety or sexual dysfunction, and the doctors are also unaware of any connection. Slowly but surely, reports and research studies and awareness increase – and from there begins a snowball effect of exposing the intensity and extent of the symptoms.”

Prof. Brezis highlights the need for a new model to replace the outdated model for regulatory action - which can be easily manipulated by industry participants.

“For example, in proving a causal relationship between the medication and the symptoms when it comes to suicide or severe depression, it’s always possible to claim that there may not be any connection, that these are anecdotal accounts and not a controlled trial, enabling the company to buy time and to continue to sell within the period of the patent,” Prof. Brezis says.

PFS Network endorses this call for change.