Microtia, Miscarriages, Depression and More: The High Cost of Clear Skin
Accutane has faced a great deal of controversy over its numerous, severe side effects. The most common of these are depression and birth defects, including microtia and mental retardation.
How much are you willing to risk to get rid of your acne? For people who feel that they have tried everything to no avail,
the answer is their health and quality of life. Accutane was developed as a drug of last resort. After all the over-the-counter products have failed and prescription creams are proven useless, victims of extreme cystic acne have the option of isotretinoin.
The drug is taken orally in pill form and works by reducing the size and activity of the sebaceous glands, the glands that produce oil, in the skin. It also kills bacteria deep within the skin tissue. The powerful drug has been proven highly effective but also highly dangerous.
The number one side effect reported by its users is depression, sometimes accompanied by suicidal tendencies. Other side effects include inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, weakened bones, vision loss and many more.
A blood test is administered periodically throughout treatment to ensure triglyceride levels have not risen too high. This could be a sign of liver damage — yet another side effect of the drug.
Because of the extremely high probability of birth defects, doctors will only prescribe the drug to women of child-bearing age if they are using highly effective form of birth control such as tubal litigation or hormonal birth control. Before being able to receive a prescription, the patients must also agree to use a secondary form of birth control and must take a pregnancy test every 30 days before receiving their refill prescriptions.
Why the extreme precautions? The chance of a fetus developing congenital birth defects, such as mental retardation, microtia or facial deformities, is 30 percent for mothers who are taking the drug. Microtia is a condition in which the external ear is not fully developed. Many people with microtia suffer from partial or complete deafness in the affected ear or ears. The physical appearance of the external ear can be corrected through plastic surgery, but the deafness may or may not be curable. Some Accutane babies are born with no ears at all.
While defects like microtia and underdeveloped jaws can subject a child to a lifetime of physical suffering and psychological damage, they are not the worst-case scenario. About 40 percent of Accutane pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriages before they even reach full term. Additionally, many of the babies that do make it to term suffer from sever defects of the heart, brain or other vital organs and do not survive much longer.
Because of the tidal wave of lawsuits directed at Hoffman-La Roche, the pharmaceutical company who originally developed and distributed the drug, Accutane was pulled off the U.S. market in 2009. The amount of money the company lost in legal settlements and bad publicity apparently outweighed the benefits of selling the drug. However, istretinoin is still available under several different names from several pharmaceutical companies. Hoffman-La Roche still offers the drug in other countries under the brand name Roaccutane.
