Tamiflu Investigated As Cause Of "Serious" Side Effects In Kids

Tamiflu Investigated As Cause Of "Serious" Side Effects In Kids

A Food and Drug Administration panel on Tuesday will review reports of abnormal behavior and other brain effects in more than 1,800 children who had taken the flu medicine Tamiflu since its approval in 1999, including 55 in the USA.

Twenty-two of the U.S. reports were considered "serious," with symptoms such as convulsions, delirium or delusions, says Terry Hurley, spokesman for drugmaker Roche Laboratories.

None of the U.S. cases resulted in death. But in Japan, Hurley says, five deaths have been reported in children under 16 as a result of neurological or psychiatric problems. "Four were fatal falls, and one was encephalitis in a patient with leukemia," he says.

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