Teen On Lamictal For Epilepsy Commits Suicide

This is a very sad story from South Carolina. It speaks for itself.

"Back in February, Zach Langan, a 15-year-old scholar at Battery Creek High School chose to end his life by stepping in front of a cement truck traveling a busy highway. He left a note behind.

"Zach was four months into taking Lamictal, a drug prescribed to treat his seizures for Epilepsy. His dosage increased about a week before his death. Ironically, that's also when the Federal Drug Administration released serious warnings about 11 antiepileptic medications, including Lamictal. After an in-depth study, the FDA alerted health professionals about an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in patients who take these drugs to treat epilepsy, bipolar disorder, migraine headaches and other conditions."

I wrote about these warnings when they came out in February. This same class of anti-seizure drugs is used by millions of Americans diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Most of the suicidality noise in the FDA's data seemed to relate to people being treated for a seizure disorder, but there was a slightly elevated risk of suicidality for people taking the drug for "mood stabilization.

Langan's mother offers this sad irony:

"'The only explanation I can find for the morning my son died is the medication,' she said.

"Four months shy of his death, the optimistic teen who shared dreams of one day becoming president started his treatment for epilepsy. His mother, a nurse, kept a close watch.

"'I actually did a lot of research on it. I didn't see anything about suicide in any of the research that I read. The first time that I became aware of it was a week before he died,' Langan said.

"That's when the FDA issued a warning citing a study where patients receiving antiepileptic drugs had approximately twice the risk of suicidal ideation compared to patients receiving placebo.

"'So I called him into the living room and I said, "Hey, Zach, I just heard this on TV." And he said, "I’m good Mom, I'm good." I said, "Okay honey, if anything changes, you need to tell me." But he never did,' Langan remembered."

Two doctors said:

"'There are definitely times when there are no signs that someone may be ready to commit suicide or about to commit suicide,' Dr. Shannon Drayton, Assistant Professor at MUSC said.

"Drayton, who works with students at the Medical University of South Carolina's Institute of Psychiatry called this a sticky issue.

"'Unfortunately, with Epilepsy, it's not something we have a cure for yet and so patients have to be treated,' Drayton said. 'And with all the medications, there are 11 that have the warning on them now and all of them eventually may have this warning. You know, there's really not a lot clinicians can do but educate their patients about the warning signs of suicide and risk factors.'"

"But Dr. Bryant Welch says one of the greatest risk factors is how patients often react to the warnings.

"'Yes, the medication will put some people at increased risk,' Welch said. 'But the problem is, there are a lot of people it will but at a decreased risk. So, it's not a reason not to use the medication. It's a reason to use the medication with greater awareness, and to stay in close contact with your doctor about any changes.'"

The FDA and GlaxoSmithKline, the drug's maker, responded after a fashion.

"Both the FDA and Lamictal's maker Glaxo-Smith-Kline refused our on-camera interview requests. But both wrote us their reaction to the study's findings.

"GSK said 'Our own analysis of clinical trial data with Lamictal showed a similar trend but the actual numbers were too small to draw conclusions.'

"An FDA spokesperson says, 'The FDA will work with manufacturers of marketed anti-epileptic drugs to include information about the increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in the labeling of these products.'"

Sad stuff.