Accutane maker prints suicide caution.

Byline: TIM CHRISTIE The Register-Guard

The maker of Accutane, a powerful, controversial acne medication, next month will mail out brochures to dermatologists and other doctors to help them recognize signs of depression and other psychiatric disorders in teen-agers and young adults.

Some patients who take Accutane, prescribed for the most severe, scarring cases of acne, get depressed and some commit suicide. Last May, Dustin Greufe, a 16-year-old Thurston High School student, killed himself soon after completing a regimen of Accutane.

No scientific evidence has established that Accutane causes suicide or depression. The drug's manufacturer, Hoffmann LaRoche, says the population of patients who are prescribed Accutane - teen-agers and young adults - are more likely to get depressed and be suicidal than the population at large, and that the suicide rate among Accutane users is lower than the rate among teen-agers as a whole.

That has not convinced dozens of parents, including a member of Congress, who blame the drug for the suicides of their children.

Because of the concerns about Accutane, Roche, as the company is known in the United States, reached agreement last fall with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to produce a brochure to help physicians understand the psychiatric issues faced by the patients most likely to be prescribed Accutane, spokeswoman Carolyn Glynn said.

"The brochure helps them to distinguish characteristic signs of depression and other psychiatric disturbances," she said.

The company plans to mail about 75,000 brochures sometime in April.

Roche wrote the brochure with the help of outside experts and approval by the FDA.

Glynn said the brochure is not a tacit acknowledgement that Accutane causes some patients to get depressed and suicidal.

"It is in our best interest and in physicians' best interest and in families' best interest to know all and everything that's been reported about a particular drug, particularly when we're talking about something as serious as suicide," she said. "Although we have not been able to establish a link between Accutane and these signs and symptoms, it is clearly the responsible thing to do as we try to continue to understand the situation."

She said Roche, a Swiss company with U.S. headquarters in New Jersey, also is making final details of a study that will try to rule out any potential link between Accutane and the reports of suicide.

Colleen Greufe, the mother of the Thurston High School student who killed himself last May, said the brochure is "a step in the right direction," but said more safeguards are needed.

She questioned how much a brochure would help dermatologists who are not trained to identify psychiatric disorders.

"I don't know how well that's going to work, because Dustin had no signs," she said. "There were just no signs. There was just one day."

Perhaps all patients who are prescribed Accutane should be required to see a therapist before taking the drug, she said.

Greufe said she and her husband, Matt, have talked to lawyers but haven't yet decided whether to file a lawsuit over Dustin's suicide.

The brochure is part of an ongoing process by Roche and the FDA to make doctors and patients aware of the risks and benefits of Accutane, agency spokeswoman Kathleen Kolar said.

For instance, the FDA has required pharmacists to provide patients with plain-English medication guides with every Accutane prescription. And Roche has written a consent form that focuses on the drug's psychiatric problems.

CAPTION(S):

BRIAN DAVIES / The Register-Guard Colleen Greufe holds up a picture of her son Dustin, a Thurston High School student who killed himself in May 2001. Dustin was taking the powerful acne drug Accutane at the time.