Merck Warned Saudi Health Care Professionals in 2018 of Suicidal Ideation in Finasteride Patients, Confidential Document Shows

Separately, safety signal of causal link between finasteride and diabetes mellitus issued by Saudi FDA in 2021 March 2, 2022 Dear Friends: In a confidential 2018 letter to health care professionals, Merck & Co.’s Saudi Arabian subsidiary warned that finasteride patients should be carefully monitored for psychiatric symptoms including anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. Furthermore, […]

PFS Researcher Roberto Melcangi Featured in Alopecia-Treatment Documentary on Top Swiss TV Net

Jan. 22, 2022 Dear Friends: A new documentary examining three young men’s reactions to rapidly thinning locks—shaving, transplanting and finasteride—features an interview with eminent PFS researcher Roberto Cosimo Melcangi, PhD. Titled Plötzlich kahl (Suddenly Bald) the 30-minute film by Gustav Hofer (English-subtitled version here) debuted last month on SRF, the largest German-language broadcaster in Switzerland. […]

Vigilant PFS Patient Prompts Action by UK’s FDA Equivalent

Jan. 10, 2022 Dear Friends: After enduring decades of symptoms that ran the gamut from tooth loss to testicular cancer, Ryan Clark prompted his nation’s drug agency to take a telemed to task for failing to adequately disclose finasteride’s dangers. And though he’d hoped for more significant action, the 54-year-old PFS patient from the northeast […]

First-Ever PFS Diagnostic Criteria Published in Medical Literature

Editorial in leading journal, meanwhile, criticizes FDA for not making Merck conduct new safety studies when persistent ED signal emerged Nov. 20, 2021 Dear Friends: A decade after the first peer-reviewed article on persistent adverse sexual effects in finasteride patients appeared in medical literature, the first-ever diagnostic criteria for PFS has followed suit. We have […]

PFS Foundation Sues FDA for Unlawfully Failing to Grant or Deny Our Citizen Petition

Sept. 9, 2021 Dear Friends: The Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation, represented by consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen, yesterday filed a lawsuit in Washington, DC, federal court compelling the US Food and Drug Administration to act on our Citizen Petition. Facts laid out in the eight-page complaint include: The “most serious risk of 1 mg finasteride […]

2021 PFS Foundation Annual Address

Aug. 4, 2021 Dear Friends: For several years now, our patient manager, Philip Roberts, has been telling me he feels like Radar O’Reilly on M*A*S*H. Fans of the dark Korean War comedy will recall that often after endless hours of stitching up battlefield casualties—and having just flopped onto their cots—the doctors would be interrupted by […]

Gene-Expression Study in the Penile Skin Tissue of PFS Patients Finds Significant Differences in the Expression of 3,764 Genes

July 14, 2021 Dear Friends: The first study to consider and demonstrate gene expression differences as a potential etiology of the sexual dysfunction experienced by PFS patients has been published by a research team at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). In all, the PFS patients had 1,446 significantly over-expressed (upregulated) and 2,318 significantly under-expressed (downregulated) […]

Unsealed Documents from Propecia Litigation Now Housed on PFS Foundation Website

June 29, 2021 Dear Friends: The PFS Foundation has launched a new section of its website to house documents from the US Propecia litigation unsealed by court order earlier this year. Part A of our Propecia Litigation Library (Paper Trail), contains 479 pages of such documents, along with 125 pages of related content, including Merck’s […]

In Addition to Blocking 5α-R, Finasteride Inhibits Adrenaline Production, Possibly Inducing Sexual and Psychological Side Effects, New Research Suggests

Finasteride patients face a 51% greater risk of suicidal ideation or suicidal behavior than the general population, separate study demonstrates April 13, 2021 Dear Friends: Phase V of the PFS Foundation-sponsored research at the University of Milano (UniMi) has found that finasteride, a 5-alpha reductase (5α-R) inhibitor, also inhibits phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PNMT), an enzyme found […]