Thyroid Cancer Support

Forest Laboratories, maker of three medications for thyroid hormone replacement (Armour, Thyrolar and Levothroid) has again refused to comment on a critical issue regarding their medications, leaving physicians and thyroid patients without critical information.

This latest “no comment” is one in a long series of stonewalling responses from the Forest, which has been facing various allegations of wrongdoing from the FDA and authorities for several years.

On the thyroid front, Forest has consistently refused to comment about the unannounced reformulation of their natural desiccated thyroid medication Armour Thyroid that took place earlier in 2009. This reformulation caused significant health problems for a subset of patients using Armour. Even after patients and physicians discovered that the reformulation was causing significant health problems in some patients, Forest Laboratories refused to discuss it, remedy it, or comment on it publicly.

Subsquently, when Armour became unavailable this summer, Forest Laboratories refused to comment about the shortage. They referred patients and physicians to a vague statement at the website which said Armour was on backorder, with no estimated date for its return to the market.

Thyrolar, the synthetic T4/T3 combination drug produced by Forest Laboratories, has also experienced substantial shortages and backorder for several years, but disappeared from the market earlier this year. Forest Laboratories initially blamed the U. S. Pharmacopeia, claiming that new specifications for Thyrolar were forcing the company to rerformulate.

When USP officials refuted Forest, Forest then changed the story to still blame USP, but this time, claimed that new USP specifications for levothyroxine — an ingredient in Thyrolar — were to blame. Not surprisingly, this is also disingenuous, as USP again refuted Forest, revealing that Forest has had several years of advance notice in which to reformulate Thyrolar to meet the new USP guidelines, so removing the drug from the market, and leaving patients without their medication, it completely unnecessary.

Now, some patients are reporting difficulties in obtaining Levothroid, Forest’s brand of levothyroxine.

So, as a patient advocate, I thought I’d try yet again, to obtain information from Forest. Here is the latest email exchange: Read more…

What Does Forest Laboratories Have to Hide? Forest Labs Again Refuses to Comment Regarding Thyrolar and Levothroid Shortages originally appeared on About.com Thyroid Disease on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 11:00:32.

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