My Son Was Born While I Was Using Propecia
Hello,
We have generic here for Propecia, and on the instructions they say that on propecia we should use a condom during intercourse. It seems that it is pretty new, and there is nothing on the intructions of Propecia. My first kid is a boy and was born while I was using propecia. It seems normal.
Is there really a risk ? What is the position of Merck on it ? It seems that we have different opinion and it is quite difficult to have an opinion. Why this warning has appeared ?
Is there a proof somewhere that a newborn has trouble while the father was on propecia ? Thank you for your answer.
There must be thousands of boys born whose father’s took Propecia (finasteride) during conception.
We know that in the womb during the first 3 months, if a woman is exposed to sizable doses of finasteride it can alter the sexual development of the fetus. If the man was taking it, however, there is no evidence that the drug will cross to the woman and into the fetus. I know that the formal concerns are published and they are unfortunately more a statement of what the lawyers want the drug companies to say rather than a scientific observable risk.
I haven’t seen the Propecia packaging that mentions using a condom during sex, but I will also refer you to this letter we received from Merck about this very issue a few years back. In part, it states that “no significant mechanism-based or non-mechanism-based teratologic effects have been observed in infants born to women exposed to finasteride via semen during pregnancy.”
Agree with to Dr Rassman’s comment that there is no risk. This language (unfortunately) typically appears in drug labels more for legal than medical reasons. There are certain medications, however, that can produce birth defects when taken by a male (chemotherapy or radiation therapy to treat cancer in a father may increase the risk chromosomal abnormalities of the fetus). There is no evidence that finasteride does this.
Wrong again Dr. Rassman. There are also hundreds of case reports that have been submitted to the FDA that complain of children with pseudohermaphroditism and other very serious health problems. In many of the cases, it is made clear that the woman did not handle or ingest the pills and the problems came from the men.
It is ridiculous that you again chalk this up to legal protection. If a child is born with a very serious congenital defect of the child’s sexual organs it is very obvious that finasteride was the culprit. Or maybe you think this too is psychogenic? No amount of fine-print protection will enable Merck to defend themselves in a court.
In the original posters case, his child was fine. The risk is very real and even more devastating to give birth to a gender ambiguous child than the permanent sexual side effects, but you should be grateful. The birth defects would be present from birth so you should be in the clear with respect to your child.
By the way, I would like to highlight just ONE example of Merck’s extremely deceptive language. I truly can’t believe Dr. Rassman would seriously consult the company for safety information on the drug that they sell.
The following comes directly from the letter to Dr. Rassman from Merck:
“Published medical literature describing data from men with genetic Type 2 5a-reductase deficiency suggest that DHT did not appear to be important for spermatogenesis or the sperm maturation process. These men have lifelong suppression of DHT formation and those without anatomic abnormalities, such as cryptorchidism, may have normal spermatogenesis and are able to have healthy progeny.”
Semantically, this is true, Practically speaking, this is a fraudulent lie. If you look into the case studies of 5-AR deficient pseudo hermaphrodites you will see that the vast majority of cases have sperm and fertility problems. Rarely you will find one that is able to birth a child so it is true that they MAY be able to have healthy progeny, but this statement is extremely misleading.
I think if we did have a major issue then we would have a massive problem on the scale of thalidomide. That was withdrawn after a few years, Fin has been around for over ten.
Tex –
I do not have hair loss. Just last week, a friend I had not seen for 3 years commented on the fact that I seemed to have more hair than I did years ago. I have not touched finasteride in a year and a half. The drug has permanently affected me in ways that are not fully understood at this point.
Tex: Don’t you think it is a little ridiculous to compare balding to a horrible disfiguring traumatic injury? Oh, pleeeeze! Balding is not disfiguring. Yes, it looks crapping, but not as crapping as the way most people look when they get old. I see young guys at the gym every day with these cute, young faces with major balding issues and they still look young and cute. Then I look around and I see these old dudes with jowls and wrinkles and fallen checks (and of course the obligatory gray or white walrus moustache)–not to mention fallen everything else– with full thick heads of gray hair–juvenile hairlines- and guess what? These old dudes still look like old dudes and still look horrible.
I don’t like balding either but it’s way down the list of bad cosmetic things to have an issue with. Tex, don’t be such a drama queen.
Jeremy, so you’ve been off of finasteride for 18 months and in that time your androgenic alopecia has gone away and all the hair you were losing at your temples and crown have grown back on their own?!?! I find that very hard to believe!
“I’ll admit I am naive about how hair transplants work, but would the transplanted hairs not still be susceptible to thinning? Or is it the nature of the donor hair follicles that they are not affected by DHT the same way?”
Tex, I can’t believe you asked that having been on this site for as long as you have. Of course the transplanted are not susceptible to thinning. That’s the whole point! And yes, the the transplanted hairs are DHT resistant. Don’t you know the history of hair transplantation? Some doc back in the 1950s (it actually started a little earlier so I’ve been told) theorized that transplanted hair would continue to thrive even if moved [from non-balding areas] to places on the scalp where hair was being lost. And he was right (they didn’t know the DHT connection at the time and thought the location of the hair had something to do with it falling out). The hairs that fall out are genetically sensitive to DHT unlike the ones on the sides that DHT has no effect on. That’s why we want to move them around. Of course, half the male population has no balding at all and never will because all their follicles are DHT resistant. All of them everywhere. They don’t have to mess with their hormones to have hair. Nor does anyone else with hair transplants.
And as far as the cost is concerned, we all can afford what is important to us. I’d trade a mortgage payment for a rental payment if I had to to have hair or any other cosmetic thing I wanted. That’s just the way I think. Your body and how you look matters. Material goods are unimportant.
“Not to mention recovery time, and facing the stigma in admitting to people that I had a hair transplant. ”
What stigma? Just lie and say, “I never had hair transplants– don’t know what you’re talking about.” Besides, no one asked that kind of thing anyway. Just like with a facelift, 99.99999% of the time no one will know.