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:
From: Mary Shomon / Thyroid GuideAnd here is Forest Laboratories concerned, customer-oriented, patient-first response...
Sent: Saturday, December 05, 2009
To: Frank Murdolo
Subject: Re: Official Media request for update on Armour Thyroid and Thyrolar Status
Frank,
Would Forest be interested in commenting on the statement by USP that shows that Forest - - like all the major Orange Book co's listed -- had several years advance warning regarding the USP levothyroxine specification changes?
I'm also hearing that Levothroid is now on backorder and unavailable at many pharmacies.
Mary Shomon
From: Frank MurdoloAre you surprised? Sadly, I'm not. Forest is clearly not interested in providing a steady, safe supply of thyroid drugs to its customers, and it's not interested in maintaining thyroid patients as its customers.
Sent: Monday, December 07, 2009
To: Mary Shomon
Subject: Re: Official Media request for update on Armour Thyroid and Thyrolar Status
Mary,
We have no comment.
Regards,
Frank
Frank J. Murdolo
Vice President, Investor Relations
Forest Laboratories, Inc.
909 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
More About Forest Laboratories and Their Disregard for their Thyroid Product Line and Thyroid Customers
- Armour Thyroid's Spring 2009 Reformulation Causing Problems
- Why is Forest Pharmaceuticals Lying About Thyroid Drug Thyrolar? And What Else Are They Hiding?
- Forest Laboratories: Still Stonewalling Thyroid Patients About Thyrolar
- Forest Labs' Credibility and Thyrolar Status in Question after USP Issues Statement
- The Armour Thyroid and Nature-Throid Shortage Information Center
- Save Natural Thyroid Coalition Website
- Save Natural Thyroid Coalition Yahoo Listserv
Image: istockphoto
Mary,
It’s REALLY sad when YOU get the same kind of
unhelpful responses from Forest as I have over the
years, as you are a known patient advocate who
actually has a forum to say things publicly. You’d
think they’d be more forthcoming with info to
someone like you, but it looks like they’re just
irresponsible and uncaring to EVERYONE! At this
point, I really hope Forest either gets taken over
by someone who cares, or just goes out of business.
Because, as you and I both agree, they haven’t
cared about patient health and safety in ages.
Not that some of the other thyroid drug companies
are great in that department, either….I really wish
one of the healthcare reforms would be that we
could get some different thyroid drugs in from
different companies. We need more options, for sure!
Dear Mary,
Thankyou for continuing to look out for all of our best interests as thyroid advocate.
Forest is in a bad way. I feel sorry for their employees…hopefully not everyone was willfully involved in their employer’s poor choices.
Gee, in that e-mail, you got a “Mary” and a “regards”…along with the “We have no comment.”
We have no excuse is more like it. But I’m sure some other corporation will be more than happy to help take up the ’slack’ for production of ’similar’ meds.
Aren’t we lucky?
He ain’t heavy….he’s my big pharma brother.
And big pharma looks out for all of the ‘little folk,’ don’t they?
I would think nobody is shocked by this. Drug companies are all about profit. They are a business, and don’t care about our health issues. Trying to get information out of Forest is a big waste of time ( since most of what they say is a lie anyways ). I would rather die, then to ever have to take Armour thyroid again. Their reformulation has totally ruined my health !!!!!!!
Is Forest the only company producing Thyroid Armour?
By the way, today (12/10/09), in his 3:00 PM Central TV show, Dr. Oz suggested to a lady in the gallery who was complaining about brittle hair since taking synthetic thyroid or Synthroid to change to Thyroid Armour.
I bet he does not know about the reformulation and shortage problems.
Mary – why are you writing to the VP of Investor Relations? I’d go straight to the new guy on the Board of Directors – from Harvard Med. Ask him to correlate absence of info on thyroid products with this statement from their website:
“Forest proudly and actively promotes professional behavior and personal integrity in every aspect of our business operations. We believe that the highest ethical behavior is consistent with our ambition to deliver therapies that will favorably impact the health and well-being of patients.”
It’s obvious from looking at what’s profiled on their site that Armour has no place in the future. The pdf describing it is out of date – that alone is bad information for “highest ethical behavior”
They are a publicly traded company and their products like Lexapro make them money.
The reason the drug companies get away with behavior like this is because they are not held accountable. This is so unconscionable and they should be reprimanded and/or punished in some monetary way for their behavior. You don’t just changed a drug without announcing it!!! The formula change affected so many patients.
But…….. WE know that will never happen, harrassing them for a response is the only recourse we have!
I got my Levothroid prescription refilled in mid-October and have been feeling horrible ever since. I’m extremely sensitive to changes in my thyroid dose and I’m wondering if they also reformulated this drug. I’ve got a call in to my doctor to switch me over to Levoxyl.
my guess is forest is under some time of gag order by the fda, where they have to be careful about what they say.
My Drs here in South Africa told me all was normal with the blood tests on my dose of thyroid meds [eltroxin] while my health and body were going down and I felt awful. 20yrs later they found I had no thyroid left at all bcuz of hashimoto thyroiditis and I nearly died 4 times and I’m now classed as obese as the weight jst piled on [and I was once traumatised and bullied and given a very nasty and unpleasant hour-long lecture on how I must try harder to lose weight by an endo – whose well known here in South Africa – and that its a fallacy that having thyroid problems causes weight gain, she said this a few times and was quite adamant she knew better - yeah, right!!! Like to see her live in my body for a year!! When u can walk in my shoes for a mile, don't presume u know better jst bcuz your the 'expert', in my book its 'experience' not 'expert' that counts! And, by the way, she’s stick thin, very healthy, and has no struggle herself with weight problems!!]. Here in South Africa we cannot get any armour thyroid in any form at all anymore [in fact, my Dr of 20yrs, has never even heard of it!!], it seems to be going off the shelves all over the world, only 2 kinds of meds to choose frm here and one of them is diatroxin – which I’m on now. Makes me wonder if the medical profession wants us to stay ill as it seems it’s the money that talks not the cure. I have a friend whose a pharmacist, whose integrity is unquestionable, and he told my husband and I how his life was threatened bcuz he wanted to expose the medical and pharmaceutical profession here after attending one of their seminars. They talked and debated about making all the medicines weaker, so that there is never a cure or making patients feel better and in that way it will bring more finances in. They used to have eltroxin, but there was no stock of that for months as the minister of health did not sign for any to be shipped here and it can take a year for the new shipment to arrive on our shelves [I was literally told this by our Dr and Pharmacist]. I’ve been hypothyroid for over 25yrs now and never feel good. I am now semi-invalid with adrenal fatigue, have lung, kidney, liver, lymph nodes and parathyroid problems, my spine is also affected with Spondylitis, and I have extremely high cholesterol [which no statin can bring dwn and I had nasty side-effects with all of them, so I refuse to take them now] and I have really bad odema . I know it all comes frm the thyroid problems, but the Drs have no answers and are not very helpful in wanting to give you any – except more prescriptions.