A class lawsuit has been [filed] in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, by Vancouver resident Michael Miller against Merck Frosst Canada and its affiliated companies…on behalf of Canadian men who used Propecia or Proscar and suffered continuing sexual dysfunction.

Miller, who is in his early 20s, [says] ‘My sexual functioning has not recovered, I have seen specialists and have tried treatments but nothing has worked.’

Patients looking for information about Propecia may have to search more than anticipated now that the Propecia website has been taken down. The move has sparked speculation about Propecia lawsuits and Propecia side effects.

Although the warning label in the US alerts patients to the possibility of sexual side effects, the label also states that the side effects are temporary… Warning labels in Europe reportedly contain information that the sexual side effects could be permanent.

More than 500 Canadian men feel they weren’t warned properly about a prescription baldness medication they say has left them impotent, even years after they stopped taking it.

Sean Ramsaran, 26, was prescribed Propecia by his dermatologist in 2009…and now calls himself ‘a useless person…I have nightmares, flashbacks to experiences I had while on the drug.’

‘[Merck] acted responsibly and appropriately with respect to Propecia and Proscar throughout the development, marketing and post-marketing monitoring of these medicines,’ wrote spokeswoman Lainie Keller in an email. She added there is no scientific data showing the drugs cause persistent impotence after discontinuing use.

In June 2016, 25-year-old Romain took his life. According to his family, his death can be blamed on post-finasteride syndrome. Finasteride is sold by Merck & Co., which may now be subject to civil or criminal prosecution in France.

[F]inasteride trials using a control group were at first limited to a duration of one year, which was then extended for another year–but only for certain patients: those who were healthy. So these trials…all had one failing: they included people in good health and avoided the inclusion of other categories of patients.”

A pill has destroyed Thomas Meier. It’s small, it’s pink and it was supposed to help him with something silly: hair loss…His hair got a little bit thicker, but unpleasant things started happening. ‘I was having erectile problems’ [he] explained. Later on, this was followed by loss of libido, depression and panic attacks.

According to one [study], finasteride users were three times more prone to develop mental health problems than men in the control group… In July 2018 the manufacturers ultimately added to the leaflets that the sexual side effects were nonreversible… And yet the medicine is still on the market.

For the first time in France, three Propecia victims are suing American pharmaceutical giant Merck Sharp & Dohme. They are…claiming a lack of information about its expected benefits (purely cosmetic), and the risks involved when taking it, which they claim are extremely serious.

‘Before he committed suicide…Romain left a note telling me, If you have the courage, fight,’ says his mother, Sylviane Million-Mathieu.

On the morning of March 5, 2013, about 45 minutes before his wife got home, John Pfaff stepped onto the railroad tracks a block away and into the path of a southbound Amtrak train. He was killed on impact. Kelly Pfaff blames Merck for her husband’s death at age 40. In a lawsuit filed in 2015, she alleges that the pharmaceuticals company for years knew but concealed from the public that Propecia could cause the persistent sexual dysfunction and depression that led to her husband’s suicide.

[C]onfidential documents reviewed by Reuters accuse Merck of exaggerating the drug’s safety record… [They] allege that in revisions to the drug’s original 1997 label, Merck understated the number of men who experienced sexual symptoms in clinical trials, and how long those symptoms lasted.

Newly unsealed court documents and other records show that Merck & Co and US regulators knew about reports of suicidal behavior in men taking the company’s anti-baldness treatment Propecia when they decided not to warn consumers of those potential risks in a 2011 update of the popular drug’s label.

Since…2011…the FDA has received more than 700 reports of suicide and suicidal thoughts among people taking Propecia or generic versions… Those included at least 100 deaths. [I]n the first 14 years the drug was on the market, the agency received 34 such reports, including 10 deaths… To this day, the US label contains no mention of suicide or suicidal thoughts.

Many of those affected have come together in a model class-action lawsuit. This is paid for by a litigation financier from Cologne. There we met attorney Stephan Bensalah.

It’s an enormous emotional challenge. You have to imagine: These young men are extremely damaged, some of them are unable to work and their relationships have suffered. Going alone in this situation against a large pharmaceutical company is immensely stressful.

Jonathan Davies, a medical malpractice attorney [last year] filed a request for a class-action suit against the three pharmaceutical companies that market Propecia and its generic equivalents in Israel, on behalf of those affected. Davies says that after the media reported that he had submitted a class-action suit, he was astounded by the dozens of inquiries he received from men who had been harmed by Propecia.

‘Within days, we received applications from a great deal of young men with side effects of depression and anxiety that significantly affected their quality of life, to the extent that some of these instances justify submitting personal lawsuits, due to the significant damage caused to them,’ said Davies.

As early as 2010, a class-action suit against Merck was filed in Israel, alleging that the company had not issued the required warnings of known side effects of impaired fertility and sexual dysfunction, and that there were differences between the inserts in Israel and abroad. The suit ended with a financial settlement in 2018, in which the company paid 5.7 million shekels to the plaintiffs and agreed to update the consumer insert.