The Various Faces of Depakote

Washington, D.C.The potential for Depakote birth defects will most assuredly be on the agenda in December when the Health and Human Services Department with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) holds a meeting of the Pediatric Advisory Committee. The Washington Daybook identifies the meeting as taking place December 7th and notes that participants will be discussing pediatric-focused safety reviews.

The agenda includes a follow-up on Depakote ER.

Depakote is an epileptic drug that has been linked to birth defects in children. Everything from cleft palate to hand malformations and undecided testes in males has been identified.

However there are other Depakote side effects encountered by users of the anti-seizure medication.

Molly Kimble, writing recently in the Times-Picayune of New Orleans and reprinted October 12th in the Gloucester County Times of New Jersey, notes that Depakote is among a number of drugs capable of decreasing energy expenditure, and inhibiting the breakdown of fat.

This can be a precursor to weight gain, says Sal Scaccia, Pharm.D. and owner of Total Life Care Pharmacy in Harvey, Louisiana.

"They can increase carbohydrate cravings and increase the conversion of carbohydrate and protein to body fat," Scaccia says. He notes that 30, to 65 percent of lithium patients can gain as much as 33 pounds over a two-year period.

And then there is Philip Robinson, writing October 12th in London's Daily Mail about the ten years of his life he claims to have lost as a "middle-class drug addict." Not a drug addict in the stereotypical sense, mind you. Rather, an addict of drugs prescribed to him by the British medical community for various conditions he feels he didn't have. Thus, the medications were prescribed needlessly, in his view.

One medication he was prescribed, was Depakote.

"My state worsened when I was put on a powerful (and expensive) anti-epileptic drug called Depakote. Depakote is so toxic that it requires a blood test to be taken first.

"I am not epileptic," Robinson continues, "but the pill is commonly given to severely ill people who are bipolar. As far as I knew, I had not been diagnosed with either illness.

"As the Depakote established itself in my brain, I became cold and detached. I had 'decided' to live nocturnally as this was optimum for my writing. I wanted peace and quiet. I avoided my young family, content with silence and the sound of blood pulsing in my ears."

Many current, and former patients—as well as the mothers of malformed babies—have brought a Depakote lawsuit in response to their suffering.