Downed Pharmaceutical’s Black Box Located

September 6, 2000

RANSON, NJ—Scientists announced late Wednesday evening that the black box warning of the ill-fated medication Seldane (terfenadine) had been located near the top of its package insert, and that its contents, still fully intact, reveal the terrifying final seconds of its brief market run.

"What appears to have happened is that some users of the medication were developing serious or even fatal arrhythmias as a consequence of its use," said recovery effort supervisor G. Allen Jackson, Pharm D.

"This led to a sudden crippling of Seldane's credibility as a marketable pharmaceutical, as well as a critical loss of support from several of its funding engines."

All told, at least 17 deaths were attributed to Seldane before rescue workers were able to fully remove the devastated product from warehouses across the nation in Januray 1997.

The nonsedating antihistamine, once popular among travelers to high-allergen areas, disappeared from pharmacies almost overnight, remaining as a cautionary tale of what researchers like Jackson term "flying off the shelves."

The unsuccessful attempt at that time to safely land the drug at Hoechst Marion Roussel (now Aventis) headquaters in Ranson, NJ, was followed by the equally tragic demise of Hismanal (astemizole), a similar nonsedating antihistamine, whose black box warning still awaits discovery by concerned scientists in this country and abroad.

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