Pfizer, FDA Dismiss Claim Linking Infant Acne Medication with Baby Suicides as “Coincidence”

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has dismissed claims that Gagatene, a new drug designed to treat infant acne, is responsible for a rash of suicides amongst the babies taking it.

Despite reports showing a whopping 1,480,000% increase in suicide rates between babies who have been administered Gagatene pills for over three months (3,250 per 10,000) and babies who’ve never taken the drug (0.002 per 10,000), Pfizer attributes the connection to “coincidence”.

Declared company spokesman Grant Page: “The comparatively large disparity in elective mortality cessation rates between children taking Gagatane and the rest of the population is pure coincidence. Gagatane remains a perfectly safe and effective treatment of infant acne.”

Most parents of the victims aren’t convinced, however. Amongst those is Emily Wallingford of Buffalo, New York, whose sixteen-month-old son plummeted from a five-story building to his death last month.

“My baby’s death was no accident or ‘coincidence’. When I went to use the bathroom he was in his crib and when I came out he was on the ledge looking at me with tears in his eyes. Then he said ‘Bye-bye’ and threw himself out the window. My boy committed suicide.”

Reportedly, many babies taking Gagatane that don’t commit suicide still exhibit a high incidence of symptoms associated with depression.

“Our baby’s first word was ‘No’,” said Charles Huff, a father of a child who took Gagatane for nearly two years, “And his second was ‘Light’. Then he learned ‘Dark’ and ‘Kill me’ which he’d scream at the top of his lungs when he wasn’t curled in an unresponsive ball in his crib.”

Meanwhile, the FDA has ruled out an investigation of Gagatane citing the “honest and rigorous” safety trials it conducted on the drug before its 2002 approval.

Commented FDA spokesman Terry Frye: “These cases of voluntary infantile self-euthanasia are, if anything, more likely attributable to the children’s unhappiness with their personal appearance as a result of their acne – which would only compel me to endorse Gagatane more strongly rather than condemn it.”