Dr. Charles Bennett is a tireless advocate for the fluoroquinolone community. His group SONAR (The Southern Network on Adverse Reaction project) based out of 
the University of South Carolina School of Medicine provides a systematic approach to pharmacovigilance and drug safety. Wherever necessary, SONAR seeks to make global policy changes that reflect the true dangers that certain drugs could pose to the general public.
Over the years as part of his ongoing work into adverse drug events and reactions, Dr. Bennett and SONAR, have researched and synthesized a tremendous amount of existing data regarding the fluoroquinolones (FQ’s). During that time, our small floxed group has worked closely with Dr. Bennett and SONAR to help facilitate their goals regarding drug safety of the FQ’s. Recently, in July 2018, Dr. Bennett published a paper about Fluoroquinolone Associated Suicide to the European Journal of Internal Medicine with the assistance of the floxed community.
Suicide is a huge global health problem and is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States. Several case reports have raised concerns that exposure to fluoroquinolones (FQs) may increase the risk of suicidal behavior. Though FQs, including levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, and moxifloxacin have been available for the last 3 decades, there has been a significant paradigm shift about their safety in the last five years.
This work was funded partly by the National Institutes of Health (Grant No. R01CA16509), the American Cancer Society (IRG-13-043- 01), Supporting Outstanding Academic Research Seed Grants at USC (SOAR-USC), the South Carolina Smart State Program, and unrestricted grants from Doris Levkoff Meddin and Frank P and Josie M Fletcher to the Center for Medication Safety and Efficacy of the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina. No funds were accepted from a pharmaceutical manufacturer or a pharmaceutical distributor. The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Travis Bailey, Robert C Kane, MD, Andrew C. Bennett, Carolyn Banister PhD, and from the FQ community, Linda Martin, Alan Redd, David Melvin, Terry Ashton, John Fratti and Jennifer Wilcox to the manuscript preparation. The late Raja Fayad also contributed to the manuscript preparation.
You can read Doctor Bennett’s paper here. Hosted with permission.
Please stay tuned to MyQuinStory for updated reports on this and other FQ’s related news.
My wife of 45 years committed suicide March 28, 2018. Had taken levofloxacin 18 hours prior.
Oh Randy, I am so sorry! Horrific tragedy!
Thanks David for your ongoing efforts to communicate what is happening in the FQ community. I also thank Dr. Bennett for all his work to help us. We are slowly but surely winning this battle and raising awareness about these incredibly dangerous drugs.
The link to his study goes to a study with this title “4-Quinolones Cause a Selective Loss of Mitochondrial DNA From Mouse L1210 Leukemia Cells”. Is that the study you wanted?
Mark A Girard
Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Advocate
Nope, I linked the wrong article. It has been corrected. Thanks for the heads up!
Thank you for writing this article. Besides my own Fluoroquinolone Toxicity for the last 25 years my 93 year old dad was given Levaquin IV in the hospital in September of 2011 for the pneumonia he never had. Before the Levaquin he was sharp as a tack, after the Levaquin he started hallucinating so badly he had no idea who we were. He hallucinated for the next 6 weeks and then died when his aortic aneurysm ruptured. I knew then that the Levaquin did him in BUT didn’t know until 4 years AFTER his death that more and more research has come out that Fluoroquinolones cause aortic aneurysms and dissections. Although he already had one, the drugs just made it worse.
We need Dr. Bennett who has worked tirelessly for all of us to now get the FDA to admit that the ear and eye drops DO enter one’s system and are just as dangerous.
Thank you.
Thank you for your continuing efforts to warn the public of the dangers of this class of antibiotics. I can’t thank you enough.
I’m 4.5 yrs out from Levofloxin. It has been the most hellish journey that I could not have even imagined. The deep, dark hole of despair made suicide a daily wish each night before sleep for years. I was sad to have to wake up and start the nightmare all over again. The only reason I stuck it out was for my mother. The amount of damage this drug has done to my body, life and future is utterly incomprehensible.
I was given IV Levaquin, to prevent infection, for a minor surgery 12 years ago. I never recovered!