I just heard an ad on the radio for a prescription pill (don’t recall the name) to treat men with advanced prostate cancer. One of the warnings was that it may cause harm to an unborn child. How could that work?

Question

I just heard an ad on the radio for a prescription pill (don’t recall the name) to treat men with advanced prostate cancer. One of the warnings was that it may cause harm to an unborn child. How could that work?

In: 2

Answer 1

So drugs that are “hazardous” are classified under NIOSH in the US, the medical version of OSHA. There’s a number of categories, like antineoplastic drugs (cancer medications), immunosuppresants, and teratogenic medications (androgens and other random things, like thalidomide and finasteride).

Cancer drugs are presumed to be teratogenic by default. Even if there is not direct evidence to point to in order to show “[Cancer drug] causes birth defects”, you can operate under the assumption that the risk is present and significant.

Oral chemo can be taken at home and outside of a hospital, so there is a chance that a man who is taking that medication may come into contact with a woman (wife, girlfriend, family member, etc.) of childbearing age in their household who may accidentally come into contact with that medication and possibly even ingest it. That might sound a bit silly at face value, but they could mistake the cancer pill for something else, like an over-the-counter antihistamine, and unknowingly take the wrong medication. It is a *very* small risk, but it is not zero.

It’s a warning issued out of an abundance of caution. If one line in an ad spares them a lawsuit for a baby with birth defects, then that’s a small price to pay on the behalf of the pharmaceutical company.