On Dec. 12 the Food and Drug Administration ordered all pharmaceutical companies to cease making all products containing quinine within 60 days. The only exception is a single quinine drug made to treat malaria.
Of the almost 4 million prescriptions written annually for quinine drugs, the vast majority are for quinine sulfate to treat leg cramps.
Now, the FDA says there is a serious health risk in taking this drug because of the toxic effect of an overdose. It cites that since 1969 there have been 665 reports of serious side effects including 93 deaths.
Let’s see, that works out to be about 18 serious side effects and 2.5 deaths per year average. On that basis the bureaucrats should already have forbade all tobacco products, penicillin, most over-the-counter pain medicines, automobiles and a mile-long list of other things that may be harmful as well as useful. It makes me wonder if these people are recruited from those without the intelligence and common sense to hold a regular job.
For years I suffered with excruciating, debilitating leg cramps that could strike anywhere, anytime. I understand that the use of quinine for leg cramps was an accidental discovery. I have been taking a single quinine sulfate capsule a day for at least 10 years and I can now count the number of cramps I experience per year on the fingers of one hand. And, no side effects.
If the FDA was banning quinine while leaving other equally effective drugs, we who have depended on it would have no complaint. I can’t imagine going back to dreading every minute when the next cramp would double me over.
Perhaps there will be a black market supply or maybe I’ll have to make periodic trips to Canada, but somehow I’m going to find it.
Talbot G. Hinze
Mountlake Terrace
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