One billion doses of fluoroquinolone (FQ) antibiotics have been administered since 1987. In 1998, the German Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency received “a few” suicide reports that occurred shortly after FQ initiation [1]. In 2014, the Southern Network on Adverse Reactions (SONAR), a National Institutes of Health (NIH) pharmacovigilance program, identified long-term FQ-associated neuropsychiatric toxicities using 21st century pharmacovigilance methods. Using these methods, we evaluated media descriptions of suicidal ideation/events occurring within days of initiating FQs.
