Panel urges new flu drug warnings

Roche Holding’s Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza, the two most common drugs to treat the flu, should carry revised warnings about psychiatric side effects, especially in children, a U.S. panel said.

Outside advisors to the Food and Drug Administration said prescribing information for the medicines didn’t adequately explain the delirium, hallucinations and psychotic behavior reported by hundreds of patients in Japan and the U.S.

Patients and doctors should be told that the risks are rare and that the flu, or a combination of the virus and medicine, may be to blame, panel members said.