Patients with complicated skin infections, community-acquired pneumonia, and intra-abdominal infections are often prescribed the antibiotic tigecycline. Most consumers will see it as Tygacil in their medicine cabinet. But new research is finding that some doctors, and most patients, are not aware of tigecycline\u2019s high mortality rates as compared to other antibiotics that could be used to treat the same concerns. Dr. Michael Carome, the deputy director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, estimates that the medicine has a 30 percent higher mortality rate, but the FDA does not have a black box warning at the top of the medicine to warn physicians and patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the increased death rate and the likely inappropriate use of tigecycline as a first-line, rather than last-resort, antibiotic for serious infections without simultaneous administration of other antibiotics, it is inexcusable that there is currently no black box warning for tigecycline,\u201d said Carome.<\/p>\n