Girl of 15 ‘killed herself while on acne drug linked to suicides’
‘Something like a wave came over her’
A ‘HAPPY’ schoolgirl killed herself nine months after being prescribed an acne drug linked to suicide in teenagers, an inquest heard yesterday.
Annabel Wright, 15, suffered with spots from the age of 12 but was ‘not bothered’ by it, her parents said.
The outgoing teenager had a good circle of friends and was doing well at school. However, she was found hanged in her bedroom on May 1, 2019.
Helen Wright and her businessman husband, Simon, told an inquest they went on to discover that the drug Roaccutane had been linked to ‘sudden suicidal ideation’ in patients around the world.
Mr Wright, 56, said: ‘Annabel was an outward-going, happy person. It took us some time looking into this and speaking to people who have experienced it to realise there is a link to a sudden suicidal ideation that brings with it an overwhelming impulse.’
Mrs Wright, 50, told a coroner in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, ‘normal, happy people don’t just commit suicide without any sign or any lead up to it’. ‘Something came over her like a wave and made her do it, I am sure of it,’ she said.
The court heard Annabel was put on Roaccutane in 2018 by dermatologist Dr Ibtessam El-Mansori at Harrogate District Hospital, after antibiotics from her GP failed to clear the acne entirely.
Mrs Wright, who had accompanied her daughter to the appointment, told the inquest: ‘I distinctly remember saying I had read about this drug years before and two Americans had taken their own lives. She said that could be because they were depressed about their skin. I believed any risk of suicide was linked to depression about their skin – and Annabel was not depressed about her skin.
‘There was no other treatment suggested or offered.’
Six months later, in January 2019, Mrs Wright was concerned to see ‘scratches’ on her daughter’s wrists. Annabel confessed to cutting herself with a razor blade just moments after chatting happily to her friends on the phone.
‘She said she just felt low,’ her mother added. ‘She could not explain why.’
On May 1, Dr El-Mansori told Annabel the treatment had been so successful her dosage could be reduced, the inquest heard. That evening she was found hanged in the family home in Ripon, North Yorkshire. The first boxes of Roaccutane Annabel received did not have patient information slips inside, Mrs Wright said. She later read the information which warned that in one in 10,000 cases the drug could lead to people thinking of ‘hurting themselves or ending their own lives’.
Rory Badenoch, representing the family, questioned whether Annabel should have been prescribed the drug. He challenged Dr El-Mansori over whether alternatives could have been used, such as increasing the dose of the antibiotic Annabel had been taking or hormone treatment.
But Dr El-Mansori said Annabel had skin lesions and scarring, which she wanted to prevent.
She said: ‘She was at risk of permanent scarring. I did not force anything on them. I just gave them options. I assessed her carefully in accordance with the guidelines. She was not dictated any treatment. It was a plan.’
Professor Tony Chu, a dermatologist at Imperial College, London, who investigated Annabel’s treatment after her death, said she should not have been given Roaccutane in the first place as her acne was not severe enough.
He also said more discussion could have taken place with Mrs Wright about the possibility of suicide in ‘normal’ patients, not simply patients depressed because of their bad skin.
Coroner Jonathan Leach said that in the months she used it, the drug had been successful in clearing up Annabel’s acne. Prof Chu replied: ‘Yes, but at what cost?’
Mrs Wright said she was convinced the drug caused her daughter to take her own life. ‘Annabel was the brightest, happiest child,’ she said. ‘I used to joke that she would live to be 120 because nothing ever bothered her.’
A post-mortem examination found Annabel had no drugs or alcohol in her body at the time of her death. Nor did she leave a suicide note. The hearing, expected to last three days, continues.