A U.K. coroner has ruled that an anti-malarial drug taken by a Cambridge University student led to the "psychotic reaction" which caused her to jump from a plane in Madagascar last year. Alana Cutland, 19, was a natural sciences student at Cambridge University's Robinson College who had taken doxycycline, a tetracycline antibiotic used to prevent malaria, while staying in a remote lodge in Madagascar in July, 2019. She had been part of a conservation project studying crabs, and, according to the manager at the lodge where she had been staying, began showing health problems soon after her arrival.
This included developing a series of "paranoia attacks" that began after she took the medication. As a result of these attacks, she became fearful that she would be arrested if she failed to complete her research. She also began refusing meals and was often seen "staring into space". As a result of her health issues, she was forced to cut her participation in the project short.
On July 25, 2019, she boarded a Cessna C168 aircraft to travel to Antananarivo, Madagascar accompanied by a fellow volunteer, Ruth Johnson, and the pilot. After ten minutes of flight, she undid her seatbelt and attempted to exit the plane by unfastening the door (the plane was at 1130 meters above sea level at the time). Though Ruth Johnson attempted to restrain her, Alana Cutland managed to get free before falling to her death. In the inquest which ended recently, Milton Keynes coroner Tom Osbourne told government regulators that there was a "direct link between doxycycline and Alana's death".
It was quite apparent from the evidence that she had a psychotic reaction as a result of taking the drug and yet there is nothing on the drug information leaflet that either highlights or mentions this possibility," Osbourne says in a letter to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. He also maintains that the death might have been avoidable if Alana or her parents had been aware of the possible side effects associated with the drug. Alana's parents described her as a a "a bright, independent young woman, who was loved and admired by all those that knew her" and were devastated by the circumstances of her death.
While many of the side effects associated with doxycycline use are well-documented, it has also been associated with psychiatric side effects, primarily anxiety, though confusion, depression, and hallucinations have also been reported. The UK medicines regulator has announced a review of the suspected association between the drug and psychotic reactions which is still ongoing.
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