Tamiflu, produced by Swiss health-care group Roche and imported to the nation by the group's Japan unit, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. KYODO PHOTO

The police received a call around 1:20 a.m. from his mother that the boy had fallen.

The teen had severe head injuries and was transported to a hospital where he died shortly after.

The police are investigating a possible link between the drug and his fall. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said it is not clear if a causal link can be established between the boy's action and the drug, despite reports of similar abnormal actions including jumps to death from buildings by those who took Tamiflu in Japan.

The government is building a stockpile of the drug, known generically as oseltamivir phosphate, as part of its efforts to step up preparedness against an epidemic of a new form of influenza.

No suicide note was found and his family told the police there was no reason for them to think he would commit suicide.

After he was diagnosed as having the flu on the morning of Feb. 26 and taking two Tamiflu pills that day, the teen was sleeping in the same room as his mother until he suddenly woke up and went out of the condominium unit, climbed over the 1.26-meter wall of the corridor and fell to a parking lot on the ground.

On Feb. 24, a group of people calling themselves "victims" of Tamiflu-induced brain symptoms asked the health ministry to acknowledge a link between the drug and abnormal acts by those who took it, and issue warnings.

The Japan Times Weekly: March 3, 2007
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