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Chantix has to be one of the most bipolar prescription drugs ever created. Every day, a search for the latest Chantix news digs up blogs written by fans of the smoking cessation drug, who often tout it as a miracle or a blessing in their struggle to become nonsmokers. Yet other users liken it to a nightmare or a curse, citing wild mood swings, disturbing dreams, and uncharacteristic thoughts of suicide.
In September, we learned that those long Chantix ads featuring the tortoise and the hare were reappearing on TV after Pfizer yanked them from the airwaves for several months. The drug maker pulled the ads when it became evident that a link existed between Chantix, depression, and suicide. Unfortunately, the new ads were even longer than the original by 30 seconds — for a total of 90 seconds — to accommodate all the new warnings.
Researchers conducting long term studies of smoking and cancer are impressed by the latest statistics, which show cancer rates falling among both men and women for the first time since the government started keeping track of long-term trends. The favorable data is especially impressive, given the country’s aging population and considering that the number of new lung cancer cases in both sexes grew by nearly one percent each year from 1995 to 1999.
An investigative report aired by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) tells the stories of two people who became suicidal after taking Chantix (marketed by Pfizer as Champix in Europe and the UK).
Chantix became available in the UK in December of 2006. Since then, nearly 400,000 prescriptions for the drug have been written.
The number of bloggers out there writing about their personal experiences with Chantix and documenting, for the world to see, the musings of a mind tortured by nicotine withdrawal, seems to be proliferating even as prescriptions for the smoking cessation drug decline. Now it appears that a new genre in world of Chantix information has emerged: the Comical Side Effect.
According to The Institute for Safe Medicine Practices (ISMP), the number of drug-related adverse events and deaths reported to the Food and Drug Administration has hit a record level. Numbers pulled from the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) reveal that Heparin and Chantix are largely to blame for the upward swing.
Researchers at the Institute for Safe Medicine Practices, a nonprofit organization, and Wake Forest University say that their latest review of Chantix data justifies stepping up warnings about the drug.
More than 1,000 complications were reported in the first quarter of 2008, including 15 traffic accidents, 52 incidents of loss of consciousness and blackouts, and 50 deaths.
Reports of adverse effects among users taking Chantix were greater than any other prescription drug for the second quarter in a row.
Yesterday I wrote about the non-psychiatric side effects of Chantix and how studies are beginning to reveal how those side effects can adversely affect one’s driving. Loss of consciousness, dizziness, confusion, aggression, and muscle spasms can all happen to a Chantix user who is behind the wheel. I don’t mean to sound alarmist, but I have had enough first-hand experience with Chantix to know these newest warnings are worth emphasizing.
By now we know that Chantix is dangerous for some people who use the drug, but mounting evidence suggests that people who don’t use it may also be harmed. Since Chantix became available for smoking cessation in August of 2006, the FDA has received a steady influx of reports connecting the drug to traffic accidents. Moreover, while the medical community and the media are focused on the negative psychiatric effects that some Chantix users experience, researchers now believe that the non-psychiatric effects may be worse.
Many medical researchers find little surprise that Chantix has been linked to higher than normal rates of depression and suicide. Varenicline (the chemical name of Pfizer’s smoking cessation drug) goes to work directly in the brain by targeting certain receptors and simulating that feeling of having already smoked – that “full” feeling smokers feel after they’ve lit up one or two. Other pharmaceuticals that go to work directly in the brain include antidepressants, some of which have also been linked to behavioral problems and suicide.
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