Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration warned of newly discovered cardiovascular risks associated with Pfizer’s popular smoking-cessation drug Chantix. But it turns out those risks, which include higher occurrence of heart attack and other adverse cardiovascular events in Chantix users with heart disease, pale in comparison to the findings of a larger study that found many of the same risks exist in Chantix patients with no heart disease.

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For many smokers trying to kick their addiction, the latest news about the dangers of Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix presents as a damned if you do, damned if you don’t dilemma. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an alert yesterday, warning that use of the popular drug could lead to increased risk of heart attack and other adverse cardiovascular events.

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A senior scientist working for the non-profit Institute for Safe Medicine Practices has discovered that Chantix is a much more dangerous drug than has been officially acknowledged after finding hundreds of serious adverse reactions were reported to the FDA by manufacturer Pfizer Inc. through improper channels.

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WhyQuit, an organization that advocates quitting smoking using the cold turkey method, recently published an article that takes Pfizer to task over its latest Chantix ads. The group claims that the pharmaceutical company’s new television commercials hide information from the viewer – information that, if known, would likely dissuade most smokers from using the drug as a smoking cessation aid.

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Chantix made an appearance in last week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) when one contributor wrote that the Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged receiving nearly 100 reports of suicide and nearly 200 reports of attempted suicide likely linked to the use of Chantix. Additionally, the FDA also said it is compliling reports of Chantix patients being involved in traffic accidents.

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The family of musician Carter Albrecht has filed a lawsuit in a Dallas federal court against Chantix manufacturer Pfizer Inc. Ken and Judy Albrecht allege that the drug manufacturer is responsible for the musician’s death in 2007 because it marketed Chantix, which Carter had been taking at the time of his death, while knowing it to be unsafe.

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The Food and Drug Administration has approved the new labeling for Chantix packaging. In July, we reported that the agency said it would require stronger warnings on all Chantix labeling, as well as packaging for other smoking cessation drugs Wellbutrin and Zyban (bupropion hydrochloride). All of the drugs have been linked to serious behavioral changes and other symptoms.

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I have that “born late” feeling. I quit smoking before I had a chance to “smoke” electronic cigarettes, the latest and most overtly sci-fi smoking cessation tool to come along in my lifetime. My first attempt to quit smoking was in 1989, 4 years after I started smoking, when my college roommate yanked a brand-new pack of smokes out of my hand and chucked them to the middle of a retaining pond near our New Mexico State dorm. I had given Keith my permission to do that or something like it “if you ever catch me with a pack of cigarettes again,” which was about seven hours earlier that same day.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that it will require drug manufacturers to put boxed warnings on the product labeling for Chantix (varenicline) and Zyban (bupropion hydrochloride, otherwise called Wellbutrin when prescribed as an antidepressant). Both Chantix and Zyban, commonly prescribed to patients as smoking cessation aids, have been linked to serious behavioral changes and other symptoms. Agitation, hostility, depression, and suicidal thoughts and actions are possible side effects that users should be keenly aware of, the FDA warns.

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“It’s my mind-set this time,” Eric Wolbert told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “This time I’m going into it celebrating that I’m quitting rather than worrying about not being able to and how hard it was.”

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