Need an oil spill lawyer? We will fight for you!
› $4.85 Billion settlement in drug case
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.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration released a list of about 20 pharmaceutical drugs that the agency’s researchers are closely monitoring for potential safety concerns. Not surprisingly, Chantix (Varenicline) claimed a spot on the list. According to the FDA, the drug is being watched to determine whether it causes or contributes to angiodema (rapid and potentially life-threatening swelling of skin and tissue), other serious skin reactions, visual impairment, and accidental injury.
CNN reports that Pfizer is thinking about launching a clinical test to determine if Chantix can help prevent smokers from having heart attacks. Considering all the negative publicity that has surrounded the drug over the last one and a half years, it’s understandable that Pfizer would want to invest a good deal of time and money in finding some benefit … even if they locate just one slightly dubious side effect, such as a reduced risk of heart attack in people who have quit smoking.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently published a comprehensive report that exposes a very questionable relationship between the University of Wisconsin-Madison college of medicine and the drug industry. Using the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an example, the report describes how pharmaceutical companies have infiltrated the nation’s universities by funding physician education courses. Critics argue that the arrangement is unethical; when a college accepts hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in funds for such classes, the patrons expect something back. So what might appear superficially as a philanthropic gesture is actually an arrangement with lots of strings attached — an arrangement, critics say, that amounts to huge conflicts of interest.
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.
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.
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.
Smoking cessation today isn’t as simple as it used to be. Years ago, smokers had a couple of choices: cold turkey or hypnotherapy. Then, as awareness about the dangers of smoking grew, thanks to efforts by the government and independent health groups, so too did the number of smoking cessation aids. First came prescription-only nicotine gum, which was quickly succeeded by a procession-soon-to-be-explosion of over-the-counter therapeutic nicotine — gum, patches, lozenges. In 1997, the FDA approved bupropion (a.k.a. Zyban/Wellbutrin) for use in smoking cessation. Meanwhile, all sorts of gadgets and gimmicks flooded the market. And then came Chantix.
![[ Beasley Allen Law Firm Logo ]](http://www.chantix-legal.com/wp-content/themes/system-unity/images/logo.png){kind=logo}