FDA: Anti-smoking drug Chantix linked to more than 500 suicides

[n2doc]

Tina Hurst was living what she considered a perfect life in her quiet neighborhood in suburban Chicago. She was happily married, the mother of two teenage girls and an executive at an insurance company.

Hurst also had a secret. She was a closet smoker, an on-again, off-again, pack-a-day habit she’d hidden from her family.

“I would quit for a couple of months and then I would start back again, so it was one of those periods where my family thought I was still not smoking, and I had started again,” Hurst said.

Hurst called her doctor, who suggested a prescription drug called Chantix, which is designed to help smokers quit by curbing the desire to light up. Hurst thought she’d found an easy fix. Wiithin a week, she quit smoking.

“I thought it was a miracle drug, you know?” she said.

As Hurst continued taking the drug as prescribed, her well-ordered life started coming unhinged and she began acting erratically. After her husband convinced her to throw the pills away, Hurst said she went over the edge.


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http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2013/11/21/fda-anti-smokingdrugchantixlinkedtomorethan500suicides.html

[Alan Selk]

1. So it goes

Not only is Chantix associated with suicides but an increase in heart events.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-12/pfizer-s-chantix-produced-more-heart-concerns-fda-says.html

It now carries a black box warning and is considered one of the more risky drugs on the market.

In the meantime Chantix is still being pushed with aggressive advertising and doctors are handing it out like candy. The same pharmaceutical front groups as in the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, etc that push ineffective pills and potions (nicotine gum and patches that have less then a 5% success rate after 20 months) are still lying about the risk of smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes which have about 1% of the risk of inhaling smoke.

So it goes in the land of corrupt tobacco control.

[Hestia]

2. Talking to a friend who works for the State Health Dept. said their SOS gave out Chantix to

every person who came in the door (yes, major donation from Pfiser) but every adult who used it came up with major health problems, so the Health Dept. pulled the Chantix and no longer gives it out at all. I think they give out Welbutrin (sp?) now, along with patches, gum and lozenges.

Chantix affected my kidneys.