If it wasn’t difficult enough to stop smoking Pfizer says it will update its warning about Chantix to include the
possibility that you might hurt yourself or others.
The drug reportedly helps smokers quit faster by keeping nicotine from reaching key receptors in the brain, Pfizer says in the ads featuring a hare and a turtle. The ads do not mention Chantix by name.
On Friday, January 18, 2008, the Chantix Web site was a little less cute. Chantix side effects include nausea (30%) trouble sleeping, gas and constipation, vivid, unusual or increased dreaming and/or vomiting.
And you are suppose to tell your doctor if you feel any change in mood, behavior, agitation, depression “or have thought about or have tried to hurt yourself while trying to quit smoking with CHANTIX.”
“A casual relationship between Chantix and these reported symptoms has not been established. In some reports, however, an association could not be excluded,” the company said.
The U.S. label will ask doctors to monitor for these behaviors.
The drug maker will not reveal how many people report these symptoms other than to say it’s “not very common,” but the seriousness of some events have prompted the label change.
Concerns about Chantix drew national attention last year when Dallas musician, 34 year-old Carter Albrecht began acting irrationally and banging on a neighbor’s door. The neighbor, thinking he was an intruder, shot and killed Albrecht.
His mother Judy says, “He was pretty excited about not smoking. The only connection with the out of character behavior was that he was taking Chantix.”
While the medical examiner found Albrecht was also intoxicated at the time of his death, he did not find Chantix in Albrecht’s blood stream. That’s because the medical examiner says there is no way to test for it.
Dr. Jeffrey Barnard, Chief Medical Examiner in Dallas County, wrote, "The drug Chantix is not listed in the report because no test exists in our laboratory." He also stated that he was "unable to find any lab which does this testing beyond the manufacturer."
Dr. Barnard says Pfizer declined to conduct the test.
Carter Albrecht’s father, Ken believes his son might be alive today if he hadn't taken Chantix. "I know that he had taken it, because here's the box for the first week and all the pills are gone," he tells CBS 11 News in Dallas.
After the Albrecht death, the FDA said it was reviewing the safety of Chantix.
The drug is used by more than five million patients. Pfizer reports sales of $603 million through the third quarter of 2007. Chantix was approved in May 2006.
Shares of the New York City-based prescription medicine company closed Thursday at $22.96. #