“We’ve had a major breakdown in safety surveillance,” said Thomas J. Moore, the ISMP senior scientist who analyzed the data. The serious problems — including reports of completed suicides, suicide attempts, aggression and hostility and depression — had been mixed among some 26,000 records of non-serious side effects such as nausea and rashes, with some dating back to 2006, the year Chantix, or varenicline, was approved.
They echo previous claims that the drug can induce extreme reactions in people trying to quit cigarettes, including vivid nightmares, crippling depression and sudden, violent outbursts.
“It’s really chilling,” said Moore, who analyzed 26 Chantix reactions in a paper published in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Pharmacotherapy. "This seems to unleash something in people. It can be violence to anything around."
Moore's case studies describe "inexplicable and unprovoked" reactions in Chantix patients with no previous history of violence or mental illness, including:
- A 24-year-old woman who started beating her boyfriend in bed because "he looked so peaceful" and later attempted suicide;
- A 42-year-old man who punched a stranger at a bowling alley;
- A 47-year-old woman who died after she came out of a room, yelled at her daughters and then shot herself.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Scores of Chantix suicides overlooked - msnbc.com
via msnbc.msn.com
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