Chantix Causes Traffic Accident, Passengers Almost Die

Troubling news just keeps rolling on Chantix, the stop smoking drug, which was last week banned for use by pilots and air traffic controllers by the FAA and was also banned for use by commercial bus and trucks drivers due to the recent warnings about erratic behavior caused by this drug.

Now, the Los Angeles Times reports about a Louisiana man who, two days after starting the drug, had his eyes roll back in his head while he was driving his truck with a woman. Then he steered the truck right into a bayou and the pair likely came close to losing their lives.

The LAT also reports that there were some very quiet advisories issued to docs by Pfizer last summer about problems with the drug. Apparently, plenty of docs either didn't read the warnings or blew them off as a trivial "it'll never happen in my practice" thing. Even the FDA thinks that's a problem:

"But such admonitions apparently didn't get much notice from busy doctors. Even some government transportation agencies missed them.

"The Federal Aviation Administration continued, until last week, to list the drug as approved for pilots. The federal truck safety agency was also unaware of the risk.

"'That is a problem,' said Janet Woodcock, head of the FDA's drug evaluation center, adding that her office needs to find ways to communicate safety information more effectively."

Do you think?

Meanwhile, the blog Fat Jewish Guy reports that Chantix has been making him utterly nutso after three days on the drug:

"OK, so today was a little better.

"Yes, my skin was crawling, but at least there were no violent thoughts.

"I’m lying.

"When I was on the phone with Pfizer, I definitely wanted to kill the snarky guy on the phone with me."

How strange that a drug being pressed upon patients by doctors to address a public health problem is turning into a public health health problem. Where have we heard of this before? SSRIs anyone?