Furious Seasons

June 02, 2008

Over 100 Accidents, Convulsions Tied To Chantix

The news just keeps weirder and weirder around Pfizer's stop smoking drug Chantix. This from the WSJ's Health Blog:

"More than 100 traffic or personal accidents, like falling, have been linked to Chantix in a recent study by outside researchers; their figures came from in the FDA’s adverse events database. One hypothesis is that convulsions, blackouts, seizures or spasms could have contributed to such incidents.
"The researchers say the number of convulsions for people taking Chantix is at least 86 since the drug went on the market in 2006. Thomas Moore, one of the study’s authors from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, told the Health Blog in an email that he and his colleagues erred on the side of conservatism in the way they tallied their figures and are confident in that figure."

Convulsions? I think somehow smoking sounds healthier to me. I sure was right when I dubbed this drug another Paxil.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at June 2, 2008 12:40 PM

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Comments

I've been reading the blog archives. Dude, you're talented. One of the best blogs I've read in a long time....

Posted by: DeeDee Ramona at June 2, 2008 01:35 PM

Chantix sure helped me fifteen months ago... i highly recommend...

....Charles

Posted by: Charles Helt at June 2, 2008 02:03 PM

All of these convulsions on Chantix - I am waiting for Pfizer and the docs to diagnose this as "latent epilepsy"!!

Posted by: Rosie C at June 2, 2008 03:59 PM

Good point rosie. They're calling SSRI induced craziness latent bipolar. Or was that in reference to the post about chantix "starting bipolar disorder" in a woman?

Posted by: Mark at June 2, 2008 09:20 PM

Mark - that comment about "latent epilepsy" was in regard to the 2,354 cases on www.SSRIstories.com

Probably one-fourth of these cases involve a person taking an antidepressant, acting crazy or violent on them, and then being diagnosed [instead of depressed] as "bipolar". There is usually a quote from someone who says that this person had "latent bipolar" - didn't know that they weren't just depressed but they were bipolar.

Didn't you ever wonder at this sudden increase in bipolar disorder. I believe the majority of the increase is from the antidepressant side effects.

Posted by: Rosie C at June 3, 2008 07:18 AM