Why are Anti-Smoking Groups Recommending a Smoking Cessation Drug That Has Been Linked to Hundreds of Sudden Deaths?
Numerous health and anti-smoking groups continue to recommend the use of a smoking cessation drug, despite the fact that this drug has been linked with hundreds of sudden deaths.The drug is Chantix, and the sudden deaths were suicides.The Vancouver Sun revealed this Saturday that in Canada over the past seven years, Chantix has been linked to 30 suicides, 44 deaths, and more than 1,300 episodes of suicidal ideation or suicide attempts, depression, and aggressive behavior.According to the article: "Numbers on the deaths and other side-effects come from a Health Canada database where doctors, pharmacists and drug companies ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - January 12, 2015 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, October 16, 2014
From MedPage Today:
Pfizer, FDA Square Off on Chantix Psych Risk. The maker of the popular stop-smoking drug varenicline (Chantix), Pfizer, says new data indicate the risk of suicidality and other serious psychiatric events is not as great as once thought, and has applied to the FDA to remove a boxed warning on those risks.
Major Advance for Diabetes Stem Cell Therapy? Last month, two papers reported successful transformation of human stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells that worked when they were implanted into diabetic mice.
Post-MI Prognosis Worse With IBD. Patients with active inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 16, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: MedPage Today Tags: News Cancer Diabetes Endocrinology Heart Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
Many Anti-Smoking Advocates Actually Do Not Want Smokers to Quit Smoking Using E-Cigarettes
One lesson that has become apparent in the past few months is that for many anti-smoking advocates and groups, it doesn't matter whether you quit, the only thing that is important is how you quit. According to the thinking of these groups, there is a right way to quit and a wrong way to quit. Forget about the fact that you've just quit smoking and possibly saved your life. If you quit the wrong way, you are to be scorned.And what are the right and wrong ways to quit? The wrong way to quit is using electronic cigarettes, which have been so effective in reducing cigarette consumption that some tobacco analysts have predicted...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - July 31, 2014 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
Drugs and Disease: A Look Forward
First published 2/18/2014. Former National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) director Alan Leshner has been vilified by many for referring to addiction as a chronic, relapsing “brain disease.” What often goes unmentioned is Leshner’s far more interesting characterization of addiction as the “quintessential biobehavioral disorder.”Multifactorial illnesses present special challenges to our way of thinking about disease. Addiction and other biopsychosocial disorders often show symptoms at odds with disease, as people generally understand it. For patients and medical professionals alike, questions about the disease aspe...
Source: Addiction Inbox - July 20, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: Dirk Hanson Source Type: blogs
Pfizer Publicly Undermines and Refutes Black Box Warning for Chantix; Should Face Penalties or Removal of Drug from Market
The black box warning for Chantix, which is required by the FDA to be placed on this smoking cessation drug made by Pfizer, notes the following:"All patients being treated with CHANTIX should be observed for neuropsychiatric symptoms including changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, and suicide-related events, including ideation, behavior, and attempted suicide. These symptoms, as well as worsening of pre-existing psychiatric illness and completed suicide, have been reported in some patients attempting to quit smoking while taking CHANTIX in the postmarketing experience. ... Advise patients and c...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 2, 2014 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
Another Tobacco Control Practitioner Tells Public that Smoking May Be No More Harmful than Vaping
Adding to the long list of tobacco control practitioners who have publicly declared that smoking may be no more harmful than vaping - which involves no tobacco and no combustion - a South Carolina respiratory therapist is telling patients that they should not quit smoking using electronic cigarettes because these devices may be more dangerous than tobacco cigarettes, which kills more than 400,000 Americans each year.On the Greenville Health System blog, a respiratory therapist writes: "I strongly oppose the use of e-cigarettes. It is unregulated and could potentially be more dangerous than a regular cigarette."This respira...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - March 24, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs
Helen Friday…
I was going to quit smoking today. I had my mind resolute and made up. I was going to quit smoking and use those hundreds and hundreds of dollars just being burned up on affording me more computer parts. I ran by Fred’s Dollar Store and bought lots of Jolly Rancher hard candies and lots of chewing gum. I was just talking to my father about it over the phone as my mother had told him my plans. He strongly urged me to try later. “We need to plan this carefully,” he told me. “We will get some Chantix or possibly wean you off over time.” The last time I quit smoking I got mentally off in a ve...
Source: The 4th Avenue Blues - March 21, 2014 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Andrew Quixote Source Type: blogs
Addicts and Disease
Commentary.Former National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) director Alan Leshner has been vilified by many for referring to addiction as a chronic, relapsing “brain disease.” What often goes unmentioned is Leshner’s far more interesting characterization of addiction as the “quintessential biobehavioral disorder.”Multifactorial illnesses present special challenges to our way of thinking about disease. Addiction and other biopsychosocial disorders often show symptoms at odds with disease, as people generally understand it. For patients and medical professionals alike, questions about the disease aspect of addiction ...
Source: Addiction Inbox - February 18, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: Dirk Hanson Source Type: blogs
Acamprosate For Alcohol: Why the Research Might Be Wrong
Calcium may be curbing the urge to drink. “Occasionally,” reads the opening sentence of a commentary published online last month in Neuropsychopharmacology, “a paper comes along that fundamentally challenges what we thought we knew about a drug mechanism.” The drug in question is acamprosate, and the mechanism of action under scrutiny is the drug’s ability to promote abstinence in alcoholics. The author of the unusual commentary is Markus Heilig, Chief of the Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Studies at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).Acamprosate, in use worldwide and current...
Source: Addiction Inbox - February 17, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: Dirk Hanson Source Type: blogs
Give and Take Medicine (Good Doctor and Nurse Humor).
Being a great doctor or nurse means learning how to give and take. Healthcare professionals are not dictators and patients are not entitled to whatever they read on the internet. Nursing and doctoring are an art of skillful negotiation with patients and their families. As professionals, doctors and nurses have an obligation to seek out the care plan that is in the best interests of their patients. The Happy Hospitalists wants all patients to know that your doctor and nurse are there for you. They are ALWAYS thinking about how to make you the most satisfied patient. They have to because ...
Source: The Happy Hospitalist - January 26, 2014 Category: Internists and Doctors of Medicine Authors: Tamer Mahrous Source Type: blogs
CDC is Intentionally Hiding Conflicts of Interest of Surgeon General's Report Authors
Earlier this week, I revealed that the 2014 Surgeon General's report fails to disclose the conflicts of interest of its authors, many of whom have received money from pharmaceutical companies which manufacture the very products about which the report opines. I also explained how this is particularly problematic, since the report itself complains about how historically, tobacco-funded scientists failed to disclose their conflicts of interest. I concluded that the 2014 Surgeon General's report is violating the very ethical principles that it attacks the tobacco company for violating in the past, and I note that while ther...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - January 23, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs
Smoking cessation therapy
Which of the following can be used for aiding smoking cessation:
a) Bupropion
b) Nicotine
c) Varenicline
d) All of the above
Correct answer: d) All of the above
Nicotine replacement therapy can be used in various ways like nicotine gum, patches, lozenges, inhaler, and nasal spray. In fact nicotine replacement therapies have been given ‘over-the-counter’ access. But bupropion and varenicline are prescription drugs used in smoking cessation programs. (Source: Cardiophile MD)
Source: Cardiophile MD - January 10, 2014 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: Cardiology MCQ DM / DNB Cardiology Entrance Source Type: blogs
World Health Organization's Medical Advice to Smokers Who Failed to Quit Using Drugs: Public Health Malpractice
Last July, the World Health Organization publicly issued medical advice to smokers wishing to quit: do not use electronic cigarettes.This remains the current medical advice from the World Health Organization regarding the use of e-cigarettes. The World Health Organization's statement reads as follows:"There are no scientifically proven instructions for using ENDS as replacements or to quit smoking. The implied health benefits associated with these claims are unsubstantiated or may be based on inaccurate or misleading information. When ENDS are used as cessations aids, they are intended to deliver nicotine directly to ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - December 12, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs
Pharmalot... Pharmalittle... Good Morning
Hello, everyone, and welcome back from what was a long weekend on this side of the pond. We hope you had a swell time and feel relaxed because, as you know, that ovewhelming routine of meetings and deadlines has now returned. Sobering, is it not? But as you know, one way to fortify yourself is to quaffe a trusty cup of stimulation. So please join us as we indulge. Meanwhile, here are some tidbits to get you going. Have a grand day and stay in touch...
Shire Strikes Deal With Sandoz To Supply Generical Adderall XR (Reuters)
Takeda Taps Glaxo Exec As CEO Candidate (Pharma Times)
Merck To Close Plant In Ireland And Cut 570 Jo...
Source: Pharmalot - December 2, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
Chantix Does Not Increase Depression Risk? A Pfizer Study Says Yes
Faced with declining sales of its controversial Chantix quit-smoking pill, Pfizer has undertaken various educational and promotional efforts to revive its fortunes. And as part of the plan, the drugmaker funded a study that found people with a history of depression were no more likely to become depressed or have suicidal thoughts than those given a placebo.
The study was designed to determine whether Chantix would help people who had been treated for depression quit smoking without worsening their depression and those findings were positive. Among those on Chantix, 35 percent did not smoke, compared with 15 percent of thos...
Source: Pharmalot - September 18, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
