Dangerous Quit Drugs
Anti-vaping advocates repeat the ‘potential’ dangers of electronic cigarettes, but how does this contrast with their support of quit-smoking drugs linked to so many admissions to hospitals?
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by Dave Cross
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One day later The West Australian newspaper carried a story about the suicide of Daniel Patterson and stated that the “medication marketed as Champix that has been linked to 25 suicides in Australia in the seven years to 2014 and another 286 reports of people attempting to take their own lives or having suicidal thoughts.”
The Sun’s story attributes 64 hospitalisations over the last twelve months, including 22 cases admitted to critical care, directly to the drug. This is not the story put out in advice to doctors where the potential for flatulence is seen as a bigger threat.
The Canadian Ministry of Health failed to provide any information regarding the numbers of patients currently receiving Varenicline although in Australia it is estimated that it has been prescribed more than 2.4 million times between 2008 and 2013.
"I believe Daniel would be alive today had he not been taking Champix," Giselle Slater said.
The spotlight is also focussing on another quit drug, Bupropion, marketed under the brand names Wellbutrin and Zyban. “We’re on edge about this medication and we want doctors and the public to be aware of our concerns. It has the propensity to cause serious, toxic effects. And I don’t think there is awareness about how big the risks are,” said Dr. Roy Purssell, an emergency room physician who is also medical head of the Canadian drug and poison centre.
“Those harmed by the drug included 11 older children and adolescents, nine of whom were suicide attempts, and three children under the age of five who were accidentally exposed,” said Li, a pharmacist with the Drug and Poison Information Centre.
This stands in stark contrast to the numbers not presenting themselves to hospital in relation to electronic cigarettes – and poses the question, why aren’t anti-nicotine campaigners concerned about these children?
Looking closer to home, in research carried out by Professor Robert West in 2008, he wrote that 2.1% of those who had smoked in the past year reported that they had used varenicline in a quit attempt during that time. This equates to approximately 200,000 smokers in England using Varenicline in a quit attempt in the past 12 months. It is a study that is very favourable towards the drug that earned Pfizer $883million in its first year of sales.
But the BBC was reporting over 3,000 adverse reactions to it, including suicide and suicide attempts, all the way back in 2008. Pfizer have tried to place the blame at the foot of pre-existing mental health problems: “Stopping smoking, with or without treatment, is associated with nicotine withdrawal symptoms and the exacerbation of underlying psychiatric illness.”
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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