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10 Sep 2010
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Media+DoctorAustralia"Anti-addiction pill Champix in suicide alert"
Source: Daily TelegraphPublished: 22 May 2008Category: Adverse Effects
Rating:
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(4 stars)
| Criteria | Rating |
| Total Score | 5 of 7 |
| Benefit to harm ratio | Not Satisfactory (?) |
| Novelty of harm | Satisfactory (?) |
| Evidence | Satisfactory (?) |
| Quantification of harms | Satisfactory (?) |
| Number of people affected by harm | Satisfactory (?) |
| Stratification of patients with regard to harm. | Not Applicable |
| Sources of information | Satisfactory (?) |
| Treatment options | Not Satisfactory (?) |
| Relies on Press Release | Not Applicable |
what we said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)
It is quite difficult to rate stories like this, which are based only on voluntary adverse reaction reports. When a drug is very widely used even low rates of adverse reactions will translate into quite a large number of events; adverse events in people using new drugs tend to be reported selectively, compared with older drugs, so the medicine may appear worse than it really is. Having said that, the reports here are quite worrying. But conceivably some of these occurrences may be chance associations - things that were going to happen to these people, even if they were not taking the medication. Despite these limitations, this story rates well, with strong independent opinion, and it deals with some of the limitations of the research. The story would have been enhanced by a comment on the need for a proper controlled study comparing adverse effects with the medication with established nicotine replacement therapy and also by presentation of evidence on how effective the drug actually is in achieving smoking cessation.
public forum
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(27 Jun 2009) Yvonne Aslett writes,
"My 44 year old son committed suicide on June 2nd. He had been taking champix for 7 weeks. There must be some medical organisation compiling statistics about this problem. This product must be banned. Media Doctor response,
"Dear Yvonne |
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