Suicide Warning on Chantix Box to Stay, Says FDA
Suicide Warning on Chantix Box to Stay, Says FDA – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also added a new warning about Chantix’s potential interaction with alcohol.
Chantix is a prescription medicine from Pfizer that helps treat addiction to cigarette smoking and helps smokers quit. After reports about suicidal tendencies and bizarre and aggressive behavior from patients who drank alcohol while on Chantix, in 2009, the FDA added warnings about suicidal thoughts on the labeling for Chantix.
The FDA recently reviewed Pfizer’s new research which suggests that the drug does not increase these problems; it asserts that there is no difference in psychiatric problems between people taking Chantix and other stop-smoking treatments, and hence the suicide warning should be removed from the labeling. But FDA thinks otherwise. According to FDA officials, the research does not include all types of psychiatric problems and has other limitations. Therefore, the suicide warning on Chantix should stay.
The FDA also added a new warning about the drug’s interaction with alcohol, and advises doctors to weigh the risks of Chantix versus its benefits before prescribing them to patients.
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