Anti smoking drug may increase suicide risk, study says again and again

These reports started to come out in 2008 but as you can see from this report from CNN, they haven't done anything about it.

Anti smoking drug may increase suicide risk, study says
November 3rd, 2011
The popular quit-smoking drug Chantix may increase the risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts in some patients, says a new report.

Researchers looked at more than 3,000 reports of "neuropsychiatric adverse events" - unexpected problems that result in risk or harm to the patient -relating to smoking cessation drugs, and found that more than 90% of the reports were associated with Chantix use.

"We compared people who took nicotine replacement therapy, Zyban and Chantix," said Dr. Curt Furberg, a study author, and professor of public health sciences at Wake Forrest Baptist Medical Center. "There was an increase in suicides even with nicotine replacement therapies, but Chantix was 8-10 times worse."

But the findings were in stark contrast to a report released just last week by the Food and Drug Administration, which claimed no difference in suicide risk between the three therapies. Furberg says the FDA's report was woefully underpowered.

[The FDA report] looked at hospitalized events," he said. "82% of all serious adverse events do not lead to hospitalization, so that means they missed 82% of all of the serious adverse events."
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ANTHONY J. PRINCIPI DEFENDS HIMSELF
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Anti-smoking drug study investigated
Audrey Hudson (Contact)
Sunday, July 20, 2008

Officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs are preparing to determine who was at fault for failing to quickly notify participants in a smoking-cessation study about the potentially dangerous side effects of a drug they were prescribed and whether the study will be ended.

Dr. Tom Puglisi, chief officer of the VA's Office of Research Oversight, says he has several concerns that veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were prescribed the smoking-cessation drug Chantix without receiving timely written information or warnings about its possible side effects, which can include psychosis and suicidal behavior.
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A few more links showing this has been an ongoing problem that has still not been corrected.
VA $30 lab rats and Chantix Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Anti-addiction drugs linked to depression Thursday, April 24, 2008