Pfizer Falsifies Data for Suicide-Linked Anti-Smoking Drug, Gets Away with Murder

A risky psychotropic drug known as varenicline is used as a smoking cessation drug by Pfizer and sold as Chantix in the USA and Champix internationally. It has left a trail of dead bodies, literally. How? Often in the form of suicide, and sometimes homicide.

Approved by the FDA in May 2006, Pfizer’s patent for Chantix/Champix has stirred up over a billion dollars in annual sales. Unfortunately, its effectiveness was highly exaggerated by flawed study results. Even worse, many extreme adverse reports were camouflaged by obscuring minor side effects with more serious ones, which include suicidal and homicidal thinking and behavior.

Hiding Stats to Appear Less Dangerous

It wasn’t until the non-profit organization Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) discovered and tracked the camouflaged serious adverse effect reports that a truer picture emerged.

After analyzing the data, ISMP scientist Thomas Moore noted that there was a major breakdown in safety surveillance. Serious adverse effects were camouflaged by mixing them in with the usual minor adverse reports of nausea, constipation, and rashes.

Those hidden adverse effects were serious enough for some to commit suicide or violently attack others. There were almost 600 similar events buried among the 26,000 less serious adverse reports since 2006. Once the buried reports were isolated, the total suicide count went from 122 to 272.

Moore also commented in the issue of Journal of Pharmacotherapy on how Chantix/Champix (varenicline) tends to unleash something in people that can cause sudden violent reactions at anytime toward self or others.

There were also several reported injuries from accidents, mostly automobile, which occurred during periods of fogginess or dizziness. Many others experienced deeper depressions than usual while taking Pfizer’s Chantix.

The side effects listed in the consumer’s box are far fewer and less serious than the information distributed to prescribing doctors (black box) in 2009, three years after FDA approval. Only five relatively minor side effects were listed on the drug’s package for consumers, but there are actually 160. Click the link and scroll down the page to see the whole list.

One section of the doctors’ list of side effects warns of “Serious Neuropsychiatric Events”, with the caveat that doctors should inform patients to report to them if they are experiencing extreme depression or thinking of suicide or murder.

There have been over 1500 injury cases against Pfizer’s malfeasance in Federal Court, including a suit from the parents of a murder/suicide married couple, all made possible from ISMPs due diligence and discovery.

Here is just one man’s experience with Chantix.

But It’s All Okay with the FDA

The FDA admitted off the record that Pfizer`s smoking cessation drug’s side effects are worse than expected compared to Pfizer`s original trial study reports. And in 2012 after millions of USA smokers were prescribed Chantix, the FDA had Pfizer do a cardiovascular risk study on Chantix users.

It was determined that Chantix users had higher risks of non-lethal heart attacks and strokes. The FDA simply added those potential side effects and stood on its original approval.

Bottom line: Big Pharma pays the FDA fees for their approvals. Sincere healers who discover unique remedies, a single death allegedly from an often-used herb, and dairy farmers who provide raw milk don’t pay for approvals, so they get raided, taken off the market, and busted while FDA’s Big Pharma clients just keep selling.

That’s why it’s called the Medical Mafia.