Chantix / Champix – Let the Lawsuits Begin

So why have all the anti-tobacco groups suddenly become anti-nicotine? It’s a sad, simple answer. Money. These groups are running scared of e-cigs. They are lobbying “Public Health” to ban a product that has been shown to have an impressive success rate when tested on smokers who didn’t even want to quit! All over the country, well-meaning but ill-informed public health officials are implementing bans on products that offer smokers a much better success rate.

By hypnotherapist Chris Holmes

At the end of this short post is a link to a report from Bloomberg.com about Pfizer paying off the widow of a Minnesota man who killed himself whilst taking Chantix.  The out-of-court settlement was to prevent the case from going to trial.  According to this report, however, this is only “the first of more than 2,500 Chantix cases pending in federal court in Alabama set for trial”, which makes you wonder a) how many there are in the USA all told, and b) how many there are worldwide.

But that is nothing compared to the number that there should be.  I believe that everyone this drug has caused injury or suffering to should have their day in court, because Pfizer knew that there were safety concerns from 2006 onwards, if not before – and even though they are now starting to pay off victims with a tiny crumb of the enormous profits they have made from this over-hyped, failure of a “wonder drug”, they are still aggressively promoting it everywhere.

Pfizer are still denying any proven link and suggesting that the “benefits” (to them) “outweigh the risks” (to you).

After the report, someone calling themselves “Brewlady” posted this comment, which I entirely agree with so I am reproducing it in full here, and if you follow the link at the end, and scroll down to the end of Bloomberg’s report, you will see the original post there.

Brewlady:

 Smoking is bad for your health, but taking Chantix can be fatal.  Anti-tobacco groups continue to tell smokers to turn to pharmaceutical products to attempt to quit smoking, even though the success rate is dismal, less than 10% at one year.  Which means the smoker is still either buying cigarettes or buying Chantix, the patch, nicotine gum, etc.  Funny that anti-tobacco groups don’t tell smokers that their funding comes from both Big Tobacco and Big Pharma.

Tobacco Harm
Reduction is a concept that allows a smoker to continue to use nicotine while eliminating the dangers of smoking.  Swedish snus are proven to be safer than cigarettes, and the cancer statistics in Sweden offer documented proof of this.  Electronic cigarettes contain no tobacco, only propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, flavorings, and nicotine.  The amount of nicotine varies from zero to about 2% of the mixture, and many smokers are able to completely stop smoking by turning to this safer alternative.  Unlike smoking, the vapor that an e-cig user exhales does not cause harm to bystanders. 

  I stopped smoking over two years ago, and my health has improved tremendously.  But some insurance companies and employers are penalizing adults who are turning to these safer alternatives.  Refusing employment to someone who tests positive for nicotine is discriminatory, especially when there are accurate ways to test for smoking instead.  

So why have all the anti-tobacco groups suddenly become anti-nicotine?  It’s a sad, simple answer.  Money.  These groups are running scared of e-cigs.  They are lobbying “Public Health” to ban a product that has been shown to have an impressive success rate when tested on smokers who didn’t even want to quit!  All over the country, well-meaning but ill-informed public health officials are implementing bans on products that offer smokers a much better success rate.  North Dakota has a ballot question that will ban electronic cigarette use OUTDOORS, similar to the bans passed in cities like Boston.

It’s time for the lies to stop.  We do know what’s in e-liquid, we do know that the vapor isn’t harmful, and we do know that smokers who turn to this product are able to quit.  Personally, the most impressive milestone I reached wasn’t my one year vaping anniversary, or even my two year vaping anniversary, it was the day I realized that I no longer WANTED a cigarette.  This was huge for 36-year smoker who had given up on quitting.  This was something no pharmaceutical product had been able to do.  This was my ticket to becoming smoke free.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-18/pfizer-settles-first-chantix-suicide-case-set-for-trial.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

Son Of Champix! The Jab

This isn’t science, folks, it is an attempt to fake a trial that will get this stupid vaccine rolled out not just to smokers everywhere (Ch-ching!) but to all children everywhere to “prevent them ever starting to smoke”. That’s a vaccine for everyone, repeated every generation, and “proved effective” by the natural decline of tobacco which has been going on since records began.

by hypnotherapist Chris Holmes

*Update: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

Ok, we knew it was bubbling away in the cauldron somewhere, the demented brainchild of one pharma giant or another, but now we’re at the pre-hype stage where the suggestion first appears in the press that there is a new ‘scientific’ way to stop smoking.   Never mind that they said that about Zyban, which turned out to have a lousy 13% success rate, and then they said it about Champix/Chantix, which fares little better but kills and hospitalises smokers far too often to be tolerated.  Just forget about that – NOW we’re working on something totally, totally new!

It’s a jab, and according to Richard Alleyne, writing in The Telegraph yesterday:  “Just one injection could provide lifelong protection from the cravings of  nicotine and prevent the physical effects of smoking such as relaxation and lowering of the heart rate.”

Er, excuse me – cravings are nothing to do with nicotine, and anyway, nicotine RAISES heart-rate and blood pressure.  The notion that smoking relaxes people is a myth.  It causes heart attacks and strokes, for Christ’s sake.  It gets worse:

“It could be used to “vaccinate” children from ever smoking and help smokers to quit.  Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York have tested the vaccine on mice but could soon start human trials.”

“Scientists”?  Or researchers working for the company with the patent?  Are they working with smoking mice or non-smoking mice?  Or do they give it to the children of smoking mice to see if they don’t start smoking themselves, as adolescent mice?  Look!  It works!  NONE OF THEM started smoking!  This isn’t science, folks, it is an attempt to fake a trial that will get this stupid vaccine rolled out not just to smokers everywhere (Ch-ching!) but to all children everywhere to “prevent them ever starting to smoke”.  That’s a vaccine for everyone, repeated every generation, and “proved effective” by the natural decline of tobacco which has been going on since records began.

This next bit is factually incorrect:

“Mice which had been given the jab stayed just as active as previously, while those not administered with the vaccine relaxed and their blood pressure and heart activity lowered – classic signs nicotine had reached the brain.”

This is completely false, unless of course mice react to nicotine differently from humans, in which case the whole exercise is pointless.  In people, nicotine increases both blood pressure and heart rate.  Smokers generally do not know this, because the fact that they usually smoke at moments of repose or recreation gives them the false impression that smoking relaxes them, when in fact they are simply smoking at the same time as they are at play, winding down or socialising.  So why is this bullshit appearing in The Telegraph?

But here’s the creepy bit:

“The vaccine works by genetically engineering an antibody that filters out nicotine when it enters the blood.  The body then replicates the antibody – creating a never-ending supply of immunity.”

This is genetic engineering.

“Dr Ronald Crystal, professor of Genetic Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and research leader said the jab could help committed quitters beat physical nicotine cravings. He said: “They will know if they start smoking again, they will receive no pleasure from it due to the nicotine vaccine, and that can help them kick the habit”.

Forgive me, but Dr Ronald Crystal is a numpty.  An idiot.  Champix was supposed to work by stopping smokers from getting pleasure from nicotine, but no-one gets pleasure from nicotine anyway.  Try putting a nicotine patch on, or chewing the gum.  What was your first cigarette like?  No-one abuses nicotine replacement products because there is no pleasure to be had from them.  No-one wants them, go into any pub and try giving nicotine patches away.  Offer the gum around.  See if you can get anyone to try it.  If they do, ask them how much pleasure they’re getting out of that nicotine, there?  Get them to score the experience on a scale of 1 to 10, then ask them if they would need a vaccine to help them resist the pleasure of nought-to-one?

There IS no pleasure in smoking.  Our first cigarette taught us that.   Later on, when we are accustomed to smoking, the ‘pleasure’ is in the moment, it isn’t coming from the cigarette!

“Dr Crystal said: “As far as we can see, the best way to treat chronic nicotine addiction from smoking is to have these Pacman-like antibodies on patrol, clearing the blood as needed before nicotine can have any biological effect.  Our vaccine allows the body to make its own monoclonal antibodies against nicotine, and in that way, develop a workable immunity.”

That’s as far as you can see, is it?  “Pacman-like antibodies on patrol”?  Do you think we’re children?  ‘Immunity’ to what?  Nicotine?  Nicotine is a deadly poison.  Nobody smokes for the effects of nicotine.  Ask any smoker: If nicotine is a drug, and you are smoking for its effects, WHAT ARE THEY?  What are the effects of nicotine?

I’ve asked thousands of smokers individually, and they don’t know.  Neither does Dr. Crystal, evidently. He seems to think relaxation and a lower heart rate are “classic signs” of the effects of nicotine!  Epic fail, there, Doc!

“Dr Crystal says the vaccine could be rolled out to non-smokers to prevent them starting in the first place, just as jabs are used to prevent infections.  He added: “Just as parents decide to give their children an HPV vaccine, they might decide to use a nicotine vaccine.”

There you go.  The aim of this exercise is to get parents to give their children a vaccine that genetically engineers their body to clone antibodies against something they might never find appealing in the first place, with unforseeable results.  But we have Zyban and Champix as precursors to this which demonstrate just how greedy, dishonest, stupid and damaging these business enterprises can turn out to be.  This is not science.

How Pfizer ‘lost’ hundreds of bad reactions to Champix including 150 suicides

The truth about nicotine

Champix: The Terror Continues

“I think the drug [Champix Chantix] should be banned because it is crazy. Does anyone know how long this will go on because living alone I don’t know if this will stop before it takes control of me. it has to stop soon I pray”

*Update: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

After four years of collecting smokers’ feedback about Chantix/Champix/varenicline on this site, it is now obvious that no-one is safe from this drug, not even people who have taken it before with hardly any side effects.  This is typical of some of the feedback we are getting from people who have tried a second or third course of the drug because of its high relapse rate:

“I first went on Champix 3 years ago, did the full course and gave up smoking for 2 years.  only side effect was a few weird dreams.  Unfortuneatly I started smoking again so went to get a new course from the doctor.  5 weeks in and I am now close to finishing it all.  I can’t sleep, keep shaking, crying uncontrollably and look at knifes in the draw, pass the bath and see myself lying there with no more problems and it won’t stop.
Doctor stopped me taking them 5 days ago, 2 days later he put me on valium and I’m still not able to control myself without taking valium to put me to sleep.  Currently I’m looking at the valium and thinking if I take the lot then it will stop all this crazy feeling.
worst thing is I know what is causing it but can’t stop.  I think the drug should be banned because it is crazy.  Does anyone know how long this will go on because living alone I don’t know if this will stop before it takes control of me.  it has to stop soon I pray”

No Isolated Case

If you’re reading this and trying to reassure yourself that this is some kind of freak case – it isn’t.  These individual nightmares are going on all over the world, and are seriously under-reported which is why I am screaming about it from the TruthWill Out site and will continue to do so until this evil drug is withdrawn from sale.  Imagine going through this yourself, or someone you love going through that just because they wanted to improve their health and they innocently assumed that the drug had proved safe in clinical trials.

It didn’t: the manufacturer Pfizer hid some of the evidence from a crucial safety review by submitting the reports of hundreds of bad reactions “through the wrong channels” at the Food and Drug administration.  When this fact came to light, the French government withdrew public funding of the drug, citing “safety concerns”.  All the other Health Departments in governments all over the world who have done lucrative deals with Pfizer decided to pretend it didn’t happen, and that is the only reason this terror is continuing.  If you think it’s all about depression and suicide, think again: the list of serious ailments caused by this drug is a long one and many lives have been ruined already.

Champix has aleady caused suicides, murders, violent attacks, horrendous depression, crippling pain, major life-threatening seizures and epilepsy in people who have never had epilepsy before, life-threatening skin conditions where skin blisters up and falls off, damage to optic nerves, increased risk of heart attacks… and as this message proves, it usually doesn’t work in the long run anyway.

If you have taken Champix yourself, and like David the first time round, had hardly any side effects and stopped smoking for a while, you might feel inclined to send me a message saying: “I think Champix is brilliant!”  …not realising you were just lucky the first time round.  David’s advice now would probably be: “Don’t risk it again.”

more smokers’ feedback

 

Hypnotherapy to stop smoking: a few tips!

Professional advice for any smoker thinking of trying hypnotherapy to stop smoking. Handy tips to maximise your chances of immediate success.

by Chris Holmes

As more smokers become aware that Champix (or Chantix in the U.S.) is not so much a ‘Wonder Drug’ as a ‘Wonder If I’ll Just Get The Nausea, Or If I’ll Have A Complete Personality Change, Murder My Family And Then String Myself Up In The Garage’ sort of a drug, some of them are bound to also wonder if there are ways of quitting smoking that don’t involve gambling with your life.

There certainly are.  Not only that, they have proven to work better than any of the medications in the long run anyway (i.e. at the twelve month follow-up stage, by which time over 80% of Champix users are smoking again.)

Hypnotherapy, the Allen Carr method (which functions as a form of hypnotherapy anyway) and acupuncture all have proven hit-rates that beat the meds.  I have no connection with the last two, as I am a professional hypnotherapist specialising in smoking, alcohol, gambling and drug habits for over a decade… but I recommend them anyway because they have a proven track-record and they are SAFE.  In a moment I will provide some handy tips for anyone considering hypnotherapy.

Acupuncture: The key with this method seems to be to find an experienced practitioner who has worked with the smoking issue a lot.  I don’t pretend to know HOW it works, but it definitely works for some – and as it cannot damage you or make you go crazy it is well worth a shot if you haven’t tried it.  Surely it makes no sense to try any method that involves risk unless you have already tried all the ones that do not.

Allen Carr: He is no longer with us but his books are.  So are the group-therapy franchises that grew out of his own private sessions as a ‘therapist’.  In truth Carr set himself up as a smoking cessation therapist with no formal training of any kind, and one of his successes claimed that “he BORED me into quitting!”  This maybe reflects Carr’s tenacity and unshakeable belief in his own method, plus his tendency to go on a bit!  The group therapy sessions are four to five hours in length, ending with about 15 minutes of “hypnotherapy” from practitioners who are not really hypnotherapists.  The cost was around £250 last time I looked, which was a few years ago.  My advice is to read Carr’s original book first, the one that made him famous.  He self-published it originally, then it went on to sell millions of copies. It’s about six quid, and it’s called “Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking.”

Hypnotherapy:

1) If you have a bad attitude, you’re angry with the world or suspicious by nature and think everyone is out to cheat you, DO NOT ring a hypnotherapist.  You will not respond positively and then you’ll convince yourself it’s THEIR fault!  You COULD start by having therapy to fix your emotional issues, and then succeed normally with the smoking.  That would work, and it would also make you happier.  But it wouldn’t work the other way around.

2) For everyone else, hypnotherapy is the ideal way to ditch the habit effortlessly and with no weight-gain.

3) If the therapist is quoting fees that go over £200, find a different therapist UNLESS: you are rich and famous and/or the practice is located in Harley Street or whatever the equivalent of that is in your country.  (Where all the private doctors who “specialise in diseases of the rich”, as Tom Lehrer put it, have their offices.)

4) Some hypnotherapists will usually aim to do smoking cessation in one session, as I do.  Some don’t, and that’s okay as long as the overall cost of stopping smoking stays within that £100-£200 range.  Do not assume that if you pay top dollar you get the best therapist.  You just get the best-dressed therapist, with a Rolex.  Their overall success-rate won’t be any different to anyone else’s.

5) Your therapist should explain to you, in advance, that hypnotherapy is nothing like the experience you expect it to be.  Most clients are expecting to be asleep, or “away with the fairies” or something.  In fact, you feel perfectly normal.  You don’t “feel hypnotised” at all.  This is important to know in advance, otherwise the client may assume “it’s not working” which can affect their MOOD and therefore the outcome.

6) The ideal mood for hypnotherapy success is LOOKING FORWARD to that success.   A mood of positive, eager anticipation.  So if anything is bothering, worrying or troubling you during the session – anything at all – TELL THE THERAPIST IMMEDIATELY.   Interrupt the proceedings, ask, raise any questions you like.  Then they can deal with it, it won’t be a problem.

7)  The more positive you are, the better the result will be.

8) The more comfortable you are with the therapist, the better the result will be.

9) The more you are looking forward to being rid of tobacco, the quicker you will be.

10)  It does seem like nothing is happening during a hypnotherapy session.  Don’t let that bother you – all hypnotherapy sessions are like that.  You only notice the results afterwards.  ALSO: It does sound as if the hypnotherapist is simply telling you things you know already.  That is because your conscious mind DOES know those things already.  Hypnotherapy is an update for the Subconscious mind – which controls all habitual behaviour – to bring it up to speed with what the conscious mind has already learned.  So I tell all my clients:

“The trance part of the session does seem a bit boring!  And we use quite a bit of repetition when we talk to the Subconscious, so not only does it sound like I’m telling you things you know already, but several times over!  But it gets the job done, and that’s all that really matters.”

It also helps to know: how much clients relax varies enormously and doesn’t matter at all, and that the only thing that really matters is how you feel about what is being said to you about tobacco.  If you are in broad agreement with it, that’s acceptance and success should be immediate.

Finally: don’t ‘test’ the results by trying a cigarette.  Hypnotherapy shuts the habit and the cravings down.  Testing it by smoking simply starts them up again.  Further hypnotherapy will shut them down again, but it is cheaper to let sleeping dogs lie.

more about hypnotherapy  

the book that blew the whistle on the nicotine scam

 

Expensive Life-Saving Drugs: Would £84m-a-year extra cash help?

The NHS could easily afford more life-saving drugs if it just stopped wasting vast amounts of cash on nicotine replacement therapies that don’t work any better than willpower in the long run, as the Borland Report clearly demonstrated in 2005.

by Chris Holmes

Primary Care Trusts are “failing in their duty of care” in blacklisting 19 drugs on the basis of cost alone, according to a report this week in the Metro newspaper (Thursday 24th November, page 8).  Political Editor John Higginson reports that this “appears to go against the NHS constitution, which gives patients the right to receive any drug recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence if their doctor believes it is clinically appropriate.”

The list includes drugs with proven efficacy in the treatment of cancer and also epilepsy – but the PCTs concerned have decided that these drugs cost too much.

The very same Primary Care Trusts also decided it was perfectly okay to spend £84,000,000 in England alone last year (not the whole of the UK, that figure is even higher) on a treatment service which they know from their own research DOES NOT WORK any better than willpower alone when the results are assessed at one year.  I’m talking about the NHS Stop Smoking Services and particularly the nicotine replacement products which we now know for sure have a 6% success rate at the 12 month stage – exactly the same as willpower.

My suggestion is simple: Take that vast amount of money and spend it on life-saving drug therapies that have been proven to be effective, and leave smoking cessation to experts like myself.  I’m a hypnotherapist by the way, and nearly all my smoking clients have already tried willpower, nicotine gum, patches, lozenges, the little inhalator-thingy… some have tried Zyban and the latest (non) wonder drug Champix… then they come to me, convinced that they “have failed” repeatedly and that it is “really hard to stop smoking”!  No, it’s really hard if you try to do it via the NHS.  It’s really easy with hypnotherapy, provided it’s done well.

But I’m not suggesting the PCTs should fund that.  They should be funding those life-saving drugs, not wasting tens of millions every single year on a service that clearly doesn’t work at all.

the book that blew the whistle on the nicotine scam

Champix Chantix: Alyson and Nick Need Help

“How can somone go from a normal man working as a carer to this for no reason and the only thing that changed was that he took champix, we are now on 8 months and things are still not getting better, if you met Nick you would think he had learning difficulties.
I am so frustrated that no one will admit what has caused it and because they will not or cannot diagnose it we can not get any allowances to help look after him. I work full time and betweem my family and myself we look after him.”

by hypnotherapist Chris Holmes

*Update: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

The only reason Champix Chantix was passed by the FDA as if it were safe enough to unleash on the public is because the manufacturer, Pfizer, submitted some trial data showing serious side effects “through the wrong channels” which caused them to be missed in a crucial safety review.  Shortly after this news hit the headlines at the end of May 2011, the French Health Minister stopped public funding for the drug citing safety concerns.  The trouble is, the range of side effects is so wide and unpredictable with this drug that many symptoms are not being attributed quickly enough to the actual cause, which has helped Pfizer to avoid a ban on the drug for far too long.  This heartbreaking story is only one of many, but it is a classic example of damage that has never been offically attributed to Champix:

 

“Hi,

I have read your website several times and even given doctor and Psychiatrists printed off copies to show the effect that this drug is having on people. Nick my 54 year old husband took Champix for 10 days in March 2010, he could not get anymore tablets as the nurse was off sick so decided to do without.( he had stopped smoking).  4 days later I had to ring an ambulance at 4 in the morning as he was going in and out of consciouness, the treatment at the hospital was not good but they kept him in for observations at my insistance but could not find anything wrong so sent him home, I told them about champix but they were not interested.”  [Oh, you can’t TELL them anything, Alyson!  You’re not QUALIFIED! This means your words/opinions count for nothing, it’s part of their medical training to just assume we’re all deluded idiots – Ed.]
“Over the next few weeks things got a lot worse, Nick found it difficult to walk, talk, write… he had severe muscle spasms and involuntary muscle movements, he had balance problem and short term memory problems, his behaviour became quite childlike and his brakes were off, he said exactly what he thought. Things came to a head when it was raining and Nick was in the garden in his underwear. I rang our doctor and asked to go private to see someone, she arranged for us to go to hospital, they did all the tests blood, urine, scans, spinal tap but still could find no reason for this to happen, they suggested that Nick saw a psychiatrist, he has been seeing him since June this year, he has said that he can find no reason for Nick’s problems and has passed it back to the hospital.”
“At present Nick suffers short term memory loss, a change in personality and cognitive ability, he takes everything you say literally, he has no awareness of danger and has developed tourretism and obsessive behaviour (touching dotes) he still has balance problems and difficulty walking and gets tired easily.”

“At our last doctor’s appointment I told the doctor I believe that Nick is having fits between a few seconds and a minute we are trying to get a diagnosis and have an appointment with a senior neurologist at the end of this month. Our Gp has told them our suspicions so perhaps this time someone will listen. How can somone go from a normal man working as a carer to this for no reason and the only thing that changed was that he took champix, we are now on 8 months and things are still not getting better, if you met Nick you would think he had learning difficulties.
I am so frustrated that no one will admit what has caused it and because they will not or cannot diagnose it we can not get any allowances to help look after him. I work full time and betweem my family and myself we look after him.”

“If I could turn back time I would but as its not possible I will just keep going and hope someone will take responsibilty and try to stop this drug harming anyone else.  I will always be here for Nick but this company hid certain results to get this drug licensed they need to be stopped.”

 

Yes.  Pfizer need to be stopped, Doc.

14 Days on Champix ruined my life

Champix/Chantix 6

the book that blew the whistle on the nicotine scam

Champix Chantix Success Report No.1

so I had to wonder why – four years after Champix was made available in the UK – a “wonder drug with a 50% success rate”, we were told – this was the first smoker I had ever met, professionally or socially, that reckoned they had quit successfully with Champix and without side effects.

I’ve met loads that haven’t succeeded with Champix, and about half of them said they had to stop taking it because it made them ill.

by hypnotherapist Chris Holmes

*Update: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

Today I met someone who was successful with Champix.  This person had come to me for weight loss, and some of that weight gain had been as a result of stopping smoking.  The young woman – let’s call her Lucy – reported that although she had taken a course of Champix in 2010, and it “did nothing at all”, this year she was really determined and had told herself that: “This time the tablets WILL work… this time I’m definitely going to stop smoking!”  And indeed she did.

So – presumably – the first time around she did NOT tell herself that.  Maybe that’s why the tablets “did nothing at all”.  And – presumably – the tablets were made to the exact same specifications as the 2010 batch… dosage was the same, length of course the same… indeed the only factor that was different was her mental attitude and the positive suggestions she was giving herself.

Positive suggestions and mental attitude are what hypnotherapy are all about.  Essentially we do the same sort of thing but without the tablets, AND we include therapy to prevent the weight gain, which is easily avoided if your hypnotherapist knows what they’re doing.  I’ll soon reverse Lucy’s weight gain anyway, but we could have done the lot in one go if she’d come here in the first place.

But that’s not what prompted me to write this post.  What prompted me to write it was the realisation that Lucy was the first of my clients ever to report lasting success with Champix.  True, it had only been four months so far, but she was pretty confident she had it licked and I had no reason to doubt this.  Now, I meet a lot of smokers and ex-smokers in the course of my work, and of course we talk about these things all the time, regardless of what the session today is actually about, so I had to wonder why – four years after Champix was made available in the UK – a “wonder drug with a 50% success rate”, we were told – this was the first smoker I had ever met, professionally or socially, that reckoned they had quit successfully with Champix and without side effects.

I’ve met loads that haven’t succeeded with Champix, and about half of them said they had to stop taking it because it made them ill.

So when people contact the Truth Will Out site (occasionally) to report that they and their partner and their neighbour and all their 27 friends have successfully quit with Chantix or Champix… (and that all of them had previously tried hypnotherapy and failed! despite the fact that less than 1% of the population have ever consulted a hypnotherapist about ANYTHING)… I might be forgiven for doubting this tale, and wondering if this message really comes from some liar who sells Champix over the internet and is a bit worried about sales being not what they were now that smokers are beginning to twig that this “wonder drug” isn’t any better than the last one (Zyban), but it does seem to be WAY more harmful and unpredictable.

safer alternative

Champix reviews: Australia bites back

“If there was a drug on the market that caused some users to lose their right leg it would be withdrawn immediately. Because Champix affects your inner core and for that reason its effects are invisible, the symptoms are explained away as a mental issue. In terms of the pharmaceutical industry it is the perfect cover for a drug that is subsidized and earning its maker billions of dollars in revenue.”

By Chris Holmes

*Update: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

Just before I get onto this post, here’s the latest Champix review from Kara:  “I have been on champix for only 6 days now, and in my opinion that is 6 days too long.  I have had, in this time alone a ridiculous change in my mental state.  Never had problems besides some depression in my early 20′s, and I feel like I’ve changed in just one week!  I am constantly agitated, irritable and angry ALL of the time.  Something happened the other day that made me question this drug; something so out of character it scared me!  I got in to an argument with my sister’s husband, and literally snapped!  I struck him with a leather strap 3 times, so hard it left bruises!  He just stood there stunned, and all I could think was that I wanted to kill him!  He was stunned because it was like a TOTALLY different person!  I was shocked at myself, and scared; I totally lost control, and I attribute it FULLY to this drug!  I’m a very happy person normally.
The other thing is I can’t stop eating! I go to the gym 5 times a week, and am generally very healthy (besides the smoking), but I haven’t been able to stop eating the past 5 days!!!
Today was my last day on this evil drug. NO MORE!”

The phrase “totally out of character” just keeps cropping up again and again with this drug, doesn’t it?  And what if there had been a knife to hand – or a firearm?  “…all I could think was that I wanted to kill him!”  Ladies and gentlefolk, that is NOT caused by just needing a ciggie.  And that’s after just six days on the drug.  Whew! That’s scary.

Back in 2008, I was contributing information about The Evil Champix and to a website called Australian Women Online and Tim Wilkinson posted several times about his own horrible experience with the drug. This week he posted this message on Truth Will Out:

“Hi.
I left a post on the Womens site on Champix in 2008, I have done extensive research into the drug and also how it was tested, how it was given the ‘all clear’ in Australia and the rules and regulations that govern its perscription.
I have received a number of emails that detail the horror stories of people who have taken Champix with adverse results.
I have also extensively researched the possible legal action that could be taken against Pfizer.
Pfizer will tie up any legal action against them in the courts for years, this will also be dependent on individuals’ medical records, if they can tie up a country (Nigeria) in the international courts for more than a decade…
I have found a legal recourse against them that is foolproof and will scare them to death! If you or anyone close to you has been badly affected by Champix (Chantix in the U.S.) please contact me at [email protected]

If you are not from Australia please put your country of origin in the subject line of your message.”

So I sent Tim the following reply:

“Hi Tim, thanks for your latest message! At first I reproduced it on all the Champix posts on Truth Will Out, but then took out the email address immediately as I thought I had better check with you before publicising that quite so broadly. I wasn’t sure if you meant that I should contact you, or anyone who thought they’d been injured by Champix.

Call me paranoid, but I think it would be a good idea to keep the details of the legal recourse you have discovered out of this email exchange, at least for the time being. So, is it okay for me to provide a link on the various Champix pages of the site so that other sufferers can contact you directly? I really hope you’ve found a way to hit Pfizer where it hurts, they certainly deserve it.

best regards,
Chris”

This was Tim’s response, and it rather looks as though he means business:

Hi Chris.
Please post my address as many times as you wish, from my original post to now I have been sent and heard dozens of horror stories that has surprised me as to not only the commonness of adverse reactions to Champix but also the overwhelmingly similar symptoms that people have had.

I now think that the time has come to take action!

Getting recourse from Pfizer will not take away the pain that people have endured but it will go a very long way to helping people know/understand that they are not alone, and what they went through has nothing to do with strength of character nor more importantly the state of their mental health.

If there was a drug on the market that caused some users to lose their right leg it would be withdrawn immediately. Because Champix affects your inner core and for that reason its effects are invisible, the symptoms are explained away as a mental issue. In terms of the pharmaceutical industry it is the perfect cover for a drug that is subsidized and earning its maker billions of dollars in revenue.

I invite all those who have an adverse experience with Champix (including loved ones and friends of victims) to contact me via email so that I can collate information with the view to setting up meetings in Australia. I ask that any outside of Aus keep themselves posted or contact me with the subject line being their location.

I can make no promises as to the outcome, ‘but better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all’!

[email protected]

We’re not going to fail, Tim. Already the French Health Minister has stopped using public money to fund Champix on safety grounds, and that’s just the start. I only wish we could get Champix (Chantix in the U.S.) banned today, so that no-one else has to die, or suffer like you did, but unfortunately – thanks to Pfizer’s lies and deception about the true extent of the dangers that have already occurred – there will be more, because Pfizer will not withdraw this killer drug until they are FORCED to do so.  So let’s get on with it, eh?  More and more influencial voices are calling for Champix/Chantix to be banned, we are certainly not on our own in this.

***Update, 31st August 2011:  Since this email exchange I have tried on several occasions to contact Tim, and have been unable to do so.  Since all these attempts were in the latter half of August, this may mean nothing at all – he may be on holiday, or similarly indisposed.  If anyone has tried to contact Tim during the past six weeks and has had similar difficulties, please let me know via the Truth Will Out Contact Page.  I’ll keep trying and keep you posted here.

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Champix Chantix 10: Truth Will Out, Pfizer.

Turns out Pfizer ‘accidentally’ misled the FDA about Champix (Chantix) depression, suicides and bad reactions by submitting data “through improper channels”, which negligence (or whatever) has caused many deaths.

By Chris Holmes

*Update 1: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

**Update 2: VIVE LA FRANCE! On May 31, 2011, French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand announced that varenicline prescriptions would no longer be subsidized by the government health insurance, due to questions about its safety. At last, someone with the honour and judgement of a normal human being!**

Pfizer claimed, over and over again, that if there was a serious safety problem with their evil, unpredictable drug it would have showed up in the official trials and reviews. It DID, but they managed to conceal it:

“Hundreds of reports of suicides and violent reactions tied to the stop-smoking drug Chantix were left out of a crucial government safety review.
The reports were missing because the drug’s manufacturer Pfizer Inc. submitted years of data through ‘improper channels’, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Serious problems — such as people killing themselves, trying to kill themselves, depression and unprovoked attacks on others — were mixed among 26,000 records of non-serious side effects such as nausea and rashes dating back to 2006, the year Chantix, or varenicline, was approved.” Daily Mail, May 29th 2011

In other words, Pfizer knew about the depression and the horror stories since 2006, and deliberately tried to hide the truth AGAIN. So every bad reaction, suicide, suicide attempt, hospitalisation, violent incident, wrecked working life or reputation – every ruined relationship/marriage and devastated family life that has occured since then, in countries all over the world, could have been avoided. In their ruthless drive for profit, this rogue company has utter contempt for proper reviews, safety procedure or the rule of law, despite already having been fined record sums for breaking rules in the past. The question is, what are governements going to do about this now? What is the New Zealand government going to do, having only “cautiously endorsed” Champix last November, after much hesitation following serious concerns about the health risks? Now that this latest piece of cynical deception has come out, are they STILL going to allow doctors to prescribe this killer drug to their innocent patients, putting their lives at risk unnecessarily? How long does it take for this message to get through to politicians and decision-makers? People are dying needlessly because of corruption and greed.

Pfizer’s standard marketing hype – that “the benefits outweigh the risks” – clearly cannot be accepted now, and have always been untrue because the benefits were greatly exaggerated to begin with, by the usual trick of publicising short-term results and never mentioning the known long-term failure rate. That is seriously misleading – and now we are discovering that they were seriously misleading the authorities about the true extent of the dangers right from the beginning.

Folks, this is not an anomaly: this has become standard practice for drug companies in utter contempt of the law and the fate of individuals, and particularly typical of Pfizer, and it HAS to be stopped. This drug must be withdrawn immediately, and Pfizer investigated and held to account for the horrific damage they have recklessly done to so many human lives. There are serious doubts now about how long it takes to get the drug out of your system even long after you’ve stopped taking it, with some sufferers now reporting very long-term damage.

Full story here.

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Champix review: 14 days on Champix ruined my life, Doc.

“Further to my post (number 87, posted in June 2009) I’m still suffering the same symptoms two and a half years down the line, I’ve been through over 2 years of tests, have lost my job, almost lost wife and children and now, the doctors finally say that they feel that it was Champix that has caused all this. In the very next breath they also said that proving it will be almost impossible and that getting any legal recourse will be even harder, so there we are – 38 years old and basically on the scrap heap until they can hopefully figure out a way to deal with my symptoms. So where do I go from here, I don’t know, the doctors don’t know either, I’ve used all my savings just to live the last couple of years and I can’t function day to day, legal action would be futile and I cant fund it, so all I can do is sit and stare out the window and watch the world go by…

Chantix Champix Reviews: How long does the suffering have to go on?

 

*Update 1: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

 

**Update 2, 4th November 2011:

The American Food & Drug Administration (FDA) were recently reported in the Business section of the Washington Post as reassuring smokers that Chantix (known as Champix everywhere outside the USA) “does not increase psychiatric problems”, according to two small studies involving 26,000 smokers.  Since this flies in the face of everything else they know about Chantix already, it is surely irresponsible to say such a thing at this time, because the caveats added to the story further down do not carry anything like the weight of the inevitable headline.  Meanwhile, this article in the Daily Mail reports a study which states exactly the opposite.

Why?  Because the Daily Mail is not bending over backward to assist the pharmaceutical industry – even at the expense of smokers’ lives, if that’s what it takes – whereas the FDA very clearly is.  The testing and approvals system is corrupt as hell, using every possible means of dragging their feet so that Chantix/Champix stays on the market and remains ‘approved’ regardless of how many individual smokers’ lives are ruined by the drug.

The Truth Will Out Campaign has been trying to alert smokers (and doctors) to the dangers of this drug since Autumn of 2008 – so these unnecessary delays drive me pretty crazy – but just imagine the frustration of this commentator on the new Daily Mail report:

“Oh now they make this a huge statement. My mom used it in mid 2007. She ended up in a mental hospital. Thanks Champix. This stuff shouldn’t even be on the market!!! I still can’t understand why it is, with all these accounts of suicide! I read horror story’s back then after this happened to my mom about people killing themselves or having illness such as bi-polar disorder activated in them. My rule with all drugs is, if it hasn’t been on the market for more then 10 years…DO NOT take it. You never want to be the guinea pig. Sorry for all those who ended their lives because they were manipulated this drug.

– Danielle, USA,
3/11/2011 6:08”

 

***Update 3, 21st October 2012: Pfizer settle first Chantix suicide case out of court http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-18/pfizer-settles-first-chantix-suicide-case-set-for-trial.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

14 Days on Champix Ruined My Life, Doc

by hypnotherapist Chris Holmes

I just had an update from Andy, who took Champix (Chantix) for only 14 days.  That was two and a half years ago, and this update is the latest reason I believe this medication should be withdrawn immediately.   This was the original message from Andy in 2009:

“I started taking Champix on December 1st 08 and took them for 14 days, during the time I took them I felt progressively more and more ill, I contacted my doctor twice and was told its normal to feel ill on them and to keep taking them. On 14 th December 08 I was admitted to hospital with chest pains, 1 week later and a lot of tests I was discharged, no diagnosis, just sent home, since then I have been diagnosed with Diabetes and Reynauds Syndrome, have balance problems, problems with my endocrine system and have been off of work (now lost my job), so how do you go from healthy to feeling ill and being admitted to hospital in 14 days, then 6 months later have the same mystery symptoms, my guess is that as Champix works on receptors in the brain it messes with a whole lot more than just dopamine receptors.

“Can I prove this? The answer is no. I’m a layman and the doctors tell me it isn’t the case, they know because they looked on the manufacturers website, so coincidently within the 2 week period I was using champix I turned diabetic, suffered circulatory problems, endocrine system problems and lost my balance and gained vision that comes and goes as it wants, lost the ability to work, drive my car and generally do things that normal people do, also I dont know where the end of this is, nor do the doctors.. If you google Chantix lawsuit you will find that in the US there are a whole heap of people with similar problems to those I’ve suffered, and am suffering now, find another way to give up smoking, I wish I had….”

So how has Andy fared since then? Has it all worn off, is he back to his normal self? Did the advice to stop taking Champix if you suffer any ill effects save him? After all, he was only on it for 14 days. Here’s Andy again:

“Further to my post (number 87, posted in June 2009) I’m still suffering the same symptoms 2.5 years down the line, I’ve been through over 2 years of tests, have lost my job, almost lost wife and children and now, the doctors finally say that they feel that it was Champix that has caused all this.

“In the very next breath they also said that proving it will be almost impossible and that getting any legal recourse will be even harder, so there we are, 38 years old and basically on the scrap heap until they can hopefully figure out a way to deal with my symptoms.

“So where do I go from here, I dont know, the doctors dont know either, I’ve used all my savings just to live the last couple of years and I cant function day to day, legal action would be futile and I cant fund it, so all I can do is sit and stare out the window and watch the world go by, happy days 🙁 ”

So I thought that Andy’s dreadful outcome deserved a post all to itself. After all, it originally appeared on the thread of comments following my “Champix Chantix 4 – Enough Already” post back in 2008, when I was suggesting that too much suffering had already resulted from this horrible drug. Evidently Pfizer and Andy’s doctors did not agree: they had to ruin his life as well, and many others all over the world. Perhaps Andy’s doctors have finally started to get the message but it is way too late for Andy, and now they are suggesting that nothing can be done legally. Actually I beg to differ Andy, let’s not assume that. Failure to withdraw this drug immediately has to be negligence. Every single victim deserves compensation when the dangers were known YEARS AGO. Andy is not the only one to develop diabetes after taking Champix, despite being perfectly healthy beforehand. Check this little lot:

And that was published in May 2008 – six months BEFORE the drug was given to Andy. This killer drug is still being aggressively marketed and there are still doctors and “quit counsellors” handing it out with scarcely any warnings at all. It’s CRIMINAL.

Sufferers: report it. Doctors: don’t prescribe it. Smokers: don’t take it. Pharmacists: don’t stock it. BMA, NICE, MHRA, FDA… you are all responsible for this rogue drug ruining innocent people’s lives. For Christ’s sake, STOP IT NOW. Personally I think that YOU are the ones that should be sued… along with Pfizer, let’s not forget them. They know it hardly works for anyone in the long run anyway, only in the short term. 86% failure at one year. Do you think Andy would have ever taken it if he had known THAT? Do you think ANYONE would? Champix is just the latest fraudulent “wonder drug”, but in terms of the damage it is probably the worst yet. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if any of these drug giants has another nasty little concoction all ready for the hype train that turns out to be even worse, because the testing procedures are no longer looking at the long term effects or results of any new medications now: if it shows ANYTHING that looks like a positive effect, that’s it! That’s all you need, stop the trial right there, get out the big rubber stamp of approval and off we go again.

Alarmingly quick to approve, criminally slow to withdraw – that’s the FDA and the MHRA for you, and that’s why I’m calling them all lackeys of the pharmaceutical industry. And it’s people like Andy and his family who are paying the price for this global drug profiteering.

Nothing we can do, Doc? I’ll tell you what we CAN do, for a start: lose all faith in your ill-informed ‘advice’ – which is no more than drug company hype – and don’t take the tablets. It has really come to something when it takes two years for the patient to get their own doctor to realise what is wrong with the pills, hasn’t it? For shame, Doctor.

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