Please Don’t Bother the Over-Prescriber!

In The Times this week, doctors were beseeching patients with only ordinary ailments like coughs and colds to stop bothering the general practitioner for antibiotics that won’t help anyway – or that they just don’t need, really – and  let nature take its course, or in other words have a bit of faith in your immune system.

Very good advice.  Mind you, it’s not so very long ago that it was GPs themselves who were being blasted for prescribing antibiotics for these very conditions, when they knew perfectly well that cold and flu viruses are not affected by them anyway and that the overprescribing of antibiotics leads to resistant strains of bacteria like the superbugs that have plagued hospitals in recent years.  Not really the patients’ fault, considering that the GP is supposed to be the one with the specialist medical knowledge. 

“GPs Hand Out Needless Pills” was the frontpage headline in the Daily Mail only a year ago (04.03.09) when Professor Michael Oliver, emeritus professor of cardiology at the University of Edinburgh warned that millions of healthy people were being ‘preventatively’ prescribed pills to control blood pressure, lower cholesterol or prevent diabetes when there was actually nothing wrong with them.  He blamed a “tick-box culture” and also Health Service guidelines for encouraging the widespread use of such drugs.

The article also listed nasty side effects widely reported for such medications, and only a few months later (25.09.09) the Daily Express had “New Fears Over Heart Pill Taken By Millions” as its lead story as scientists at Nottingham university were given a quarter of a million pounds to investigate statin drugs that are prescribed to lower cholesterol.  However, the dopey notion that Doc has a pill that will fix everything was reinforced by the very same newspaper when it had “Wonder Pill To Fight The Flab – new slimming drug works faster” splashed all over its front page (23.10.08).

Now before half of you go rushing off to look that one up so you can badger your GP about it, do bear in mind that statins were also hailed as ‘wonder’ drugs, a standard practice also known as ‘marketing’.  Now they are under investigation for nasty side effects and according to Dr Malcolm Kendrick’s book The Great Cholesterol Con (John Blake Publishing 2007) they don’t prevent heart attacks anyway because cholesterol is not the real cause. Champix (Chantix) was hailed as a wonder drug too, but now it is under investigation for horrific side effects and it doesn’t work for at least 80% of smokers anyway in the long run, a far cry from the 44% success rate claimed for it in the short-term trials by Pfizer.

The Rise and Rise of ‘Preventative’ Medicine

As drug companies came to realise that there is far more return on investment if you put most of your research and development budget into ‘treatments’ for long-term ‘conditions’ rather than medicines that cure diseases, we have also seen new marketing strategies that create spectres of doom like the avian flu global catastrophe that never really happened, and of course the swine flu that killed far fewer people than seasonal flu strains in reality, but “worst-case scenario” stories of 165,000 dead in the U.K. alone had governments frantically ordering vast stockpiles of vaccines at enormous expense… was it a deliberate scam?

Then there are the side effects.  Tamiflu has been associated with suicides and concerns were also raised about the cervical cancer vaccines by Dr Diane Harper who was involved in the clinical trials herself and stated in October 2009 that the jab was being “over-marketed” and could even be riskier and more deadly than the cancer it is designed to prevent, having been linked to 32 deaths in the USA even before it was made available to all teenage girls in the U.K. – once again, at enormous expense.  Dr Harper is quoted in the Sunday Express as saying: “All this jab will do is prevent girls getting some abnormalities associated with cervical cancer which can be treated. It willl not decrease cervical cancer rates at all.”

It is clear that drug companies are successfully manipulating and maximising general fears of conditions or illnesses that people DO NOT HAVE to sell them – en masse – the drug equivalent of an amulet to ward off the fear.  This amulet may not protect them anyway – it is impossible to test its future effectiveness, so this certainly is not “evidence-based” medicine – and some people who were perfectly healthy in the first place will inevitably be adversely affected by bad reactions.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that where you stand on the whole subject of the new ‘preventative’ business model of drug companies comes down to how you feel about drug companies.  Two ‘Schools of Skepticism’ have emerged: the New Simple Scientism of Uncle Edzard Ernst which scoffs at the alternative field (where harm to the public is pretty rare really, but they can always find an exception or two with which to frighten people) but turns a blind eye to the enormous damage done by pharmaceutical drugs the world over… and the Pharma-Skeptics (such as myself) who find this recent shift of emphasis from treating real illnesses to warding off suggested possible future illnesses particularly creepy.

What About Nutritional Supplements, then?

Vitamins, minerals and plant extracts in pill form or similarly presented as if they are a form of ‘medication’ to prevent or treat one thing or another may also be regarded as suspect in this respect, and I have concerns about that too because of the extent to which the imagination can be driving the motivation to purchase things like that.  If any are proven to be hazardous then they are withdrawn from sale however, which is very different from what happens with pharmaceutical drugs.  All kinds of mayhem is required for a drug to be withdrawn from the market – instead it is ‘investigated’ but doctors carry on prescribing it!  Prozac was eventually revealed to be no more effective than the placebo in the trial data, some of which was witheld from the FDA to get it passed as if it was genuinely effective.  That is obviously fraudulent, yet it officially remains an “evidence-based” medicine (Ha, ha, ha, Professor Ernst!  Somewhat undermines your posturing about CAM therapies, doesn’t it?  Why don’t you write an article about that for a change? After all, you used to be actively engaged in the approval of medications when you were a member of the MHRA, it’s not as if you wouldn’t have an opinion!)  And the biggest difference of all is that nutritional supplements are just available for general sale, the public are not being told by scientists and medical authorities that they should take them, nor are they being provided to the public en masse at the taxpayers’ expense.  CAM therapies aren’t either: hardly any of that is funded by the taxpayer and medical authorities tend to ignore it completely.  People are free to choose that or not choose it, those treatments certainly aren’t pressed on the general public by doctors.  But increasingly, the ‘preventative’ drugs and vaccines are, and that is a whole New Order Of Medicine which for the drug companies is clearly the road to heaven, but where is it leading the rest of us?  Are we all to be medicated from cradle to grave?    

Professor Michael Oliver was right: lifelong health should be about a healthy lifestyle, not lifelong medication!  If it ain’t broke don’t fix it Doc.  The vast majority of us are born with an immune system already installed, a working pair of lungs and a suckling instinct.  We are not born with a cannula sticking out of our little arms, are we?  And unless there is some dire and pressing need, shouldn’t have one shoved in there either.

Central Hypnotherapy

Chantix Champix 6

Many of the rave reviews of Chantix (Champix) are posted early on in the smoker’s use of the drug. Short-term smoking cessation with this drug is quite common, but the success-rate at 6 months is much lower. Bad reactions often happen after many weeks, not always straight away, so some of the sufferers of serious side effects may have already posted rave reviews of the very drug that then went on to damage them, innocently encouraging others to decide to try it. Some sufferers report only becoming ill during a second course of the drug.

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

*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.*

**Update 2, 4th November 2011:

The American Food & Drug Administration (FDA) were 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, 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″**

 

Chantix Champix 6

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.*

Recently a couple of contributors to this blog – who have started to take Champix or Chantix themselves and feel fine on it – have commented that the page they are reading here “seems very negative”.

This is my sixth blog post on Champix/Chantix. I check all comments that come in, and with the obvious exception of spam each comment is added to the site, which means that what you read here is exactly what I have received. If I suspect a comment is bogus I will still add it to the site, and then say why I think it is bogus. Even when it seems I’m mistaken about that, I leave the whole exchange up there for everyone to read, I don’t cover it up. Sometimes it is hard to tell what is genuine and what is not.

So if someone suggests that it seems too negative, I suggest that they read all the comments that follow all six blog posts, the majority of which follow the original post entitled “Champix/Chantix” and the fourth one “Champix/Chantix 4: Enough Already”.

Now look at this:

Review Centre

You might reasonably ask the question “Why do these reviews mostly seem very positive when the ones on some other blogs like Truth Will Out mostly seem pretty negative, often alarmingly so?”

The answer seems to lie in the fact that many of these ‘rave’ reviews are posted very early on in the Champix users experience.  The fact that they feel no urge to smoke at that stage makes a very big impression, and if side effects are minimal at that point it is not surprising that the review they post is bordering on ecstatic.

But we know from the trials that at least half of those smokers will start again when they come off the medication, so this kind of early assessment is premature.  We also know from the comments that have come in to truth Will Out that although nasty side effects can kick in quite quickly, it is more common for them to happen with prolonged use beyond the six-week or eight-week point.

Now read the latest comment to pop up in my mailbox:

Sheanin wrote:

“I’m so glad I found this website – I only wish I had found it a little sooner.

You have confirmed what I had started to suspect myself as a user of Champix. Although I had only smoked on and off for about 6 years, I was prescribed the drug to help me quit a few weeks ago. As I was desperate to quit once and for all, I went for it. I soon wished I hadn’t.

Last week, I had to admit to myself that I was quickly becoming ill on so many fronts that I had to see my doctor again – and fast. I was told to stop taking Champix immediately. I had spent just over a week feeling as though I had been locked into a tiny little cocoon somewhere in the furthest corners of my mind while a robot took me over.

Sure, I got little waves of euphoria here and there each time I reached a milestone – but with each milestone that euphoria would crash to an even deeper low. In addition, my body was going to pieces; I was constantly nauseated, constantly wishing I could curl up and sleep, suffering from aches and pains absolutely everywhere – it was never ending. As a single mum to two small children, one of whom is disabled, I knew – even from the depths of that little cocoon – that I couldn’t let things continue.

I grew up around depression and mental illness and I had always sworn to myself that my children would never be exposed to those things. So, upon seeing the doctor, I was told to come off the drug immediately, which I did four days ago. And even now, I am suffering the consequences. Since that day, I have gone through what I now know to be terrible withdrawal; every side effect suffered during those few weeks has returned with a vengeance. I have been almost permanently locked in my bathroom, unable to eat, unable to look after my children, permanently in pain. At one point, I felt like I was dying.

All I can say is that I am so relieved to have come off this drug, even if I am still suffering now. I’m sure this sickness will pass and I’m positive that I need no crutches whatsoever to stop me from smoking at this stage, I haven’t had a smoke in almost a month and now associate cigarettes with the sheer torture I’ve gone through during the last few days. If I’d never started smoking in the first place, I’d never have been introduced to the absolute terror that is Champix and I wouldn’t be sitting here now clutching my abdomen with tears in my eyes. This drug should be banned completely; the government slaps scary pictures on cigarette packets but continues to sell them – while nobody gets thoroughly warned about Champix and what it’s highly likely to do to your body.

I’d sooner spend the rest of my life licking tar from the footpath.”

Not Worth The Risk

My point about Champix is really very simple: why risk a hideous experience like that if you have not already tried all the methods that CANNOT POSSIBLY do that to you?  Especially when hypnotherapy, the Allen Carr method and acupuncture all produce better results anyway! (See Evidence section.)

To save money?

And to all those sweet innocents who have suggested brightly that if they feel a bit funny they’ll simply stop taking it, over to Sheanin:

“I was told to come off the drug immediately, which I did four days ago. And even now, I am suffering the consequences. Since that day, I have gone through what I now know to be terrible withdrawal; every side effect suffered during those few weeks has returned with a vengeance. I have been almost permanently locked in my bathroom, unable to eat, unable to look after my children, permanently in pain. At one point, I felt like I was dying.”

And some people have.  Take risks if you want, people, but don’t kid yourself this could never happen to you.  I mean even with Russian Roulette, if there’s six chambers and only one bullet, the odds are very much in your favour that you won’t die the first time you pull that trigger.  Wanna play?

Nicotine: The Drug That Never Was

safer alternative

Related posts:

The truth about why this drug is misconceived anyway, like NRT

Two weeks on Champix

Champix Chantix murders and suicide

Champix Chantix suicide

Champix Chantix seizures and epilepsy

44% success rate? No, 86% failure rate for Champix Chantix

More smokers’ comments follow this post

More smokers’ reviews of Champix Chantix

My original post on Champix Chantix April 2008, and almost 300 comments that followed

Article: Why willpower is irrelevant!

The Truth Will Out, Pfizer!

Killer Chantix Champix Isn’t Magic

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.*

The weird and wonderful internet just threw up another amusing splinter of craziness in the form of an email message, sent through the Truth Will Out Contact Form facility, from a website called ChampixMagic.  It purported to be from a person called Jay, and it said:

Jay wrote:
Dear sir/webmaster,
I am the responsible person for link exchange at chantixmagic.com  I visited your site and feel, it’s a quality one and relevant to my site theme. So I hope that you would consider link exchange with us. If you determine that a link to our site is appropriate, Please let me know whether you are interested or not. If yes please provide your site info.

I find it very hard to believe that Jay has ever visited the Truth Will Out site.  I think it is much more probable that this message is sent out automatically to any site that mentions Champix a lot.  There follows here an excerpt from one of my earlier posts that mentioned it under the heading CHANTIX CHAMPIX KILLS, BUT A.S.H. WON’T TELL THE SMOKERS, and it also mentions the ChampixMagic site:

Now look at this, which purports to be a “Trusted Information Bank” about Champix (Chantix).  At the base of the page, a disclaimer states “We don’t encourage the buying and selling of Chantix without prescription”, which is a weird thing to claim when you can buy it right there, via the site!  It mentions nothing about any dangers, but says:

“Chantix is the latest blockbuster drug approved by the FDA on May 11, 2006 that is indicated as an aid to quit smoking. Manufactured by Pfizer Inc., Chantix offers a new approach, different from the existing smoking cessation therapies to quit smoking.”

It does not mention that the drug is now under investigation by the FDA for serious side effects.   Instead it uses crude scare-tactics in the first two, very badly written paragraphs about the dangers of smoking to suggest that Chantix is your ‘only hope’, if you are a smoker, to escape ‘certain death’. The site is called ChantixMagic and it is dangerously devoid of any serious warnings about how this medication could wreck your life or even end it.

In reality, Champix is a pretty faint hope because it doesn’t work for at least 80% of smokers even with all that hype.  In contrast, expert hypnotherapy has a 60% success rate in first sessions alone.  If you include the successes that took more than one session (some do, it’s inevitable, people are not all the same) then the overall success rate is well over 80% PROVIDED the therapist is a smoking cessation specialist with plenty of experience.

I should also qualify the above statement by saying that I’m talking about success rates in countries in which tobacco use is in general decline.  I work in the U.K. where only about 26% of adults still smoke, so smoking is not the norm.  In countries like Greece and China where there is a much greater proportion of smokers, the long-term success-rate of hypnotherapy would not be as high because the influence of other people smoking has a bearing on relapse rates for all quitting methods, including hypnotherapy – as does the general social perception of what is “the norm”.

So you see, ChampixMagic, I already have a link to your site but I don’t think it was quite what you had in mind.  Since all you want to do is sell more prescription medications without prescriptions or proper warnings regardless of whether it harms or kills people, I suggest you go throw yourself off a cliff.

safer alternative

 

Drug-taking versus Therapy

You are suggesting that Champix is attractive because you only pay a prescription fee. For many people that may turn out to be true. But over the last two years I have been told of many people who have paid a much higher price. Some of them are dead. So what you are suggesting only remains a valid conclusion if none of that happens to you personally.

by Chris Holmes

In response to the post Champix Kills, But Don’t Tell The Smokers a comment came in from James which raised a number of important points, so I have decided to reproduce it here, along with my response to the points he raised:

JAMES on October 27th, 2009 at 7:11 am Said:

I am in two minds regarding Champix. I have many friends who have taken it, the majority have stopped smoking for good (so far). One had a bad reaction and had to stop the course. Depression.

I will be getting the pills tonight and I am optimistic about them. Even though I have read many, many of the horror stories surrounding the drug, I have read many, many, many more that support its use from satisfied patients.

I suggest having a look through this forum: http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/interactive/discussion/viewtopic.php?t=6901&f=11&postdays=0&start=1

There are many people on there who are using/used the drug, detailing all their side effects and most of them come out on top, even after suffering the more drastic ones such as depression. Funny that, I don’t think a single one ever mentioned “suicidal tendencies or thoughts”. I don’t deny this, but when it comes down to either Tobacco companies generating insane amounts of revenue at the cost of my health, or a Chemical company offering me something with a 20% (based on your figure) success rate of quitting smoking that has many people praising, or spending hundreds of pounds on hypnotherapy.. I’m going with the pill.

The one thing I DO agree with, is that the NHS / Health Associations are all corrupt. I read Alan Carr’s book, which helped me stop smoking for 6 months previously. Reading it again does not have the same appeal, naturally, but his points do stand. If the NHS actually thought for themselves, or did some research, they really would find out that hypnotherapy is far more successful than NRT, although the costs of such would not necessarily benefit them. I imagine hypnotherapy is more expensive than patches!!

It does not suprise me that hypnotherapists are very anti-champix, as naturally, it is one-side fighting for revenue against another. Saving lives is the most important, but this can really split peoples trusts.

Needless to say, I will be taking Champix, I am aware of the risks and will keep an eye on my mental state very closely (along with the help of others). If I don’t quit using it, I cannot afford hypnotherapy. Therefore, its either the cigarettes or the Champix that will no doubt, one day kill me.

Even though you have your own ideas about Champix already, and can back them up, if it helps 20% of smokers to become non-smokers, then withdrawing it is a BIG mistake.
Those 20% who do quit with it, may not be able to afford the several-hundred pounds cost of hypnotherapy (based on last time I checked a session at an Alan Carr clinic). You could be giving them a death-sentence, if they continued to smoke.

Smoking is expensive enough, I’ll take my chances with a prescription fee ;)

James

P.S.. Interesting read, nonetheless!!

CHRIS on October 28th, 2009 at 5:45am Said:

Hi James, thanks for your thoughts.

I had a look at the “netdoctor” site, and what struck me immediately was that nearly all the posts on the first page are from people on Day 1 or Day 3 of the course! These are “so far, so good” posts that many champix blogs are littered with, which create a totally false impression. That’s like someone sending you a text message that says they’re 12 minutes into their hypnotherapy session, and so far they haven’t wanted a cigarette! Only people who have been off the tablets for weeks or months can truly report their own experience as a success. Don’t forget, half the people in the original trials who were counted as successes were smoking again within 28 weeks.

Most of the horrific side effects have kicked in after weeks on the drug, so please don’t be falsely reassured by these early comments.

Who or What is netdoctor?

Down at the bottom of the homepage it says that netdoctor.co.uk is a trade mark. Is it? And what trade might that be, then? And do you suppose that the lack of posts reporting serious side effects might be because the site moderators think that those sort of reports might be bad for “trade”, so they don’t get approved for display on the site?

Hypnotherapy v. Champix?

I’m not against Champix simply because it is competition. If it were as straighforward as that I would be against the Allen Carr people and acupuncturists too, but as anyone can see from reading Truth Will Out, I am not – in fact I recommend them. I do claim hypnotherapy has the greatest success of the three, but then I back that up in the Evidence section. This site is all about evidence, and so is the book. You don’t have to buy the book to see that, because I publish a lot of it here for free.

The Relative Costs

Although I often state that the Allen Carr Easyway method is a form of hypnotherapy – which is true – it is not the best form by a long way. In fact I would suggest to anyone that the best version of the Allen Carr approach is to read the original book, the one that actually made him famous in the first place. The group sessions involve too many people, it complicates matters and brings down the overall success rate. The book is something you contemplate, and can return to – there are fewer distractions, just as in a one-to-one hypnotherapy session it is a more personal experience.

Please don’t assume hypnotherapy costs hundreds of pounds just because the Allen Carr franchises charge hundreds of pounds for their stop smoking sessions. I confidently regard myself as an expert in this field, but I only charge £120 for the Stop Smoking session I offer. I also have a reduced-fee back up session, so even those smokers who need two sessions – most do not – only pay £160 in total. Most smokers save that back in a month.

Now, some colleagues have suggested that I should charge more, and I certainly could charge more. But it is also true that some smokers – like yourself – would not choose hypnotherapy if I did that, so it would be the opposite of promoting the wider recognition of hypnotherapy as a therapeutic mode, something to which all professional hypnotherapists are supposed to be committed.

You are suggesting that Champix is attractive because you only pay a prescription fee. For many people that may turn out to be true. But over the last two years I have been told of many people who have paid a much higher price. Some of them are dead. So what you are suggesting only remains a valid conclusion if none of that happens to you personally. It is exactly the same “It won’t happen to me” assumption that many smokers adopt with regard to heart attacks and cancer – but in your case you have transferred it to Champix instead, accepting the suggestion that “it has to be better than dying of cancer”, as if those were the only choices! It’s a marketing suggestion and it apparently works very well, but it has a very hollow ring later for the unlucky ones.

Is it really about money? Those people who have posted their horror stories here and on other blogs, the ones who are terrified they will never feel normal, happy and healthy again – how much money would they pay to get their health back, or to be able to turn back the clock and never take the damn stuff in the first place?

How much did you pay for your last holiday? Was it £120? That was over in a flash, and now you have only your snapshots and your memories, but the benefits of stopping smoking last a lifetime.

What I am telling everyone is the truth, and I don’t just state it, I’m providing plenty of evidence and plenty of references so people can find out more – far more than the drug company lackeys are telling them. Then I am suggesting that you make an informed choice, and I think it is logical to try all the non-risk options first: hypnotherapy, the Allen Carr method and acupuncture have never harmed anyone, but they have certainly helped a lot of people to quit smoking.

In the context of your safety, your good health and the whole of the rest of your life, the investment in these non-risk approaches is peanuts, really! How much money do we burn up every year simply on our own idle entertainment?

I am only suggesting that the use of methods that have already harmed people should only be considered when all the safe methods have already been tried. You would think doctors would agree with that, wouldn’t you? As for the NHS funding hypnotherapy sessions for smoking cessation, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Too many fingers in too many pies, my friend. The annual NHS bill for medications alone topped £10 billion some time ago, and it is rising still… do you really think the use of pharmaceuticals saves the NHS money?

It is killing the NHS. And we’ll see the end of the NHS before we see the end of the stranglehold the drug companies have over the medical profession. Hypnotherapists can’t stop it. Doctors can’t stop it. Even the drug companies can’t stop it, because they are in competition with other drug companies, and they have obligations to their shareholders. They have to sell more drugs, which means the NHS has to buy more drugs, which means people – such as yourself – have to take more drugs. They can’t have you going off to see a hypnotherapist – if everyone started doing that it would only mean one thing for drug companies: hard times. So of course they do everything in their power to steer you away from that, and netdoctor.co.uk is doing its bit there.

The question is, who do you trust? Those of us who have never hurt anyone but have helped thousands of people to safely stop smoking, or the people who have a long and apparently shameless history of killing and maiming tens of thousands of ‘unlucky ones’ with a whole list of nasty concoctions over the years, every one of which was mistakenly passed as “safe”?

Whatever you choose to do, James, I wish you well. Please do keep us posted about your progress.

*This exchange was four weeks ago.  So far James has not been back to tell us whether he did start taking Champix that night as he planned, or how the first four weeks went.

the safest quit smoking method is also the most successful

Money is the New Wonder Drug

Scientists – you know, those people with white labcoats and glasses who tirelessly Mine The Seam Of Truth for all mankind – have been getting very excited about the role of Money in the development of new Wonder Drugs.

Useful Definitions:

‘Wonder Drug’

A Wonder Drug is a drug which has just been launched, so it has yet to kill anyone and will not have proven itself to be an abject failure in reality until years later. The use of small numbers of people in a succession of drug trials by the pharmaceutical giant that produced the chemical concoction will have thrown up, through normal anomaly, at least one group with an apparent success rate (when converted into percentage terms) that would be truly useful if it were not just an anomaly, but will turn out to be very misleading in comparison to the way the drug will really perform across the board.

This cleverly dishonest procedure is all that is necessary to get the medication passed as if it were genuinely effective, and officially labelled “evidence-based medicine”. The use of small numbers of trial subjects overall, and the specific exclusion of certain types of depressed, anxious and volatile subjects minimises the risk of bad reactions which might otherwise lead to caution in the approvals procedure. At this stage, any evidence of actual risk must be carefully avoided at all costs. Once approved though, the Wonder Drug can be given to all and sundry and it usually takes months or years for the evidence of serious side effects to build up to the point where journalists start asking awkward questions about it. Approval bodies may then consider whether a warning should be attached to the medication to offset a little bit of this. This belated damage-limitation excercise doesn’t help the victims of the deception at all, but it does signal the end of the drug’s ‘Wonder’ status.

Studies revealed that there are no Old Wonder Drugs, only New ones.

‘Drug’

A drug is a chemical concoction which is supposed to be useful in treating illness or injury – or in the case of the more recent type of drugs, managing a condition or preventing illnesses that haven’t actually happened yet. Once approved as if it were genuinely safe and effective, the approval bodies will not remove the approval status even if it later proves to be useless or even deadly in some cases. This is because they are approval bodies, not disapproval bodies. It is also because the people who work for medication approval bodies are very fond of pharmaceutical companies, and feel very sorry for them if some people die, or are horribly damaged by one of their unnatural chemical concoctions. They know that it costs the pharmaceutical giants a lot of money to produce and market a new drug – especially if it is to be hyped as a Wonder Drug – and it can take a while to recoup that investment through worldwide sales before they start making fat profits from this farcical scam. So if it were to become common knowledge that the drug has horrible side-effects and doesn’t really work anyway, that might spoil everything. Therefore the approval bodies try to help out in any way they can, slowing the inevitable demise of the existing ‘approved’ drugs, and getting their big rubber stamp all ready for the next one to come out of the cauldron.

Active Ingredient: Money

In a bid to understand how drugs which usually don’t work but do sometimes kill people – such as Champix, for instance – can nevertheless become the recommended and publicly-funded treatment whilst other treatments which work far better and don’t kill anyone ever – such as hypnotherapy, just to give one example right off the top of my head – are stubbornly ignored, scientists began searching for a key factor that might be influencing the behaviour and choices of everyone involved in perpetuating this sorry and dangerous state of affairs. What they discovered left them deeply shocked – as it would anyone who still believes that Science is all about Truth.

They discovered that although quite a lot of early scientific discoveries were made by enthusiasts who could do any kind of experiments they liked because they weren’t working for any vested interests, all contemporary scientists are paid Money by vested interests and have to do what they are told whether they like it or not.

They discovered that although drug testing used to be carried out by relatively independent academics in Universities – hence the presumed validity of the term “evidence-based medicine” – all drug trials are now organised and carried out by the drug companies themselves, so everyone involved is paid Money by them. When that trial work is concluded, however, then notable academics may be offered handsome sums of Money to add their signature to the drug company documents that will be presented to the approval bodies, to give the impression of academic involvement in the trials themselves which is in fact completely bogus. Without this Money, scientists discovered, none of them would do that.

Two of the scientists actually fainted when they discovered how much Money was used to market and promote a drug like Champix. In their innocence they had just assumed that if the drug was as successful as the drug companies said it was, it would naturally become the smoking cessation approach of choice by reason of its success. How could it not?

They discovered that Doctors were being paid Money to prescribe medications for smoking cessation, on the pretext that this helps smokers to quit. The obvious fact that this would affect some doctors’ clinical judgement and encourage them to keep prescribing even if it wasn’t apparently working made a number of the scientists frown – as well they might, for this is particularly unscientific.

They also discovered that quite a lot of Money was being spent on treating doctors and key medical professionals to lavish ‘conferences’ in very pleasant locations which were really just marketing exercises by drug companies to promote their medications. None of this Money was wasted on non-decision-makers, and although scientists couldn’t actually prove that this was just corruption, the facts suggested that the drug companies weren’t just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

Conclusions

So it seemed that Money was indeed the New Wonder Drug, because without the generous injection of Money at all these key stages in the development of new chemical concoctions, none of them would ever be considered to be Wonder Drugs at all, even briefly. Shortly after concluding this the scientists vanished into thin air, after one of them pointed out that because they weren’t being paid any Drug Company Money themselves, they didn’t exist. They were merely a figment of the imagination of a certain hypnotherapist.

Certain, that is, of one thing: Truth Will Out.

practice website

Chantix Champix Kills, but A.S.H. Won’t Tell The Smokers

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.*

It’s not just doctors that are failing to warn smokers about the more deadly serious side-effects of Champix Chantix.  The so-called “public health charity” Action on Smoking and Health (A.S.H.) have conspicuously failed to update their advice to smokers and health professionals in the light of all the horror-stories over the past eighteen months, choosing instead to take their lead from N.I.C.E., the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, who don’t seem to have updated their recommendations about Chantix Champix since 2007.

N.I.C.E. seem to have adopted the position that “Clinical Excellence” means taking forever and a day to even acknowledge the fact that a medication is causing unnecessary deaths, and then to not really do anything about it anyway, except perhaps issue some “new guidelines”.  If the guidelines are ignored by G.P.s they wring their hands and say it is “unacceptable”, and that’s about it.

Put simply, these people don’t really care if Chantix Champix kills you.  Or your mother, or your best friend, or your son. Not enough to actually do anything about it anyway.  They won’t withdraw any medications just because it becomes obvious that prescribing them significantly increases the risk of serious illness or death.  They won’t even do anything about it if they know for sure that dangerous medications are being routinely mis-prescribed.

Here comes the Science Bit

Witness the atypical anti-psychotic drugs like Olanzapine and Quetiapine which last year were reckoned – in a conservative estimate, since these were only the fatalities that were officially reported – to have killed 700 people in the previous five years in the U.K. alone.  Of the estimated 150,000 elderly patients being precribed these drugs, somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 shouldn’t be, according to the Director of Research for the Alzheimers Society, Professor Clive Ballard of Kings College London.  Commenting on this on BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 programme in June 2008, N.I.C.E.’s reviewer of the use of these medications, Dr Tim Kendall said that in his opinion, doctors mis-prescribing such dangerous medications should be disciplined by the General Medical Council.

Well, they haven’t been.  So now, more than one year on, more prescriptions, more deaths, no-one held responsible, no-one about to be held responsible.

This isn’t Clinical Excellence.  It is a Licence to Kill.

Back to The Great Chantix Champix Experiment

Given this incredibly lax system, why should GP’s trouble themselves to find out whether the drugs they have been advised to prescribe actually have horrific side-effects such as severe psychiatric disturbances which can lead to suicide?  Why should they be anxious about it?  Nothing is going to happen to the GP if he or she loses an elderly patient to Olanzapine or a smoker to Chantix Champix.

Only this morning a woman who has been a contributor to this blog on a number of occasions, Jane, emailed me to tell me how her doctor had just offered her Champix again, despite the fact she had a bad reaction to it the last time.  He apparently knew little about the suicides and other severe side effects, so she directed him to this site right then, during the consultation.

Do you get this, A.S.H.?  Are you appreciating the astonishing and horrifying irony of this, N.I.C.E.?  I’M EDUCATING DOCTORS, NOW. ME, A HYPNOTHERAPIST. They’re having to find out from Truth Will Out about the horrors that Chantix Champix can inflict upon their patients, because you aren’t making it clear enough or acting fast enough, and it’s all because you are way too close to the drug companies to have the patients’ best interests at heart.

Cash In on Smoking and Health

Action on Smoking and Health (A.S.H.) are officially a public health charity.  According to their own official story, they came into existence because “a group of concerned doctors” were unhappy that not enough was being done by the Department of Health to deal with the smoking issue.  All very commendable, you might think – so you would then expect that the safety and health of smokers was their main concern and anything that could be proven to help smokers quit consistently would be championed by them.

Not so.  Only drug company products are championed by them, and they routinely mislead smokers about all alternative methods (see the Evidence section of this site).  In November of 2007, the then Director of ASH Deborah Arnott was forced to apologise to The Allen Carr Easyway International organisation for rubbishing their claims to a 53% success rate with smokers at twelve-month follow-up… a success rate far higher than any of the drug methods ASH routinely promote.

So she apologised.  And agreed to pay Easyway’s legal costs for the case.  Did she then direct ASH to start recommending the superior, and now proven Easyway method?  No, they continue to completely ignore it, which proves that they do NOT have the interests of smokers at heart, they are simply a shop window for drug companies POSING as a public health charity.

ASH are not even up to date regarding the failure rates and the dangers of the drug products they push.  Do they explain to smokers that the nicotine replacement products are proven to have a 93.5% failure rate when the results are reviewed at twelve-month follow-up, according to the 2008 report by Borland et al?  Do they also warn smokers that the same report found that this failure rate rose to 97.4% if they just got those products from their GP, which means that all the expertise and the efforts of the specialist NHS Stop Smoking Services made a difference of less than 4% across the board – which, by the way, is not “four times more likely to succeed”?

No.  And they don’t tell smokers that Champix carries the risk of very serious, even fatal side effects, and won’t work anyway for over 80% of smokers when results are reviewed at one year, which of course is a worse performance than the original trials suggested.  Not surprising really, since drug trials these days certainly aren’t as ‘scientific’ as they used to be (see “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” on this site).

Just in case you think ASH should be forgiven for not getting around to any serious warnings yet, just take a look at this, from December 2007: Medical News Today So, why still no mention of any of this by Action on Smoking and Health twenty-one months later? Simple: they are not really a public health charity at all.  If they were, they would be recommending hypnotherapy and the Allen Carr method as the two methods that have consistently proven themselves most effective so far.  They are also the safest methods. Instead they continue to recommend Chantix Champix and Zyban, both of which have caused deaths.  So much for “a group of concerned doctors”!  What were they “concerned” about, drug company profits?

Lowest of the Low: The Internet Drug Dealers

Now look at this, which purports to be a “Trusted Information Bank” about Champix (Chantix).  At the base of the page, a disclaimer states “We don’t encourage the buying and selling of Chantix without prescription”, which is a weird thing to claim when you can buy it right there, via the site!  It mentions nothing about any dangers, but says:

“Chantix is the latest blockbuster drug approved by the FDA on May 11, 2006 that is indicated as an aid to quit smoking. Manufactured by Pfizer Inc., Chantix offers a new approach, different from the existing smoking cessation therapies to quit smoking.”

It does not mention that the drug is now under investigation by the FDA for serious side effects.   Instead it uses crude scare-tactics in the first two, very badly written partagraphs about the dangers of smoking to suggest that Chantix is your ‘only hope’, if you are a smoker, to escape ‘certain death’. The site is called ChantixMagic and it is dangerously devoid of any serious warnings about how this medication could wreck your life or even end it.

ASH: Stop pretending to be a Public Health Charity with smokers’ interests as your primary concern – you are BUSTED!

NICE: Stop sitting on your hands while smokers are actively encouraged to use dangerous medications without being properly informed about the risks.  Allen Carr was right: therapies like ours work far better, so stop pretending they don’t – the public are becoming increasingly aware of these facts, despite all the misinformation generated by the “systematic review” ploy and the bloody Cochrane Library!  The truth is a different matter – you’ll end up losing ALL your credibility, and so will the medical profession generally if you allow the Global Drug Pushers to keep running the show.

Doctors: Don’t prescribe Champix Chantix!  You haven’t been properly informed, do some independent detective work on the internet – just Google “Champix Suicides”, and have a read of that lot.  Then ask yourself: would you put a member of your family on that stuff?  Do you trust Pfizer enough, when they sidestep the issue by saying that there’s no causal link proven – which of course is quite different from saying that there’s no causal link – to risk the life of a loved one?  Haven’t Pfizer just been ordered to pay a truly collosal sum for the offence of “fraudulent marketing”?

All your smoking patients are somebody’s loved one.  Hypnotherapy, the Allen Carr method (which is a form of hypnotherapy anyway) and acupuncture have all scored better long term results in scientific trials, and all carry NO RISK. Look at the Evidence section here, and elsewhere on the web.

Folks, if you share these concerns please help by spreading the word: Truth Will Out is about Health Care, not Health Risk.  There are safer and more successful ways to quit – don’t take the suicide pills.

practice website

The Drug That Never Was

Chantix Champix Kills: But Don’t Tell The Smokers!

The Canadian Lung Association fails to mention any serious side effects associated with Chantix Champix. This is a very serious omission, but it is no different from what most doctors are doing. The blog also informs us that The Canadian Lung Association received funding in the form of a grant from… Pfizer Canada, the Canadian arm of the global drug giant Pfizer, who make Chantix Champix.

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.*

 

The Real Threat to Doctors, Pharmacists and the Medical Profession

To learn the truth about Chantix Champix, all you have to do is Google “Champix suicides” (or Chantix suicides) and read all about it for yourself.

But why should smokers have to do that? Most smokers assume that their doctor or their pharmacist would warn them of any serious risks that their patient might be running if they take Chantix Champix. Some do: in fact, we have heard anecdotally of one or two doctors who have refused to prescribe it. However, these are the exceptions.

Reading around the blogs which are dealing with the Chantix Champix controversy it becomes frighteningly clear that most smokers are left completely in the dark by doctors and pharmacists about the serious side effects of Chantix Champix, and only warned about the minor ones. The fact that this negligence is leading to injuries and deaths must surely be actionable. We are talking about a medication that is currently under investigation by the FDA for serious and dangerous side-effects. It has been very clearly implicated in many suicide attempts and a considerable number of deaths. Many other people have had other horrible reactions that have left them hospitalised, terrified and emotionally damaged, and also Chantix Champix has wrecked relationships and families.

Your doctor and your pharmacist may decide, though, that they’d better not tell you that in case you decide not to take the damn stuff.

One recent contributor to this blog, Kath (see Champix 4: Enough Already. Comment No.98) – was particularly angry about that point, once I had explained that she was not alone. She said:

“Chris thank you for taking the time to respond to me. As I read your reply what really stuck out is that when I had a weird episode of behaviour at 4 weeks, I would have known where it was coming from if I knew that Champix has side effects. If my doctor had warned me to watch for behavioural changes I would have been off this drug much sooner, before it made me into a blubbering mess. That is what bothers me the most.

I was having a conversation with a friend today about how even the doctor makes money when he writes a script. That is really effed up. How can my doctor have a financial benefit to prescribing a drug? What the hell kind of world are we living in? How can we expect to get proper health care when the gp’s make money for giving us life-threatening drugs?”

How indeed. And this is the real threat to the future of the medical profession. It is obvious why Chantix Champix is getting the whitewash treatment, and it all comes down to money. Doctors are treated to free trips, lavish treatment at ‘conferences’ and all kinds of incentives to promote medications which can all be summed up in one simple word: Corrupt.

How complacent are you, all you medical professionals who are just sitting on your hands and pretending it is okay to keep taking the incentives and keep your mouths shut about killer drugs like Chantix Champix? You keep pretending nicotine replacement is a real medication even though you know it doesn’t work at all, you keep prescribing Prozac and Seroxat even though we all know now that they didn’t perform any better than placebos in the trials… Your professional credibility is rotting away even as I type this, and the stench of your corruption is making even the most conservative of patients wince. If you continue down this road there will BE no medical profession, it will all become Medico-Pharmaceutical Inc.

Think I’m exaggerating? Then have a look at this report by one of the few exceptions, a blog edited by practising Canadian pharmacists called Canada Pharmacy News. The story points out that The Canadian Lung Association fails to mention any serious side effects associated with Chantix Champix. This is a very serious omission, but it is no different from what most doctors are doing. The blog also informs us that The Canadian Lung Association received funding in the form of a grant from… Pfizer Canada, the Canadian arm of the global drug giant Pfizer, who make Chantix Champix. Only a few days ago, the Justice Department in the USA announced that Pfizer had been ordered to pay a record settlement of 2.3 billion dollars for “fraudulent marketing”. Nothing to do with Chantix Champix, that one, by the way. But this is (link).

The credibility of pharmacists and doctors was originally based on hard science, but it has all been hijacked by the medico-mafia of the drug companies and their well-placed friends in the medical authorities, the medication approval bodies, academia and the press. Once you’ve lost that credibility in the minds of the public, Doc, you will never get it back.

practice website

The book that blew the whistle on the nicotine scam

Champix 5: No Wonder Drug

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.*

Until recently I was advising smokers to Google “Champix Suicides” if they wanted to hear the truth about this dangerous – and largely useless – medication. Nowadays, all you have to do is Google “Champix” and those warning sites are already appearing on the first page, along with all the shameless promotions and internet ‘pharmacies’ selling the stuff.

It was the Mirror group of newspapers that first announced the decision to make Champix available on the NHS here in the U.K. I just visited Mirror.co.uk and found that they list a total of four articles about Champix published by them since May 2007. They appear on the site like this:

1) NHS pill to stop smoking A pill to help smokers quit will be available on the NHS within weeks… (May 31st 07)

2) Anti-cig tablet – The Verdict Two Mirror readers tell how the wonder drug worked for them… (June 1st 07)

3) Quit cigs pill alarm A pill that helps smokers kick the habit is being probed over possible links to suicidal thoughts… (Nov 28 2007)

4 Man ‘killed by anti-smoking drug’ A grieving wife claims her husband killed himself after taking a new anti-smoking drug… (Jan 21 2008).

Quite a neat summary, isn’t it? Notice how the Mirror played their part in hyping it, though? Calling Champix a “pill that helps smokers kick the habit” as if that were simply a fact – when in truth at least 80% will still be smoking a year later, unless of course they have killed themselves. And referring to it as a “wonder drug”, once again perpetuating the myth of the magic pill and encouraging smokers to try it.

Of course, those people at The Mirror don’t make the news – let’s be clear about that. They just hold up a mirror to reality, don’t they, hence the name.  They’re not influencing anyone, are they?  I notice they didn’t call it a wonder drug any more in the fourth article, though. But don’t worry: there’ll be another “wonder drug” along soon, to distract you from the disturbing fact that the last one has been killing people, and didn’t work for the majority anyway. Check out the evidence here.

Now – those of you who checked out that link above – apparently that BBC reporter has been told that Champix out-performed “alternative” methods in scientific trials. The reporter is actually referring there to the pharmaceutical alternatives, not any type of Alternative Medicine. It is not hard to out-perform NRT or Zyban, which have long-term success rates of only 6% and 12% respectively. Hypnotherapy is far more successful than Champix, and without the risks.

Notice too how Pfizer try to muddy the waters with regard to the side-effects, talking about “nicotine withdrawal” and “underlying psychiatric problems”? No, their nasty little pill is screwing people’s brains up, and they’ll deny it as long as they can, that’s all. Look at the vast sums of money they are raking in – quite a lot of it is NHS cash, which the NHS can ill-afford – and the damn stuff doesn’t work for most smokers anyway! It is obscene.

That is why it is so good to see that sufferers are beginning to hit back, and encourage other to do the same. Follow this link to hear how Tim Wilkinson feels about Pfizer’s attitude to sufferers like himself and what he intends to do about it.  Scroll down the Champix article to find the Comments below, they are in date order and Tim’s first comment is dated October 2008:  (3 posts: Oct 5th, Dec 4th and 14th 2008)

Anyway, watch this space. I predict that the Champix death toll will go on rising, the court cases will pile up, and the newspaper reports will get grimmer and grimmer… just don’t take the damn stuff, folks. Doctors, don’t prescribe it – it isn’t safe and doesn’t work well enough to be worth the risk. Hypnotherapy, the Allen Carr method and acupuncture all work better than Champix, Zyban or NRT – that is a fact, and the longer medical authorities and pharmaceutical companies seek to deny that, the worse will be their credibility in the long run. Truth Will Out.

Oh, by the way – one or two comments have suggested this site is just self-promotion… if that were true, why would I mention the Allen Carr people and acupuncturists? I have no connection with either. I want smokers to be fully aware that there are other choices that don’t involve risk and are more effective anyway – take your pick, just don’t take the pills. And if you want to help, spread the word. Either way, feel free to comment – your post will appear on the site within 48 hours max. If the “Leave a Reply” box isn’t visible below this post, click on the word “Comments” below.   All views welcome.

The Drug That Never Was

Chantix Champix 4 – Enough Already

Anyone considering using Chantix Champix should read this article FIRST, then investigate other methods, particularly hypnotherapy, which involve NO RISK and produce far more long-term success anyway than any pharmaceutical quit-product (see evidence on this site and in the book). If you want to know more about hypnotherapy, visit the Central Hypnotherapy website.

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.*

Having begun this with a fairly open mind when it came to Chantix Champix – a relatively new medication – in the 14 months since I first referred to it in my book, which was the end of May 2007 when its launch was announced in the U.K., I have decided upon a personal stance. I think it is highly unpredictable and sometimes very dangerous, and should never have been passed in the U.K. because many of these problems had already surfaced in the U.S., and caution – not hype – is the appropriate attitude for medical bodies to adopt when something new appears.

All you Chantix Champix apologists who are trying to claim that adverse reactions are “withdrawal of nicotine”, I refer you to the U.S. Surgeon General. The following link takes you to an article posted on the website of WhyQuit.com, which is not, as you might assume from the name, a pro-smoking group, but an advocate of quitting without pharmaceutical products. The article is called Champix and Chantix linked to Depression, Aggression and Suicide. Anyone considering using Chantix Champix should read this article FIRST, then investigate other methods, particularly hypnotherapy, which involve NO RISK and produce far more long-term success anyway than any pharmaceutical quit-product (see evidence on this site and in the book). If you want to know more about hypnotherapy, visit the Central Hypnotherapy website.

Here is the rather grim Champix article.

Champix/Chantix 3

*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.*

This is a serious warning: because of the comments that have come in so far over Champix, and because of the growing incidence of suicides linked to Champix (Don’t take my word – Google it: Champix suicides) I believe that anyone who wants help to stop smoking should look into this very carefully before agreeing to try this medication. Don’t just assume that if your doctor seems unconcerned then it must be all right, or you may be taking more of a risk than you realise.

It appears that there are still a lot of doctors who just assume that if a medication has been given an official stamp of approval, then it should be okay. Certainly their own backside is covered as long as they are prescribing within the guidelines, so when they prescribe this stuff they are not taking any kind of a risk, but you could be. The drug companies certainly don’t seem to be worried if medications harm or kill people, because it has previously been very difficult in practice for victims or their families to sue drug companies anyway.  Nevertheless, Pfizer are now facing legal actions over Champix, which they will no doubt hope to confound by creating confusion over exactly what causes the suicides.

Clearly there are big differences in the way people react to Champix which strongly suggest that although it might turn out to be safe enough for some, the side effects for others are obviously alarming and potentially dangerous, as the warning not to drive whilst taking it shows for a start. The effects of this medication are unpredictable, and it doesn’t seem to be scoring a very high long-term success-rate anyway, so it probably isn’t worth the risk.

Don’t just swallow the lame argument that smoking is riskier, those aren’t the only options. There are good quit methods widely available that involve no risk: hypnotherapy and acupuncture, the Allen Carr method and other non-drug approaches all have good track records, and hypnotherapy is the best when it is done properly. You don’t need to just take my word for that, read the evidence here on this site, read the book, check out all the references, see if I’m not right. If you have doubts or fears about hypnotherapy, those will be groundless in reality: go to www.centralhypnotherapy.com and find out what it’s really all about.

Finally, I’m not saying “Don’t take Champix”, I’m just saying it is safer to read around first, and consider all the options. I don’t believe the medical profession are being careful enough about this, I think many doctors are just thinking about the smoking issue and assuming any side effects are “worth the risk”. But are patients being properly informed about the nastier and more dangerous side-effects now coming to light? Are doctors being properly informed? How many doctors are aware that hypnotherapy is more successful anyway, and without risk or side-effects? How many of them have bought the official line that it’s “unproven”?

Check your medical history: hypnotherapy was officially approved by both the British and American Medical Associations as a valid therapeutic method over half a century ago.  That was when they still had real integrity, before those authorities became like the ventriloquist dolls of the pharmaceutical industry. Now those authorities routinely suggest that hypnotherapy is “unproven” as a method of smoking cessation. Liars. Hypnotherapy is more proven now than it has ever been, and we don’t poison anyone.

*If you are involved in the prescribing of Champix/Chantix, and you think I am wrong to be concerned about that medication, post a reply. Have your say.

**To see the earlier posts on Champix and read the comments posted so far, click the Blog Category Champix/Chantix on the right of the page.