Discover all the information you require to stop smoking with Chantix: its effectiveness,side effects and safety.

1. Is It Safe to Stop Smoking with
Chantix?
By
http://2stopsmokingtips.com

2. Introduction
• There’s a lot of noise about Chantix with many
people wondering if the stop smoking
medication is safe. This presentation will
answer all your questions about stop smoking
with Chantix, a quit smoking pill manufactured
and marketed by Pfizer Incorporated.

3. Chantix Many Not Be a Wonder Drug
• But one thing we can say is; considering the
controversies that have surrounded its
use, Chantix may not be the wonder drug that
will help you stop smoking,even though Pfizer
Incorporated (its manufacturer) claims it has a
44% quit smoking success rate at 12 weeks.

4. Chantix’s Inflated Success Rate
• Perhaps, in a bid to generate more
sales, Pfizer, has failed and continues to fail to
adequately inform consumers and smokers of
the vital and salient fact that half of clinical
trial users who effectively used Chantix for 12
weeks had gone back to smoking within 12
months.

5. FDA Warns About Chantix
• Even the FDA’s safety warnings about chantix
is pointer to the fact that the drug may not be
‘the miracle cure’ its manufacturer portrays it
to be. This warning was issued as a result of
the FDA’s growing concern about the
potentially life threatening side effects of
using Chantix. As a matter of fact, one of the
many dangers of Chantix appears to be the
onset of suicidal tendencies within days or
weeks of applying the smoking cessation drug.

6. Chantix Side Effects
• It has reportedly been linked to over 3000 reports
of cases including suicides, heart trouble and
aggression, according to a May 2008 study by the
non-profit Institute for Safe Medication Practices
that sparked the Federal Aviation Administration
review.
• Shortly after the review,the FAA banned the quit
smoking pill Chantix from the list of drugs
considered safe for air-traffic controllers and
pilots in May 2008. Commercial Truck drivers
have also been restricted from using Chantix.

7. What is chantix?
• Varenicline is the chemical name of one of the
most famous stop smoking aids around. In the
US, it’s sold under the trade name Chantix
while other countries market it as Champix.
It’s a prescription medication manufactured
and marketed by Pfizer Incorporated. You can
view Chantix’s “full prescribing information”
sheet as well as the “patient information”
sheet. Call it a controversial medication and
you won’t be far from the truth.

8. What is Chantix(2)
• Chantix is a non-nicotine pill that blocks the part of the
brain responsible for nicotine addiction. The simple
thing Chantix does is to block nicotine from attaching
to your brain’s receptors; in effect,this takes all of the
pleasure and excitement out of smoking. However, the
drug has been connected with a high risk of behavioral
changes, depressed
feelings, agitation, nightmares, aggressive
behavior, hostility, unexplainable rage, suicidal
thoughts, suicide attempts and, in many
cases, successful suicide.
• Livestrong.com mentions some of the long term
Chantix side effects in an article published June 2011.

9. Is Chantix safe?
• If you have never tried quitting before but just
want to try,experts say you should not use
Chantix at all. The new study published in the
November 2nd edition of the journal PLoS
One, an online publication of the Public
Library of Science says the poor safety image
of the stop smoking drug,Varenicline (Chantix)
makes it highly unsuitable for first time
quitters.

10. Is Chantix safe?(2)
• Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical
Center, the Institute for Safe Medication
Practices, Harvard Medical School and Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine said
their investigation revealed that Chantix is
connected with more cases of suicide,self-
injury and depression far more than other
drugs and methods designed to help smokers
quit. According to them, the risks of taking
Chantix simply overshadow the benefits.

11. Is Chantix safe?(3)
• They therefore called on the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) to take warnings about the
smoking cessation drug Chantix up a notch.
• But in a swift reaction,Pfizer affirmed the use of
Chantix as an effective stop smoking treatment
for adults who want to drop off
cigarettes, claiming that the PLoS One research
“does not offer reliable scientific information.”

12. Is Chantix safe?(4)
• This is not the first report about the potential
side effects of Chantix. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) approved Chantix in
2006, since then,there have been reports and
cases of adverse events involving the use of the
medication, leading the agency to put a black box
warning on its label in 2009. The label change
also applied to Zyban (Bupropion), another
smoking cessation medication. The warning
cautioned doctors and patients about the risk of
hostility, depression and suicidal thoughts after
using both drugs.

13. Is Chantix safe?(5)
• But researchers involved in the PLoS One
study say these warnings are just not enough.
They therefore urged the FDA to update
Chantix’s warning label, saying the mental
risks of the drug is more than those of
nicotine replacement therapies or even its
competitor, Zyban.

14. Tragic Deaths Involving Chantix
• Priorto this November 2011 study,Jeffrey
Carter Albrecht, a popular Dallas Musician was
said to have died just a week after taking
Chantix. Although Pfizer Incorporated denied
the claims, Ryann Rathbone, Albrecht’s
girlfriend strongly linked his death to the
smoking cessation drug,Chantix.

15. Tragic Deaths Involving Chantix(2)
• Thereafter,Pfizer issued a statement affirming
that to date data doesn’t suggest a relationship
between Chantix and violent behavior.
• Shortly after Albrecht’s death,Derek de Koff
posted his nightmarish experience after using
Chantix.
• In May 2009, Sean Wain, a
Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania man who had been using
Chantix, killed his wife and committed
suicide,leaving behind four minor children.

16. Tragic Deaths Involving Chantix(3)
• According to the story, Sean Wain was
prescribed Chantix to assist him quit smoking
and he had been using the medication for
about one to two weeks before he started to
experience rage, which resulted in violent
acts. This reportedly led him to shoot his wife
twice with a 20-gauge shotgun and then
turned the gun on himself. This violent
incident took place on May 17, 2009.

17. So Many Chantix lawsuits
• To seek justice, a law suit has been filed on their behalf.
The Chantix murder-suicide lawsuit was filed by the
estates of Sean Wain, 34, and Natalie Wain, 33 on May
9,2011 in the U.S. District Court for the Western
District of Pennsylvania.
• Over a thousand Chantix lawsuits are reportedly
pending in US courts, with most involving claims of
depression and other behavioral changes as a result of
using Chantix. A significant number of the lawsuits are
wrongful and avoidable death lawsuits, filed by a
Chantix lawyer on behalf of families who are victims of
Chantix suicide.

18. Chantix and Heart Attack Risk
• Suffice to say,Chantix has presented a whole new
opportunity for legal practitioners,with some of them
specialising as Chantix lawyers.
• In June 2011, fresh information that implies a strong
link between an increased risk of heart attacks and
Chantix use emerged. According to the 700-person
study, Chantix raised heart attack risk among people
who already have existing heart disease. But a month
after, July 2011 to be precise, a new review shows that
the risk of serious heart problems exists for even
healthy people.

19. Chantix and Heart Attack Risk(2)
• The FDA requested for new warnings about the
risk of Chantix heart attacks in June 2011, and
required Pfizer to conduct a large meta-analysis
of prior clinical trial to further review the risk of
heart attacks with Chantix.
• So,where does all these leave you, a smoker who
desperately wants to drop off cigarettes?
Sincerely,there is hope for you and below,we tell
you what we believe you really need to quit
smoking.

20. What You Really Need to Stop
Smoking
• At 2stopsmokingtips.com,we truly believe that
smoking cessation can be successful only after
you have dealt with your psychological
addiction before your physical one. As soon as
you deal with your psychological reasons for
smoking, you will be better equipped to quit
and more importantly for good.

21. What You Really Need to Stop
Smoking(2)
• Suffice to say that smoking cessation does not
require patches, gums, herbs or even drugs.
These methods are expensive, time
consuming and potentially harmful. Most of
them do not work and even when they
work, smokers who use them reportedly
relapse after 6-12 months of not smoking. For
us, all that is required is a bit of
motivation, self- belief and determination.

22. Quit Cold Turkey
• We also advise you to apply “the mind over
smoking” principle or approach (just like you
have the “mind over matter” approach) and quit
cold turkey. And even if you quit, relapse and
quit again, the “mind over matter” approach will
help you pull through that nasty symptoms of
nicotine withdrawal. At the end of the day, it boils
down to you quitting and fighting not to light up
again. Sincerely, you can do it if you really want it.
And we urge you to want to because the dangers
of smoking far outweigh whatever benefits you
say you are getting from it.

23. Thank You for Reading!!!
• For more on such incisive articles, please visit
www.2stopsmokingtips.com