There are growing fears that the popular anti-smoking drug CHAMPIX may be causing some of its users to develop suicidal tendencies. Both in the US (37) and in Britain (10) an alarming number suicide victims have subsequently been found to have taken CHAMPIX.

The prescription-only drug works on receptors in the brain and is effective at stopping nicotine cravings and other symptoms associated with giving up smoking. It is used by nearly half a million people in Britain and claims that, compared with people using nicotine patches or those relying on willpower alone, CHAMPIX users are significantly less likely to go back to smoking within a year of giving up.

The drug has not only been linked to actual suicides, but there is also a growing number of cases where users have reported depressive and suicidal thoughts.

Defenders of the drug argue that in some people the withdrawal of nicotine itself may be a cause for people developing these suicidal mental patterns rather than CHAMPIX. Pfizer, the company that makes the drug, say that it has gone through rigourous testing in clinical trials and has been passed safe by most countries’ regulatory bodies.

Nobody is saying yet that the drug actually caused the suicides in any of the reported cases. Nevertheless, both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US and the Medicines and Healthcare Pruducts Regulatory Agency (MHRA) are now not excluding that possibility.

In the runup to New Year, traditionally a time when many people will attempt to give up smoking, doctors and nurses in the UK have been asked to make patients who want to try CHAMPIX aware of the severe possible side effects and to keep a close eye on them.