The Awl offers a list of the 32 known possible side effects of the drug Chantix, prescribed to help people quit smoking. True story: a few years ago, my mother, who quit smoking once and returned to it after my father died, started taking Chantix on the advice of her physician. It gave her heart palpitations so severe, she thought she was having a heart attack. And that’s not even listed as one of the known side effects.
In 2009, the FDA issued an advisory to physicians to tell patients to discontinue taking Chantix immediately if they experienced any of the behavioral/mood change side effects, because recent studies have shown that such problems can persist even after discontinuing medication. The FDA claimed there were 98 suicides and 188 suicide attempts since the drug’s public launch in 2006, although a U.K. study published later last year found no cases of suicide or attempted suicide in that country during roughly the same time period.
