Slightly Fatal Side Effects
Nobody gets to write science articles for The Horse unless they’re really good at arithmetic and pharmaceutical geometry, such mastery being essential since we have no patience with peer review and too much integrity to shop our articles around to attract bribes from manufacturers who would like to suppress or falsify our findings. Not every crusading mathematician has his or her price.
Our current object of scrutiny: We keep seeing these TV commercials showing a race between a tortoise and a hare.
We’re able to calculate with great precision who is going to win because the tortoise is plugging patiently along this green, serpentine racetrack and the hare is off lounging about, munching on a carrot, and generally acting silly. Neither one is smoking, but the product they’re advertising is Chantix (varenicline tartrate), which is too hard to pronounce, so let’s just call it Veronica. She helps you to stop smoking by blocking some of your nicotine receptors.
Actually, the hare may be onto something because carrots are good for you and have no known side effect except that if you were to eat your weight in carrots you would probably turn orange.
Veronica is another matter.
She’s an alternative to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) like the patch, and in clinical trials proved more effective in getting people to quit. But two weeks ago the Institute for Safe Medication Practices released a summary of prescription drug-related injuries reported to the FDA:
Veronica had more incidents than any other drug.
It wasn’t the first indication of problems. Last February, the FDA called a news conference to announce a public health advisory, warning that some Veronica users had experienced mood changes, suicidal thoughts, and actual suicide.
The Los Angeles Times reported that over two dozen traffic accidents had been linked to Veronica, and even Pfizer issued a warning about the risks of driving under her influence. In May, the Federal Aviation Administration banned the use of the drug by pilots and air traffic controllers due to possible neuropsychiatric effects which could threaten public safety.
But the TV commercials keep running, the tortoise looks perfectly healthy, and we’re constantly reminded that clinical trials proved Veronica is effective in getting people to quit.
That’s where the arithmetic comes in. Clinical trials for an anti-smoking drug will count each person who quits as a success. Those who keep on smoking count as failures. Simple percentages. But what about the accident victims and suicides?
When they stop breathing, they stop smoking; so were those counted as successes?
If we’re going to ignore side effects – as Pfizer seems willing to do as they keep advertising the tortoise race – then let’s do the same for all the other available cures.
Apart from one really nasty side-effect, suicide is the most effective method of smoking cessation ever devised.
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I believe you’re missing the point, Mr. Horse. Clearly, you should always ride turtles while under Veronica’s influence. Otherwise you’ll develop cravings for carrots and naps.
Comment by Lynn — November 10, 2008 @ 8:31 am
Your observation about death as an antidote to smoking is prescient. And as long as we’re on the subject of mathematics and science, you should add that statistically, 100% of all dead people don’t smoke, regardless of how they got that way.
Comment by Steve Alber — November 10, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
But, 100% of smoked salmon are dead.
And, tasty, too.
Comment by Mrs D. — November 10, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
It’s rare that we hear from three such eminent researchers in the same year, much less the same day. I’m so glad to see that you’ve chosen to publish here rather than in Nature or the New England Journal of Medicine, both of whom have missed and muffled and muzzled this Veronica expose from the beginning.
Finally I should mention that, just as UC Berkeley grants parking spaces to its faculty Nobel Laureates, we hereby offer (free) parking spaces to all three of you. Oh, and cars, too.
Comment by Al — November 10, 2008 @ 11:38 pm