Seed Newsvine
A round table with square ideas
There is nothing like a pharma company trying to both cover its ass and protect sales. Pfizer therefore decided to convene a round table on the topic of Chantix. According the Wall Street Journal:
By way of introduction at today’s meeting, Pfizer’s VP for media relations Ray Kerins explained to the group that Pfizer wanted to openly correct misunderstandings and misinterpretations in the marketplace.
Here’s a summary of Pfizer’s main points:#1 Smoking is a serious health problem that kills people.#2 Most of the adverse events that have been reported recently are already in the Chantix label.#3 Smokers who are trying to quit can be depressed and irritable.#4 Paying close attention to adverse-event reports helps the FDA and Pfizer enhance drug safety.
Yes smoking is a serious health problem that kills people but the treatment should not equal the disease its trying to treat. So the adverse advents that have been reported are already in the Chantix label but what is Pfizer doing to communicate those event to patients other than the usual fair balance? Since they are looking for the “gold standard” in clinical information what percentage of smokers who are trying to quit are depressed and irritable and what is Pfizer doing to inform doctors to treat the possible side effects of quitting smoking?
I don’t smoke but I have had been around a lot of people who smoked and quit throughout my life including my mother who smoked for over 40 years. Some could not hold out and went back to smoking others gained weight while trying to quit and some succeeded in stopping cold turkey. Ask yourself this: if you were a smoker and wanted to really quit would you risk a medication that could provide serious adverse events?
What Pfizer media people also are ignoring is the fact that social media on the Web has already started talking about Chantix and its potential side effects. The chart below shows the level of “buzz” on the Web around Chantix and I can tell you that most of it wasn’t good.
What is really sad in this round table is that there
was no mention of patients health other than the
paying close attention to adverse-event reporting. I
would have like to have seen the number one point in
Pfizer’s round table “Patient health is our most
important concern. We want to ensure that any product
we market is a safe and effective treatment for the
disease of condition it treats”. Instead Pfizer’s
main points seem to be a CYA operation meant to save
sales dollars rather than patients.