Australia
The Queensland coroner has reopened an investigation into the death of 22-year-old Timothy Oldham who committed suicide just days after starting medication to quit smoking. The man, a resident of Brisbane, left a box of anti-smoking drug Champix next to his suicide tape recording when he died in 2013. He began taking the drug just eight days prior to taking his life.
There are growing concerns Champix is linked to mental health problems. It was only after he died that she discovered the link between Champix and suicide had been made before in the US.
The FDA in the US first implemented its so-called “black box” warning on Champix packets in 2009, and recently strengthened it, after a huge class action involving 3,000 litigants was settled by pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer.
But Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) does not require a “black box” warning and Champix currently does not contain consumer medical information inside the box either. Champix was first introduced to the Australian market in 2007 and 900,000 prescriptions had been filled by 2010. In that time, the TGA had more than 200 reports of suicide-related events for Champix patients.