Widow to sue over smoking drug suicide

A WIDOW whose husband took his own life after suffering a terrifying mental illness she believes was caused by an anti-smoking drug is to sue its manufacturer.

Tricia McLinden, from Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire, is planning legal action against the pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer, which makes smoking cessation drug Champix.

Similar actions are already under way in the United States and Canada, where Champix has been also been linked to suicides.

McLinden claims her 48-year-old husband, a former gamekeeper with no previous history of psychiatric ill-health, had suffered delusions, paranoia and debilitating physical symptoms after taking the drug in the weeks leading up to his death. He had been prescribed Champix by his GP to help him quit his 40-a-day smoking habit.

McLinden, an airport worker, said: "I don't want a cent of their (Pfizer's] money but they should know what they are doing to people.

"I want to take legal action to make sure this drug is stopped. I've lost my diamond. We were together 26 years and I'm broken now."

Her husband took his own life a year ago, less than a mile from the home where he had lived with his family for 23 years.

It was only when she contacted a friend living in the US to tell him of her husband's death that McLinden discovered the drug, marketed as Chantix in the US, but also called varenicline, was a subject of controversy on the other side of the Atlantic.

"He asked me if it was Champix that Brian had been taking - he knew from his e-mails he was trying to give up smoking - and told me he had read that it had been linked to a number of suicides in America," said McLinden.

In the US - where the product is required to carry a "black box" warning of mental health side effects - and Canada, hundreds of users and their families have complained to health watchdogs about alleged psychiatric side effects they believe are caused by the drug. Some have initiated law suits against Pfizer.

McLinden, who has a daughter, Stacey, 23, described her husband as a "happy-go-lucky" man.

"He loved the countryside, walking with his dogs, watching birds," she said. "He was a very happy person, happy in his own company and a loving husband and father who loved life."

But she said his behaviour had become increasingly erratic in the weeks prior to his death.

Colleagues at the fencing firm where he worked said he complained of feeling tired and of aches and pains. Then, just four days before he died, his mental state took a more sinister turn.On one occasion his wife returned home to find him shaking and terrified.

"He told me that there was someone after him, that he thought they were going to shoot him," she said. Although she thought it bizarre, McLinden had no reason not to believe her husband's story.

Soon after, he began to take out his five guns - which he used for sport shooting and usually kept under lock and key - and kept them at his side. He barricaded the house and complained of disturbed sleep and vivid nightmares.

On the day of his death, he left the house with one of his guns, saying he was going for a walk. He phoned her every hour, she said, but his conversations became increasingly worrying. He even hinted that he believed it would be the last day of his life. Eventually, afraid for his safety, she called the police and also left home to look for him. He is believed to have shot himself around 2:45pm.

He had begun to take Champix in May 2009 and was on the drug for around six months before taking a break at Christmas 2010. He had restarted a course of the tablets a few weeks before his breakdown four months later.

McLinden is not the only smoker who is believed to have been driven to suicide while taking Champix. In 2007, Karen McGhee from Greenock, tried to hang herself following a course of the drug.

Earlier this month, an inquest in England heard that father Andrew Case, who killed his wife and two young daughters before hanging himself, was taking the drug.

But Pfizer claims that the drug, which is designed to reduce the cravings and withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting, has been used successfully and without problems by thousands of patients. In trials, nearly a quarter of people taking Champix had given up smoking after a year compared with 16 per cent using nicotine patches.

Champix was approved by the government's Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) in 2007 and a study published in the British Medical Journal in 2009 concluded that there was no evidence that varenicline was associated with increased risk of depression or suicidal thoughts.

A spokesman for Pfizer insisted the drug was safe.

"Currently there is no reliable scientific evidence demonstrating that Champix causes these events," he said. "The overall benefit versus risk profile of varenicline remains favourable."

He added that nicotine withdrawal alone could lead to mood swings and behavioural changes, including suicidal thoughts. Matthew Niizeki, of the Department of Health's medicines and healthcare products regulatory agency, said: "All medicines have side effects - no effective medicine is without risk. Our priority is to ensure the benefits of medication outweigh the risks.

"The balance of the benefits associated with stopping smoking due to Champix is considered to outweigh the risks in the vast majority of people who use it."