Wairarapa cool on Champix risk

Wairarapa health providers will continue to offer the under-fire quit smoking drug Champix despite claims it increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Masterton's Whaiora offers the drug as part of its smoke-free programme and will keep doing so while the Ministry of Health reviewed the product for possible risks.
A study published in Canada this week revealed a 72 per cent greater risk of "serious adverse cardiovascular events" among smokers using Champix than among smokers on a placebo.
Those risks include heart attacks, strokes and changed heart rhythm.
Whaiora spokeswoman Nicola Graham said along with other Wairarapa health providers they would offer the drug as long as it was backed by Pharmac, the Government's pharmaceutical authority. "At the moment that's just one study and it's being reviewed," she said of the Canadian study.
She said it was a prescription medicine and users needed to speak with their doctors in the first instance anyhow.
"Smoking is a risk for heart attack itself so you just have to weigh up the risks and benefits.
"All prescription medicines have side effects and risks and using Champix is something you would weigh up with your GP."
She said as it was a GP-prescribed drug it was difficult to know just how many people in Wairarapa were taking it, but said "it's helped a lot of people to quit smoking".
Champix is made by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and is marketed with the claim of reducing cravings and blocking the effects of nicotine.
Ms Graham said alternatives included nicotine replacement therapy, nicotine patches, gum, or the prescription product Zyban.
The Intensive Medicines Monitoring Programme at Otago University said it had received reports of changed heart rhythms and sudden death in users of Champix, whose active ingredient is varenicline, the New Zealand Herald reported.
It had also received reports of heart attacks in 12 patients who appeared to have had no history of heart disease.