Doctors monitoring the safety of Zyban, an anti-smoking drug, have reported the deaths of 18 patients who had been prescribed the medicine.
Since it became available on a prescription basis last June, 270,000 smokers in Britain have been given courses of the drug, which works by inhibiting the craving for cigarettes.
The British Medicines Control Agency, which is conducting an intensive monitoring program on Zyban, has received reports of 3,457 patients complaining of adverse reactions.
Telegraph February 19, 2001
Antidepressants are generally safe and are certainly useful modalities and should not be abandoned completely. However it is important to recognize that they do have potential complications and can be fatal.
Zyban is really the same drug as the antidepressant Wellbutrin, which has clearly helped a large number of people. Untreated depression can progress to suicide which is a terminal illness. I don't believe that antidepressants are useful long term strategies, but they are frequently useful crutches to use while one is implementing lifestyle and bioenergetic psychotheraputics to resolve the underlying disorder.
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