ECF, what say you about this article??

[radiokaos]

There are one or two pharmaceuticals for quit-smoking treatment that are marginally effective - assuming that the only alternative is death since otherwise you certainly wouldn't want to mess with them otherwise - and only have around a 90% failure rate. Unfortunately they are the ones that are impossible to describe as safe since they have a significant risk for cardiac and psychotic events. They have side effects such as a 1 in 30 risk for heart attack, and have caused hundreds of suicides, some murders, and an uncountable number of violent psychotic events. So on balance they are unsafe and have marginal efficacy that is not worth the risk if there are better alternatives.

There are plenty of pharmaceuticals for quit-smoking treatment that are known to be safe, with rare incidence of significant health events. Unfortunately they have a failure rate of around 95% to 98% and are only double the effectiveness of a placebo, so 'effective' could not possibly be used to describe them.

There are absolutely no pharmaceutical interventions for smoking cessation that can be described by any honest person as 'safe and effective'. Anyone with medical knowledge who describes pharmaceutical interventions as "safe and effective" is an outright liar. A safe medicine but with chance of success little better than a placebo, or alternatively a chance of a heart attack / suicide / crazy episode but a marginal possibility of success does not equal 'safe and effective' and a medically-qualified person who says it does should have their license removed. Such persons are not fit to practice medicine and certainly not fit to give advice; unless medical licenses are issued for proficiency in being a financially-conflicted mercenary for hire or a complete ignoramus.

Just a quick heads up.

I Agree....However I think the Mayo Clinic which is very reputable institution in the USA. The Mayo Clinic offers several smoking cessation programs for current nicotine users.

Including a 8 day in house intensive (rehab type) treatment program.

I have never seen this type of commitment from other institutions or organizations here in the USA.

Stop-Smoking Services — Treatment Options at Mayo Clinic

 

[FleetFoxes]

Man I feel like opening a whole case of woopass right about now. FDA. They are in bed with so many paras. The congress put them there.
There's no place like home. There's no place like home.There's no place like home.
Should have the Three Stooges running the FDA couldn't do worse. I'll stop the rant.
Recognize the things I can not change and the things I can. Ummmmmmmmmm. God will get them for this. LOL

you go to AA? or do you just like the serenity prayer? I go to AA and run my life around that prayer. I'm not that religious, but I love it none the less

 

[recidivus]

The only effective treatment, in my mind, is will power. If you really don't want to quit, you won't, regardless of method chosen.

*ed: I'm not saying that people who've tried unsuccessfully "just didn't want to". Only saying that it takes more than a pill, or PV, or patch.

 

[rolygate]

.......the Mayo Clinic which is very reputable institution in the USA. The Mayo Clinic offers several smoking cessation programs for current nicotine users. Including a 8 day in house intensive (rehab type) treatment program.

Yes, I agree that this has more potential; but something radically different from the standard pharma approach is going to be a completely different matter and needs to be considered as a separate issue. Intensely managed programs are known to be successful, for example the Allen Carr organisation in the UK showed a 53% success rate for their quit program in a clinical trial, and ASH UK lost a court case on this when they claimed it was made up. They had to pay costs and issue an unreserved apology.

Mentoring makes a huge difference to any form of treatment or action, and the same thing could be applied to success rates for switching to ecigs. For example, one clinical study reported that ecigs had a 31% success rate at one year, in a trial they ran. However this was under the worst possible set of circumstances (mini ecigs, no advice, no mentoring, no access to a choice of equipment or refills, etc). You could almost certainly double the success rate with a proper trial run with the assistance of expert mentors.

So mentoring makes a major difference and you could probably apply that to anything. There is no published research I am aware of on the efficacy of residential mentored programs that may or may not feature pharmaceutical interventions for smoking cessation. Such methods could not be lumped in with other pharma results, as the method is different; I think it is probably more accurate in such cases to describe them as residential programs, that also used pharmacotherapies; not pharmaceutical interventions that also featured mentoring.

Give me a bunch of smokers who wanted to quit or switch for a week or two, and I reckon I could show you a 90% success rate at one month. Mind you that's got nothing to do with the 20-month success rate of course.