New Controls Put on Anti-Smoking Drug after Deaths

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AN ANTI-SMOKING drug is to be controlled more strictly after reports that 37 British patients have died and more than 5,000 have suffered bad reactions while taking the tablets.

The Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) said yesterday that changes were being made to the way Zyban was prescribed and doctors would be given "strengthened warnings".

A coroner in Hertford said in April that the manufacturers of Zyban should improve warnings about the dangers of mixing it with other medication after an air stewardess died of a seizure while she was taking the drug.

Now patients will be "phased" on to the drug more slowly to cut the high number of "adverse …