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• B.C. residents sue maker of quit-smoking drug 

Three British Columbia residents are suing Pfizer, alleging the drug company's quit-smoking product Champix can cause serious psychiatric reactions.

Plaintiff Alicia Pickering, 34, said she was a normal, healthy woman until she started taking Champix to kick her smoking habit. Within days of starting the drug, the married mother of two experienced a dramatic change in personality and was consumed with thoughts of dying, she said.

"It literally felt like something had broken in my head," Pickering, of Sechelt, B.C., northwest of Vancouver, told CBC News. "Intense, severe depression overtook me. I would sit on the couch sobbing, not knowing why."

In a writ filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Pickering and two other B.C. residents claim Pfizer "negligently designed, tested, labelled, manufactured and marketed the drug to Canadians." According to the document, Pickering developed bipolar disorder after taking Champix.

The writ also claims the U.S. drug maker failed to warn customers of the adverse side-effects of the medication.

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