A trial of rimonabant to decrease obesity and atherosclerosis reported more suicidal outcomes in the active than the placebo group (2.6% vs 1.7%) (Nissen et al. 2008). A US FDA analysis of the nine RCTS of rimonabant for obesity and the four for smoking indicated a higher rate of suicidal behavior with rimonabant than placebo (0.4% vs 0.2%, OR= 1.9) (US Food and Drug Administration 2007b). When the author used the FDA data and recalculated these results just for the four smoking studies using the placebo and high dose group (20 mg, n=3813), the exact same results were found.
