The controversial ad campaign initiated by Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, continues despite criticism. Alarm signals were pulled as regard to its antismoking drug Chantix, after studies have showed its potential dangerous side-effects such as heart irregularities, seizures and more than 100 accidents linked to its use.

Taking into consideration these alarming findings, the company initiated an ad campaign designed to circumvent FDA rules and the campaign debuted with a number of adds in the country’s five largest newspapers. The company also planned to send letters to 300,000 health-care professionals and to organize conferences with reporters.

Television commercials for Cantix don’t name the drug, but they direct viewers to Mytimetoquit.com, where they can receive information on smoking cessation. But the site contains a link to a Chantix site that offers information on the antismoking drug, including the negative side effects.

Drug companies found this way to slip FDA’s rules and these types of campaigns are becoming more and more popular because the FDA does not require that they include safety information consumers should know.

The so-called disease-awareness ads are advertisements for prescription drugs that discuss a disease without mentioning a medicine. Their goal is to educate the consumer about health issues and to make him aware about the importance of quitting smoking, as an example. The “unbranded product advertising” has been used in the past in disease awareness campaigns and drug companies emphasize their intention to increase awareness of a disease or treatment, not to suggest a particular medication.

Bob Ehrlich of DTC Perspectives, which monitors direct to consumer advertising by drug makers, told The Wall Street Journal that the Chantix or Ambien (Sanofi-Adventis’s sleeping pill) promotions may be clever, but “There is a risk they could rouse congressional ire over cute commercials that don’t emphasize medicine.”

Meanwhile, Pfizer’s shares fell by 30 % in the last year, and investors are concerned that the company won’t succeed to avoid tumbling profits by 2010.