Table of top psychiatric drugs prescribed in the US
There’s an interesting post reported on BoingBoing today about prescribing in the US. Of particular interest os to view this in conjunction with the evidence to support prescribing and to think about how drug companies market and target doctors. I’m particularly interested to note the use of duloxetine in fibromyalgia. Is this a case of a treatment seeking a disorder? There is after all considerable debate as to whether this is an actual disorder:
Fibromyalgia syndrome was an attempt to create, for the purposes of investigation, a relatively homogeneous clinical entity out of the clinical phenomena of musculoskeletal pain and tenderness. The attempt has foundered, arising out of circular argument and violation of its own criteria, thus creating an over-inclusive and ultimately meaningless label. The epistemological errors include the failure to distinguish a clinical feature from a disease process, the use of syndromic description without a unifying concept and failure to agree on the importance and biological nature of tenderness itself.
Cohen ML (1999) Is fibromyalgia a distinct clinical entity? The disapproving rheumatologist’s evidence Best Practice & Research Clinical Rheumatology 13(3), 421-425