RE : NY Times, Drug Approved. Is Disease Real? Fibromyalgia

[Guest guest]

My " pain " post exposure was real, burning and varied according to whether I was

standing or lying down. When I stood, I was wobbly on my feet and needed to

lean. The " pain " took about 5 years to leave.

It is a joke that the cart is before the horse. That the drug companies could

get a drug rammed by the FDA before " consensus " among docs is unreal.

Perhaps we should ask the drug companies to find a medication for mold exposure,

then the docs could find the conditions are substantiated. They could send them

on vacations, dinners and then have them write " papers " to support both the

treatment, first, and then the diagnosis.

Maybe looking at how the power is flowing, we have approached this disaster from

the wrong angle. The honest one.

©

snk1955@... a écrit :

_http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/health/14pain.html?pagewanted=1 & _r=1_

(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/health/14pain.html?pagewanted=1 & _r=1)

Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?

By ALEX BERENSON

Published: January 14, 2008

Fibromyalgia is a real disease. Or so says Pfizer in a new television

advertising campaign for Lyrica, the first medicine approved to treat the pain

condition, whose very existence is questioned by some doctors.

For patient advocacy groups and doctors who specialize in fibromyalgia, the

Lyrica approval is a milestone. They say they hope Lyrica and two other drugs

that may be approved this year will legitimize fibromyalgia, just as Prozac

brought depression into the mainstream.

But other doctors — including the one who wrote the 1990 paper that defined

fibromyalgia but who has since changed his mind — say that the disease does

not exist and that Lyrica and the other drugs will be taken by millions of

people who do not need them.

As diagnosed, fibromyalgia primarily affects middle-aged women and is

characterized by chronic, widespread pain of unknown origin. Many of its

sufferers

are afflicted by other similarly nebulous conditions, like irritable bowel

syndrome.

Because fibromyalgia patients typically do not respond to conventional

painkillers like aspirin, drug makers are focusing on medicines like Lyrica

that

affect the brain and the perception of pain.

Advocacy groups and doctors who treat fibromyalgia estimate that 2 to 4

percent of adult Americans, as many as 10 million people, suffer from the

disorder.....

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