Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?

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Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?

By ALEX BERENSON,

The New York Times

Posted: 2008-01-14 10:39:34

Filed Under: _Health News_ (http://news.aol.com/health)

(Jan. 14) - 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.