Well.... you touched on two of the current hot button drug classes. The use of stimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin for treating ADHD in children will likely be an ongoing controversy for many years. Additionally, the use of SSRI's in children and their potential for actually increasing depressive/suicidal thoughts has been widely discussed in the media; both in the news and entertainment programming.
RANT ALERT***As the research on the origins of childhood behavioral/emotional disorders grows, perhaps some of the misinformation will be clarified. I recently saw a documentary that suggested many behavioral deficits in chidren are established by the age of 2. More specifically, violent behaviors either become engrained or are resolved at a very young age. Imagine the sociocultural implications this would have if it became mainstream! While we attempt to "fix" our kids with the latest wonder drug, the focus on prevention/early intervention gets pushed to the side.
Sorry for the rant, but what ever happened to parental responsibility in teaching children appropriate social behavior??? I consider myself an open-minded, free-thinking person and I'm still awestruck by our culture of thinking there's a "quick fix" and "there's a pill for everything" (I worked as an adolescent counselor for several years after my master's degree and intend to work as a psychiatric RN). ***END OF RANT.
OK... whew.....
: Another drug class that continues to receive considerable attention, albeit outside of the psychiatric community, is the Cox-2 inhibitor NSAID's. Vioxx has been pulled off the market and the others are very seldom used. Merck, the manufacturer of Vioxx, has been forced to pay several settlements to people who died of cardiac problems while taking the drug (example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4932722.stm).
Finally, if I were to venture a guess on another potential drug class of controversy, it would be the "Statins". While these drugs seem to be an excellent adjunct to other conventional anti-platelet therapies, their touted (by the drug companies) benefits as anti-cholesterol agents are beginning to draw some ire from physicians. I've spoken to some who have noted that the whole "good cholesterol vs. bad cholesterol" argument seems to have been started by drug companies in order to benefit sales. Some current research shows little if any correlation between using statins to alter cholesterol levels and a decreased risk of cardiac events.
Some of the second-generation antipsychotics, such as Abilify, have apparently increased the risk of hyperglycemia in the elderly population. While no definite correlation has been specified due to the tendency of the population to be at high risk for diabetes anyway, a plausible relationship has been noted (
www.fda.gov/medwatch/safety/2004/safety04.htm).
The last two drug classes have seen little controversy in the media at this point, but they seemed worthy of discussion since drugs that are over-hyped or that have catastrophic side-effects are the ones on which the media will eventually focus.
Good Luck!
dw
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