Yellow Light for Tranquilizers

A sugar-coated FDA warning on the use of those popular pills

To relieve their assorted anxieties, tensions and stress, millions of Americans have at one time or another been advised to take tranquilizers. The high-water mark for the pills was reached in the recession year of 1975. But, even though sales are off by as much as one-third, 5 billion pills and capsules were prescribed in 1979 alone, with the popular drug Valium accounting for about a third of the market. But the price of a chemically induced sense of well-being can be stiff. In the eyes of critics, users of the antianxiety drugs can develop a strong dependency, if not an addiction. There have also been instances where tranquilizers have caused severe depression, even convulsions, after withdrawal.

Last week the Food and Drug Administration announced that it is taking steps to help prevent abuse of the popular pills. Henceforth, all the tranquilizer makers will have to include this caveat in their advertising of such products in medical publications and other informational materials: "Anxiety or tension associated with the stress of everyday life usually does not require treatment with an [antianxiety] drug."

The move is an effort to persuade doctors to be more judicious in prescribing such drugs. But the agency's warning is not binding, and doctors will still be able to administer tranquilizers as they see fit. Indeed, some critics regard the action as little more than a sugar-coated placebo that will have little effect. As a consequence, they are calling for even stronger measures to cope with what FDA Commissioner Jere Goyan, a pharmacist, calls "our overmedicated society." One reform proposed by Dr. Sidney Wolfe, head of Ralph Nader's Health Research Group: require doctors to write a new prescription every time a patient wants to buy tranquilizers. Under the FDA's current rules, tranquilizer prescriptions can be refilled up to five times in six months.

Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc., the manufacturer of Valium, as well as the sister drug Librium, says that it agreed with the FDA wording "to help ensure continuation of the appropriate use of our products." In fact, the drug maker backed a continuing medical education program under Dr. Theodore Cooper, outgoing dean of the Cornell University Medical College and former HEW Assistant Secretary for Health. The program's announced purpose was to educate doctors on the diagnosis and treatment of the consequences of stress. Critics charge, however, that it was only a subtle effort to promote continued sales of tranquilizers.

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