By Joel Lexchin
Off-label prescribing is widespread in Canada and the United States. One in nine prescriptions for Canadian adults are for off-label uses with the highest percentages coming from anticonvulsants (66.6 percent), antipsychotics (43.8 percent), and antidepressants (33.4 percent). Overall, 79 percent of the off-label prescriptions lacked strong scientific evidence for their use.
For 160 drugs commonly prescribed to U.S. adults and children, 21 percent were for off-label indications totaling 150 million prescriptions. In this case, 73 percent had little to no scientific backing and once again psychoactive drugs such as gabapentin had the highest level of off-label use.
Moreover, doctors do not seem to know what are and are not approved FDA use for many of the drugs that they prescribe. Now an article published in the June issue of Health Affairs by Ian Larkin and colleagues points to active promotion by sales representatives as one reason for the widespread off-label use of antipsychotics and antidepressants in children. Read the rest of this entry »
