Article: Drugs: Taking the Worry Cure: Anxiety medication can mute our fears; but should it?(anxiety over terrorism may be resulting in more medication )

Byline: Karen Springen

Americans are jittery. And why not? It's little wonder people feel an extra-strong impulse to reach for pills they think will improve their mood. Even before September 11, drugs like Prozac, an antidepressant, and Xanax, which calms anxiety, had become staples in the medicine cabinets of millions of Americans. In 2001, spending on antidepressants reached $9.9 billion--up from $3.8 billion five years earlier--and $715 million on benzodiazepines such as Xanax. In the two weeks after planes hit the World Trade Center, scripts for alprazolam (generic Xanax) spiked 9 percent nationally (and 22 percent in New York) before gradually falling back to ...

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