In 1993, the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure concluded that diuretics and beta-blockers are the preferred choice for initial hypertension drug therapy because they have been shown to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in controlled clinical trials. Surprisingly, between 1992 and 1995, prescriptions for diuretics decreased by 50 percent and for beta-blockers by nearly 40 percent. On the other hand, prescriptions for calcium channel blockers, a heavily-promoted, expensive, newly developed hypertension treatment, rose by 13 percent. Why are these more expensive, possibly inferior drugs being prescribed instead of clinically recommended, evidence-based medications?
