Dr. Burton asserted, "Despite strong convictions on all sides, nobody knows whether fibromyalgia is a primary medical condition, part of a larger constellation of other ill-defined conditions...or a label given to a variety of physical complaints that arise out of various mental states."

That's because "there haven't been any reproducible and clear-cut objective findings...to provide a satisfactory understanding of the disease." Because "the primary tenet of medicine is to do no harm," Dr. Burton argued that "everyone involved in the study of controversial conditions such as fibromyalgia -- physicians, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and the FDA -- has a huge moral obligation to be sure that questionable conclusions aren't foisted on the public as the final word."