Dear Neil:
We would benefit from having new drugs that are not as toxic and potent as are the current drugs. But every time a company has come along with a new drug it has performed in exactly the same way with the same peals of excitement and shouting with its major claims that their new drug is the nirvana for schizophrenia and is free of side effects and of causing addiction. Glutamate has been considered for a long time. It is one of many dozens of transmitters that can be examined. Therefore there is ample room to look elsewhere as all drug patents are running out.
I will be convinced when I actually see the results of clinical tests and toxicity studies with no deaths. Using animals will not work They do not get schizophrenia or if they do they are not able to describe it for us. The dopamine idea was all wrong even from the beginning and always was controversial except by the drugs companies who were wedded to it.
I am convinced, as an old hand at this game, that schizophrenia is not a unique disease, that it is caused by many biochemical abnormalities and the real answers if we ever get one will lay in nutritional treatment. I have never seen a single patient on drugs ever get well even though they are helped and their symptoms are not as troublesome .
The drugs are all palliative, never curative. There is recent evidence from Johns Hopkins that in schizophrenia brains at autopsy there is a defect in the structure of their niacin receptors and this will explain why many of them need so much to get into the neurons in their heads. This paper was submitted for publication by a very dedicated research worker from this university. But the companies will no touch this as there is no patent on vitamins and they want a drug which they patent and earn billions not a cheap simple vitamin than anyone can sell and which does not kill any one.
One month ago I saw 14 year old girls who came with her mother and Uncle who were very worried about her. She was very intelligent, was very quiet, could not talk easily, was depressed, would not look a me directly and often would race through her house for no reason. She had difficulty ex establishing relationships but still did relatively well at school. I concluded she was milk allergic, took her of all dairy products, added the proper vitamins and a few days ago when she came for her firs re check visit she, her mother and her uncle were all smiling broadly. I knew right away ha she was much better. She was more appropriate almost her symptoms were gone.
She did not get any drugs.
Had I started her on drugs they would have been doomed.
I saved her from a lifetime of invalidism.
Abram