CATIE's Implications For Bipolar Disorder

There are important implications for bipolars in the last round of the CATIE study, despite the fact that the study was conducted on schizophrenics. Our bodies and brains aren't that different and about half of the $10 billion a year in US sales of atypicals now comes from bipolars, according to experts I have interviewed. Certainly, the data on side effects--blood sugar levels, altered heart patterns and weight gain--are directly applicable to bipolars. I bet that similar studies of the same drugs in bipolars would show the same kind of lack of clinical results and improved quality of life and lacking cost justification as was just found with schizophrenics.

So why is no one in the media, the advocacy world and the academic psych world even asking what this all means for bipolars? Why aren't they asking what it means for children being given these drugs? To protest that asking them would be without the benefit of scientific analysis would be lame, and unethical in my opinion.

I've been asking those questions for over a year, here and here:

"I've interviewed several hundred people who've taken antipsychotics. The majority have reported going off the meds due to side effects such as weight gain (20 to 30 pounds a year) and what I've dubbed "heavy head," which is that lovely foggy mind you get from taking these meds--much as if you had downed a fifth of whiskey the night before."