The Last Psychiatrist On The Zyprexa Documents

So, The Last Psychiatrist stopped by the other day and left the following comment which, with the good doctor's permission, I am putting up as a standalone post because I am against Saltines.

"Hi. Thanks for collecting the documents. I would never have gone through them otherwise.

The most obvious thing of all is that the science is not represented, just politics. For example, a common theme is that zyprexa causes weight gain and diabetes, but clozaril causes it more. Ok--BUT IT'S NOT THROUGH THE SAME MECHANISM.

Here's an example: in the first document, "Alan Breier" correctly notes that 20% of patients actually lose weight on Zyprexa. Has it occurred to anyone that this might not be random, that there might be a reason those 20% lost weight and not gained weight, and a different 20% gained more than 20lbs for a very specific set of reasons? And that this might, to some extent, be predictable?

As a forensic guy obviously I understand the trial is about money and not truth, but it is absolutely amazing to me that all the scienticians and psychiatrists involved never bothered to discuss the MECHANISM and write some papers on it. All there are are imbecilic association studies. Does the public ever get to find out what they can do to prevent Zyprexa induced diabetes? Isn't that something, um, worth knowing?

In other words, it is as if the involved psychiatrists purposely hid the mechanisms, or didn't research the mechanisms, so that they could engage in a political discussion about "antipsychotic induced diabetes" rather than trying to figure out how to handle Zyprexa's diabetes vs. Risperdal's diabetes, etc.

It's as if they discovered Cheerios caused cancer and roasted turkey caused cancer, never bothered to find out why, and started saying, "it is well known that brown products cause cancer, but the makers of Saltines tried to hide this fact."

I read six--SIX--articles describing the various and different mechanisms by which various antipsychotics affect glucose homeostasis. None--NONE--were in psych journals. Only one was referenced BY a psych journal.

For this reason, Breier can write, "all antipsychotic drugs... are associated with weight gain; mechanism [sic] is not known" and believe he is telling the truth, but in fact be lying.

It's plausible deniability, by willful ignorance.

Sorry for the long rant. I'm going back to coffee."

I'm guessing you drink it black. I am also guessing that Dr. Alone often reduces medical students and residents to tears. Meanwhile, in this fabulous post he expounds on coffee and blood pressure in terms that a Seattleite like me must cheer.