I beg your pardon?:o)
gene tests are reliable, acurate, exact, explains everything and people with a "positive" result will be put on Zyprexa?
I believe it's a joke. de Mayo is just making us laugh a little bit.
Visiting their sites is very funny and I recommend it for those who needs to laugh.

"those who need I meant"... sorry!

Hurray - it's scientifically proven: it really is the patient's fault if (s)he gets fucked up by antidepressants. What a crock of shit.

And to follow your train of thought, Philip: I wasn't even given a DRS questionnaire to fill out, so the likelihood of patients being gene tested is on the same scale of probability as finding rocking-horse shit, I imagine. Anyway, given what NICE has to say (ie, that SSRIs only work in the severely depressed), are we to assume that only the severely depressed have the requisite four genes? I repeat: what a crock of shit!

Matt

Most people who are slow metabolizers (CYP2D6)cannot tolerate ANY med that goes through the liver that way--my daughter, mom and myself cannot tolerate anti depressants or anything that effects CYP2D6 pathways.

There are blood tests that can confirm this, and as a result one of my daughter's has "allergy to SSRI's" in her medical chart and it goes on her wrist if she is in a medical hospital; which as one can imagine is a good thing, if it's a psychiatric hospital!

She had adverse reactions to Luvox,Zoloft, Prozac etc. I did extensive research on this topic years ago. If one reads basic fine print of how the mechanism of action works in a drug, it's an easy way to say "no thanks doc, that drug won't work."

PS--the blood test should be ran before a patient is placed on any medication; it's easier than playing the "what cocktail works" game.

Some insurance companies pay for it.

The pharmaceutical companies have long been aware of CYP2D6 and intolerability to SSRI drugs, but because of the expense of individualizing each patient and running tests etc, they decided not to enlighten the general public about this..

Yet more tomfoolery from an industry which regards profit as the prime motive , patients health has never come into the equation..

I would like to see more main stream coverage of this issue though...

Well where does this leave someone like myself who believes that antidepressants don't work in 100 percent of the people who take them at least if you give them enough time to do their dirty work? These gene variations are just throwing the public a curve ball as far as I'm concerned. Yeah maybe the gene variations do make a slight difference in how you react and what dose does what to you over what period of time but the bottom line is the drugs are bad news for anyone and everyone. Remember -- they're neurotoxic according to Peter Breggin, Grace Jackson, Joseph Glenmullen and many others who have researched the neuroscientific evidence.

If it's 40% of the population, it's not an abnormality. It's a common variant. Calling it an abnormality is just another excuse to pretend it's barely noteworthy.

Right, so when the Mother's Act gets passed and Momscreen is in every new mother's face. Like Teen Screen before it Momscreen will probably result in suggesting treatment for upwards of 90% of those screened.

Since treatment is always meds and usually anti depressants, I hope the hospitals promoting Momscreen will do the obligatory gene test before handing potentially dangerous toxins to someone whose *abnormal* gene profile won't benefit from it all.

No need to risk new mom's health unnecessarily right?

Apply for a refund? Good idea, as this Cytochrome 450 info has been available for years, and may be in the PDR/package insert info. Class action?

Giving psychoactive meds to people who are of the wrong genetic type can be fatal - and especially so for those of Oriental or Native ancestry. NAMI has an outreach plan (NAMI-MIO)
to bring antidepressants to Native North Americans and Koreans, though. It is at the NAAMI site.

Did I read that right? Did it say that two of the genes involve the brain's inability to absorb or transport serotonin? Am I completely stupid at 6 AM, or would that perhaps have some impact on the underlying problem being treated by an antidepressant? I'm hardly a neuroscientist, but that certainly raises an eyebrow for me.