Comments: Schizophrenia Blood Test In The Offing: Run For The Hills
This will never be heard from again.
Hey don't you think if it were real the APA would have the patent? All the crafters of the DSM 5 are out of job now hey?
Posted by Poe at June 24, 2008 01:07 AM
I wouldn't be too concerned with the 'hotness' or otherwise of the female murderer you describe.
I'd be more concerned with the fact she spends her days desecrating the remains of people who were lied to and poisoned their whole lives. I saw her picture, all it did was make me wish someone was playing with her post mortem brain right now, or maybe after 30 years of toxic drugs and living her life with a stolen identity, false ideas about who she is, what lies in her genes, false ideas about her deserved membership in a presumed without a shred of evidence pariah class of genetic deformities, maybe a bit of rough prejudice from the justice system thrown in, maybe some rampant weight gain, maybe to know and experience equality and capability and have it all ripped away at the cusp of adulthood, maybe all her longtime friends turning on her, maybe her parents feeling like they possess the demon seed, maybe a little destroyed education, a heaping of debt, a patchy job history, maybe welfare dependence, maybe never a sunrise without a toxic chemical haze over her frontal lobe her whole adult life, you know, maybe just the whole package of the most diabolically wrecked life of torture that her elite class of killers hands to innocents every day. Then I'd like to see how 'hot' she is.
Posted by Poe at June 24, 2008 04:39 AM
poe, you desperately need a sense of humor and a sense of proportion. you also need to use an email address that is workable from here on out. if you don't i'll ban you.
Posted by Philip Dawdy at June 24, 2008 07:08 AM
Let me tell you, sitting in a clinical neuroscience lab at Vanderbilt and working with people who do some of this kind of research, the technology isn't there right now. Nor do I think it ever will be, not as a limitation of the technology, but as a limitation of the assumptions one must make.
Firstly, the strenght of association between a single gene and any mental illness (barring Huntington's disease) is weak at best. Secondly, the presence of a "defective" gene linked to mental illness does NOT imply the gene is being expressed. Thirdly, even if it is being expressed, there is no way to know how that one protein is interacting with other proteins, organ systems, and/or hormones.
Posted by NAP at June 24, 2008 08:33 AM
I agree with you, Philip (about your article, that is -- I have no position on Poe). This kind of early labelling system is the road to hell.
If I may be so bold, I would like to observe here that whenever societies establish levels of citizenship based on ill-defined and hateful criteria, it tends not to work out very well for those lower-valued citizens who lose their civil rights. Do you get what I'm saying here? I'm coming out and declaring that Nazi Germany wasn't very good for the Jews and early psychiatric intervention won't be very good for the schizos.
I apologize in advance to any Jewish people who I may have offended with this comment. I am not making jokes about the Holocaust. I am merely trying to demonstrate that labelling and othering have been proven time and time again to be detrimental to civilization. This has just got to stop.
Posted by Francesca Allan at June 24, 2008 08:55 AM
I thought I could feel Fuller Torrey's vibes in this somewhere, and Sabine (yes she is quite beautiful)has a grant from the Stanley Foundation for the work. Remember Torrey has an SZ twin. (and collects brains and believes in a virus cause for SZ, and believes in forced medication).
Posted by Stephany at June 24, 2008 10:11 AM
Let me tell you, sitting in a clinical neuroscience lab at Vanderbilt and working with people who do some of this kind of research, the technology isn't there right now. Nor do I think it ever will be, not as a limitation of the technology, but as a limitation of the assumptions one must make.
NAT,
You made a wonderful comment!
I'll save it, ok?
Please, you must have some data to share with us!
Don't forget to comment here now and then.
Limitations of the assumptions?
That is the point!
No Philip!
you are not skeptic. You are reasonable!
This is very serious. If these people start claiming that test can be used as an evidence...
For 20 years they are claiming that there's a chemical imbalance. Now will they find a way, and what a good evidence: - a test based on the most seemingly exact science nowadays genetics - of proving that people are depressed or schizophrenic?
:o)
I've just visited the site.
I'm appalled:
"Biomarkers trump behavior in mental illness diagnosis
Here’s how doctors decide which mental or neurological disorder their troubled patients suffer from: they ask questions like, “Are you hearing voices?” and “Do you feel like people are out to get you?”
Not all that different from how they used to do it about 100 years ago.
New techniques are set to radically change that approach—and perhaps define new categories within each disease—relying more on changes in physiology than in behavior. [read the full article]"
They are clearly saying that once you have the genes...
This is not science!
This is not scientific!
It has nothing to do with real science!
Repeat!
This is NOT SCIENCE!
I love science. But it is a SHAME!
Posted by Ana at June 24, 2008 11:41 AM
NAP,
I took the liberty to copy your comment and put it in one post.
I made all references.
I'm too worried about it all.
Posted by Ana at June 24, 2008 12:17 PM
There was an earlier test, one where Niacin was used on the skin to see if it caused a rash (flush).
No flush was linked to low levels of omega3 fatty acids, hence the associated diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Why call the condition that bloody name, when if people were diagnosed low levels of phospholipid they might feel better about themselves.
Treatment with lipids would be much more preferable than antipsychotics !!
Sara xxx
Posted by sara at June 24, 2008 02:12 PM
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11853118
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2002 Jan;26(1):49-52. Links
A volumetric biochemical niacin flush-based index that noninvasively detects fatty acid deficiency in schizophrenia.Puri BK, Hirsch SR, Easton T, Richardson AJ.
MRI Unit, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College School of Medicine, London, England, UK.
(1) It is possible to investigate aspects of phospholipid-related signal transduction in humans noninvasively using the niacin skin flush test. (2) Patients with schizophrenia have previously been reported to show a reduced flushing response. (3) The aim of this study was to devise a comprehensive index of cutaneous response to the niacin test, incorporating aqueous methyl nicotinate concentration and time, and to test this index in schizophrenia. (4) A discrete approximation to a continuous volumetric index, which we have named the volumetric niacin response (VNR), was devised. Its value was measured in 27 patients with DSM-IV schizophrenia and 26 age- and sex-matched normal controls. (5) The mean value of the VNR in the patients with schizophrenia (16.26) was significantly smaller than that of 26.77 in the normal controls (P
Posted by sara at June 24, 2008 02:13 PM
Personal reference re: this story. My 20 year old who is at this time holding an SZ dx alongside autism; was extensively tested at a prominent hospital genetics department for any possible "syndrome" that causes/included psychosis. As NAP says this is just not as simple as it sounds. For weeks I would research and send off "ideas" of which missing link my daughter had to the genetic chief of staff, and over time my head began to spin because it all seemed the same---nothing came of the tests, and the complexity of my daughter to this day baffles the big top guns in psychiatry&neurology. They even measured our heads. Yes, apparently large heads are a bio-marker for SZ. (sarcasm). btw, my head size was "normal". So were all of my daughters. Thank goodness they had uncompensated care funds to pay for that 1/4 million dollar 6 week testing while on 800 mg Seroquel fiasco.
Posted by Stephany at June 24, 2008 04:40 PM
Stephany,
I'm very sorry.
And they say that phrenology is not a science...
Posted by Ana at June 24, 2008 09:35 PM
Thanks for the information on schizophrenia, Philip. You have some very good points.
We recently wrote an article on schizophrenia medication at Brain Blogger. A study from Harvard recently showed that restrictive drug programs might cause schizophrenia patients to stop taking their medications and nearly 80% of patients without antipsychotic medication will have a serious reoccurrence of their illness within a year. So should schizophrenic patients receive free medications?
We would like to read your comments on our article. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kelly
Posted by Kelly at June 28, 2008 11:14 AM
Have they done genetic testing on people that have recovered from schizophrenia?
When I say recover, I am not talking about selectively tuning into some voices and ignoring others, I am not talking about accepting the Dx, taking meds and moving on, I am not talking about learning to live with schizophrenia and making the best of it.
I am talking about being free of delusions, intrusive thoughts, voices and all manner of classic symptoms, per the DSM, both positive and negative without intervention by or ongoing maintenance from psychiatric drugs.
If not, then they are releasing this test without enough research done on schizophrenics and genes.
You have to profile the genes of people Dxd with SZ that no longer suffer from it to have a complete picture I would think.
Posted by Jane at June 28, 2008 03:16 PM
Let's take their plan and turn it to good.
You know that article. The Extraordinary Walker Exam, and the one about 29 causes of Schizophrenia, over at http://alternativementalhealth.com...
So, they want to give blood tests? GOOD! Patients SHOULD get correct diagnosis - ALL patients. Then they can get the RIGHT TREATMENT - not just a quick shot of Thorazine.
Posted by Lilly NC at June 30, 2008 01:21 PM
Jane wrote,["Have they done genetic testing on people that have recovered from schizophrenia?
When I say recover, I am not talking about selectively tuning into some voices and ignoring others, I am not talking about accepting the Dx, taking meds and moving on, I am not talking about learning to live with schizophrenia and making the best of it.
I am talking about being free of delusions, intrusive thoughts, voices and all manner of classic symptoms,"]
As a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who doesnt take medication or drugs, I would like to comment.
I believe we all hear voices of conscious,thought , imagination and idea, illustrated by the classic demon on one shoulder a angel on the other. When magically made "schizophrenic" by a psychiatrist these internal thoughts become "The Voices" and can be denied as not being from oneself. The "patient" doesnt want them and the psychiatrist wants a patient, mutually benifitial to both parties.
Normal person try to think of nothing for a minute or two minutes, you can not. Most everyone is always thinking.
They tried to ban alcohol in prohibition, mankinds oldest drug to ease the pain of consciousness and we all know it failed.
No one is magically made seriously mentally ill in 24 hours/one day like a real disease such as an infection. Seriously mentally ill people are made gradually worse over time with the chemical imbalance myth, and also the very nice trick of psychiatric drug withdrawal symptoms.
Posted by mark p.s. at July 2, 2008 07:16 AM