Where would my posts be without the support/clarification of Stephen. Thanks much as I did wish to offer some help information and you have assisted me in such. Joan [email protected]
> Bold Joan opined: > >> I'm very impressed with the second book by Ameisen relative to how the > >> medication, baclofen, has helped him and others (case studies) who, >> after suffered from alcoholism for their entire adult life, manage to >> completely recover from their cravings and need for alcohol when taking >> > baclofen. > > Joan appears to have accidentally repeated the url for the other book she > mentioned rather than provide the url she intended to cite. No matter. > It's easy enough to dig up related information. > > Ameisen's book is The End of My Addiction: How a Renowned Cardiologist > Cured Himself of Alcoholism ( Piatkus Books (5 Mar 2009). > > Scientific American has an essay on it at http://tinyurl.com/nrug3e. > > Ameisen's story is interesting and while his is a single-subject self- > treatment case, it's worth noting that all he's calling for is a double- > blind randomized evaluation of the drug, which seems reasonable. The > Scientific American article points out that such a trial was carried out > with negative results, but the dose given was too low to provide an > adequate test of the hypothesis. > > What I find interesting is the claim which Joan tells us that Ameisen > makes concerning _why_ a double-blind study has not been done. The > putative reason is that because baclofen is not patentable it is > therefore of no interest to drug companies. > > This would certainly not be surprising, as drug companies are in business > to make money, not to provide public service, and shareholders would be > mightily displeased were one to divert capital to an investigation which > was known in advance to be unprofitable. > > Yet the claim of an absence of randomized blind studies on baclofen is > untrue. I know this because I went to PubMed and searched on baclofen, > first setting a limit to retrieve only double-blind randomized studies. > This produced 99 citations, most of which do appear to be reports of > double-blind studies of baclofen for various purposes. > > So it clearly is possible to obtain funding for scientific trials on > baclofen, although whether this comes from drug companies or elsewhere I > couldn't say without further investigation. > > Also interesting is that one of the first studies on the list is by > Leggio et al in 2007 in _The Lancet_, hardly an obscure publication. It > reports in a double-blind randomized study with patients with liver > cirrhosis (presumably a sign of severe alcoholism) that baclofen was > effective in promoting alcohol abstinence (71% for baclofen vs 29% for > placebo). They conclude that the drug "could have an important role in > treatment of these individuals.". > > So does Ameisen really need to invoke a conspiracy/greed theory? Why did > he not cite this study instead? > > Stephen > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. > Professor of Psychology, Emeritus > Bishop's University e-mail: [email protected] > 2600 College St. > Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 > Canada > > Subscribe to discussion list (TIPS) for the teaching of > psychology at http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/tips/ > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([email protected]) > > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
