09-27-2024, 06:51 PM
I personally care deeply about several friends of mine who suffer from schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a disorder that takes a pernicious form. It can be very disruptive and erratic in the way it manifests. The definitions offered by our expert-base are nuanced and differ slightly from one another, but they all agree on some fundamental observations...
There are generic descriptions like this: "A psychotic disorder characterized by emotional responsiveness and disintegration of thought process..." to specifics such as a laundry list of observed symptoms, which often are clumped together, leading many to infer that if you have one you have them all - at least to some degree.
But that is not how this manifests in the personal realities of at least some sufferers. It might be offensively strong in some areas, and blessedly mild in others, it might be a sporadic and unpredictable manifestation, or sometimes problematically overlaid over large swaths of the sufferer's life. It might be a storm of intrusive thoughts and impulse, or a completely displaced shifting of perspective, untranslatable for everyone around... It could be a oppressive weight crushing every perception, or a sudden, otherwise inexplicable disconnect from the context of the world around them. It can affect the perception of time, space, and even those people around them. It transcends explanation, verbal or otherwise...
Doctors have traditionally sought to control this affliction by assaulting the patients' brain... their principle operating platform... either with direct physical interventions, or indirect chemical exposures. And frequently they have achieved tantalizing - but limited - successes in diminishing the effects, or minimizing the magnitudes of its manifestations. This often meant drugs, and unfortunately... it is one of those things that takes the form of "We'll try this" followed by "We'll try that." But this is not about the medical community's willingness to play the 'roulette' approach, nor is it about the pharmaceutical industry's penchant to make every disease a profit opportunity.
From FoxNews: New schizophrenia drug gets FDA approval, taking novel approach to treating brain disorder
Subtitled: COBENFY marks the first new class of medications for the mental illness in more than 30 years
[This is what I call "Marketing Journalism" - it reads like a press release]
They use the word "novel" which is always a warning signal for me, there is usually nothin novel about it... and often that is easily confirmed by the fact that the text explains little in the way of explaining what exactly is novel about it. But in this case...
"The approval of COBENFY is a transformative moment in the treatment of schizophrenia because, historically, medicines approved to treat schizophrenia have relied on the same primary pathways in the brain."
"By leveraging a novel pathway, COBENFY offers a new option to manage this challenging condition."
Perhaps more important is the fact that this will become available to prescribe in October... and is being hailed as another treatment option
On Thursday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved COBENFY (xanomeline and trospium chloride), an oral medication that is manufactured by Bristol Myers Squibb in New Jersey.
This drug wasn't developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)… it was developed by a company called KARUNA THERAPEUTICS, which BMS purchased for 14 Billion dollars recently. Since the purchase, every major media company has used words like "revolutionary," "breakthrough," and "novel"... but not before, when it was a Karuna product... owning the press can be a wonderful thing for business, no?
I hope this is good news for sufferers... and not a cesspool of 'side effects' and adverse reactions... these people have suffered enough.
Schizophrenia is a disorder that takes a pernicious form. It can be very disruptive and erratic in the way it manifests. The definitions offered by our expert-base are nuanced and differ slightly from one another, but they all agree on some fundamental observations...
There are generic descriptions like this: "A psychotic disorder characterized by emotional responsiveness and disintegration of thought process..." to specifics such as a laundry list of observed symptoms, which often are clumped together, leading many to infer that if you have one you have them all - at least to some degree.
But that is not how this manifests in the personal realities of at least some sufferers. It might be offensively strong in some areas, and blessedly mild in others, it might be a sporadic and unpredictable manifestation, or sometimes problematically overlaid over large swaths of the sufferer's life. It might be a storm of intrusive thoughts and impulse, or a completely displaced shifting of perspective, untranslatable for everyone around... It could be a oppressive weight crushing every perception, or a sudden, otherwise inexplicable disconnect from the context of the world around them. It can affect the perception of time, space, and even those people around them. It transcends explanation, verbal or otherwise...
Doctors have traditionally sought to control this affliction by assaulting the patients' brain... their principle operating platform... either with direct physical interventions, or indirect chemical exposures. And frequently they have achieved tantalizing - but limited - successes in diminishing the effects, or minimizing the magnitudes of its manifestations. This often meant drugs, and unfortunately... it is one of those things that takes the form of "We'll try this" followed by "We'll try that." But this is not about the medical community's willingness to play the 'roulette' approach, nor is it about the pharmaceutical industry's penchant to make every disease a profit opportunity.
From FoxNews: New schizophrenia drug gets FDA approval, taking novel approach to treating brain disorder
Subtitled: COBENFY marks the first new class of medications for the mental illness in more than 30 years
[This is what I call "Marketing Journalism" - it reads like a press release]
They use the word "novel" which is always a warning signal for me, there is usually nothin novel about it... and often that is easily confirmed by the fact that the text explains little in the way of explaining what exactly is novel about it. But in this case...
"The approval of COBENFY is a transformative moment in the treatment of schizophrenia because, historically, medicines approved to treat schizophrenia have relied on the same primary pathways in the brain."
"By leveraging a novel pathway, COBENFY offers a new option to manage this challenging condition."
Perhaps more important is the fact that this will become available to prescribe in October... and is being hailed as another treatment option
On Thursday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved COBENFY (xanomeline and trospium chloride), an oral medication that is manufactured by Bristol Myers Squibb in New Jersey.
This drug wasn't developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)… it was developed by a company called KARUNA THERAPEUTICS, which BMS purchased for 14 Billion dollars recently. Since the purchase, every major media company has used words like "revolutionary," "breakthrough," and "novel"... but not before, when it was a Karuna product... owning the press can be a wonderful thing for business, no?
I hope this is good news for sufferers... and not a cesspool of 'side effects' and adverse reactions... these people have suffered enough.
