Professor MUNIR PIRMOHAMED MB ChB PhD FRCP,
Personal Chair in Clinical Pharmacology at The University of Liverpool, NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics, main area of research: pharmacogenetics and drug safety.

Prof Pirmohamed gives a talk at the 2008 APRIL Conference on

"The pressing need for pharmacogenetics"
VIDEO: http://vimeo.com/15987982

The important relationship between genetic predisposition and drug response is an important issue that Dr Yolande Lucire has written about.

ANDREW HERXHEIMER, clinical pharmacologist, Emeritus Fellow of the UK Cochrane Centre Oxford, co-author of first published critical appraisal of ADR reports, co-founder of dipex.org leads the

"Talk & Panel Discussion" with Professor David Healy and several others, chaired by Dr Joanna Moncreiff.

Video: http://vimeo.com/16363571

______________________________________________________________________

Some so-called scientists in Australia who should know better are behaving disgracefully both towards Dr Lucire and towards Australians at risk of harm from the various failures in the system outlined in Peter King's important article and in many of these messages.

The attempts to silence her seem somewhat reminiscent of the practices of the old Soviet Union. Things are changing across the world and will continue to change regardless.

These changes WILL reach Australia eventually, whether it is seen to have taken an active part to work towards improving the flaws inherent in these issues or, more damningly, it is seen to have worked against improvement and patient safety.

It is time for Australia to wake up and put science, research and patient safety FIRST - something that the good and very brave Dr Yolande Lucire has been doing for quite some time.

Wouldn't it be a wonderful gift to the Australian people if other concerned scientists used the new year to take a courageous stand alongside Dr Lucire to help put science back into medicines?

A group can achieve far more change for the better in 2011 than one person alone.

When a few people have the courage to speak out, others will eventually become brave enough to follow, just as they are doing in other parts of the world.

______________________

'Above All, Do No Harm'.

The National Forum Comment (2) [SENT] [Posted on The National Forum ByTheWay29]
Friday, December 24, 2010
The pressing need for Pharmacogenetics! My son was unable to metabolize drugs health services forced him to take. How do I know?
I had his DNA and requested a CYP P-450 test. This test revealed he was unable to metabolize most all their pharmaceutical products. These drugs accumulated in his system to overdose, taking him beyond therapy; he exhibited psychoses because he did not possess the cytochrome energy to trigger metabolizm. This overdosing caused iatrogenic akathisia and he never got better, only worse because of the forced drugging, progressing from lethargy and zombie-like loss of concentration to thinking of suicide because they would not stop drugging him.
They then mis-labeled him schizophrenic; after a year or so of their coerced forced drugging with debilitating so-called antipsychotics; with neuroleptics, their chemical lobotomy drugs. They were so incompetent they wanted me to believe they were wondering whether he was bi-polar! Whatever excuse they could plausibly come up with to maintain their deceit.
My son presented with adverse drug reaction symptoms and they well knew it, so why was he drug treated falsely as schizophrenic with neuroleptics when he was never schizophrenic? Had he been CYP P-450 tested initially they would never have gotten away with this false diagnosis fraud. They didn’t even bother giving him a few good doses of dextromethorphan to find out.
This is why Pharmacogenetics is such a pressing issue.
The commissioned Deloitte report December 2008, “Realizing the Potential of Pharmacogenetics”, http://www.achr.com.au/pdfs/PharmacogenomicsReportFINALDec2008.pdf recommends pharmacogenetics be introduced to Australian health services within ten years. Search find: ten years. Page seventeen says introduction of PGx will save $1.6 billion per annum in health costs due to avoiding adverse drug reactions; it does not stop with just psychiatric drugs.
In the meantime mental health services leave patients to overdose, to commit suicide while coroners refuse to investigate. Thank you Dr. Yolande Lucire and Dr. Zappp I agree because I’ve read some of the books and seen most of the videos thanks to respected friends.

To ByTheWay29 - my 4th therefore final post for the next 24 hours.

Thank you for the link, but is there an error in the url or a problem with the page at the moment? I cannot access it but will try again later anyway.

I have to clear one point up - I am definitely NOT a doctor. I've posted links to videos of doctors speaking in a conference and that may have given the impression that I too must be a doctor, but that wasn't intended.

Doctor Lucire is one very good, scientific, courageous doctor though and if those trying to silence her had the courage and the decency to do what is right, they'd be making a difference by listening, debating, researching and acting in the interest of patient safety.

Queensland, Australia.
Why does this "unclear" issue not reach practicing psychiatrists? Why is death rate associated with psychiatric medications found in their clinical trials not examined, improved or targeted? The resolution lies in better diagnosis and the intelligent application of pharmacogenomics.
Why does this not reach practicing psychiatrists and conferences? Because they are funded by drug companies.

See the Healy et al paper above: Whom are we kidding? Suicide has increased 20 fold over the 1930s cohort with increases in services and new but not better drugs.
Archives of General Psychiatry. 2007;64(10):1123-1131
A Systematic Review of Mortality (SMR) in Schizophrenia: Is the Differential Mortality Gap Worsening Over Time? Sukanta, S. et al.

Objective: To explore the distribution of standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) for people with schizophrenia
Context: Despite improvements in mental health services in recent decades, it is unclear whether the risk of mortality in schizophrenia has changed over time.
Data Sources: Broad search terms were used to identify studies that investigated mortality in schizophrenia, published between January 1, 1980, and January 31, 2006.

Study Selection: Population-based studies that reported primary data on deaths in people with schizophrenia.
Data Extraction: Operationalized criteria were used to extract key study features and mortality data.
Data Synthesis: The median SMR for all persons for all-cause mortality was 2.58 ... No sex difference as detected.

Suicide was associated with the highest SMR (12.86);

... most of the major causes-of-death categories were found to be elevated in people with schizophrenia.

The SMRs for all-cause mortality have increased during recent decades (P=.03). (Unclear?)

Conclusions: With respect to mortality, a substantial gap exists between the health of people with schizophrenia and the general community.
This differential mortality gap has worsened in recent decades.
In light of the potential for second-generation antipsychotic medications to further adversely influence mortality rates in the decades to come, optimizing the general health of people with schizophrenia warrants urgent attention