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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Depression genes tests and bipolar blood tests?

I've wrote two posts expressing my fears about pharmacogenetics last January. I didn't remember I this one in June, 2008 because of one comment I've found at Furious Seasons:
"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 strength 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

Here are some of Philip Dawdy's questionings on his article:

"I'm sorry but how would it transform treatment? By enabling doctors to force meds on people sooner so we can watch the rotten results of the PRIME study play out on a culture wide level? By giving doctors a form of "evidence" they can take to a judge to get a court order to force someone onto Zyprexa who isn't a danger to anyone? Will we force it upon small children who act out in class? You've got to wonder. Anyway, I doubt these sorts of gene tests being bandied about for various mental disorders will prove out in the real world, but I am a skeptic by nature.

According to the above article, Psynova plans to also roll out gene tests for bipolar disorder and depression. I've taken up the question of bipolar blood tests and depression gene tests previously."

This is scary.

Addendum:
These are the other posts on Pharmacogenetics
On January, 19 I mention
ed this post that Philip has written;

Pharmacogenetics- personalized psych-drugs
and this;
Pharmacogenetics - FDA is working to develop PGx tests to help drugs remain at the market.
It's not a question of the future. That's why I'm concerned.

8 comments:

D Bunker said...

"I doubt these sorts of gene tests being bandied about for various mental disorders will prove out in the real world, .... "

1: Psychiatric Genetics remains Smoke and Mirrors, just like it's Always been.

2: Google Dr. Kenneth Kendler, and read the papers he's published. Not 1 single cure for Anything in Any of them. In 1 of them he totaled up his grants, so far: over $24 Million, and Nothing in return. Dr. Kendler was one of the 7 Schizophrenia Work Group Disorder Definers in the last DSM.

I looked up his co-researchers in Virginia, and 1 of them listed 'Data Mining' as another of his interests. I'd be more concerned about That than any Psych Geneticist actually stumbling blindly into the Schiz Gene, or any combination of them.

Did you ever wonder what happens with the info on your grocery store Discount card? It's collected and sold to everyone who will pay.

In the very near future that info will be used to determine your Health Insurance rates, and whether or not you'll even be Allowed to Buy Health Insurance.

3: With the politics of money so thoroughly corrupting Psychiatry as to invalidate the very practice itself, Wholesale, ..... a similar Monied/Political Agenda falsification of worthless Genetic Research comprises the Entire, and sadly Everpresent, Real, ..... Very real, Threat.

4: Psych Genetics is Junk, and it's Damned Dangerous Junk, Period, so whenever some Researcher says 'Eureka, I've Found It!' that's a red flag for everyone else to demand the proof, and expose the fraud before they gather Any public credibility, .....

Ana said...

D Bunker,
It's not in the near future. I will search the web but I saw a documentary and they said that it has affected people being accepted for a job.
This is a very serious issue and I'm deeply concerned.
Yes, health insurance and many other uses to discriminate people can be done based on this "findings".

Take a look at this post I wrote:
http://justana-justana.blogspot.com/2009/01/pharmacogenetics-fda-is-working-to.html

This is scary!

D Bunker said...

With all the Centuries of Genetic Research already done into such simple bio organisms as grains, ..... Monsanto has created 'Terminator' seeds which can't be stored for next year, wreaking economic havoc on the farmers. Psych Genetics Research is no different than the Terminator Seed.

There's No such thing as a 'Safe Patient' population for these drugs. Everyone suffers harm from them in one way or another. On the one hand Psych Genetics is a Colossal Money Hustle, and on the other it's a Blind Cyclops stumbling around with a Sledgehammer culling the Human Herd/Gene Pool.

Even if it Could succeed in pruning humanity down into a new, simpler breed which Could safely tolerate being Mind Controlled by chemicals, is that a world which Anyone would Want to live in? Because if they ever Do, ..... there goes all of mankind's creativity and progress with it.

Thanks for the Orwell Certificate. That says it all.

Ana said...

"Orwell"... you've also noticed.
D Bunker,
"There's No such thing as a 'Safe Patient' population for these drugs."
Yes!
Thank you for the link. It's very good.
These people are scum.

Ana

D Bunker said...

LINK

"The search for genetic subtypes of schizophrenia began in the earliest days of psychiatric genetics, with the initial finding that the Kraepelinian subtypes "breed true" within families (9–11). It is unfortunate that modern studies, using superior methods, have been unable to confirm this finding (12–14). "

References

Rudin E: Studien uber Vererbung und entstehung geistiger Storungen, I: Zur vererbung und neuentstehung der Dementia praecox (Studies on the Inheritance and Origin of Mental Illness, I: The Problem of the Inheritance and Primary Origin of Dementia Praecox): Monographien aus dem Gesamtgebiet der Neurologie und Psychiatrie, Number 12. Berlin, Springer, 1916

Ernst Rudin?

And can You, or Anyone else, find Anything in this paper even Hinting at an actual Cure?

Ana said...

D Bunker,
I truly believe that there will be eugenicism.
I'm glad I will be dead not to see it.
Parents want it to happen that's the worse part of it.
People are already thinking if they are going to have a children because of X or Y disease running in the family.
This is the least of the evidences.
There's no discussion being conduct on this.
All the implications are not well understood by the public but if some people hear "You're child WILL have disease X."
they will be frighten.
They are playing with something very serious without having any responsibility, ethics and fully comprehension of what they are doing.
It's already happening.
Dear Lord!
What kind of world is this?

D Bunker said...

"I truly believe that there will be eugenicism."

We already have it, or I should say Still, have it. Psychiatric Illnesses are Not Illnesses in Any scientific, laboratory repeatable, provable verity. Psychiatry remains what it has Always been: Eugenics. Just look at the people underpinning its hateful assumptions.

I posted on Bleuler last June. One of my links is dead, but the meat of my argument remains.

Newton Verses Fig Newton: Bleuler The Schizophrenifier, And Seances

Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic concludes with the Real Numbers showing that Humanity's increasing contact With Psychiatry over the last Century is Directly responsible for a 1000% Increase in confusion, suffering, Real diseases, and Death.

Both the "Anatomy of an Epidemic" and Janne Larsson's "Suicide and Psychiatric Drugs" are linked on my blog, and in an hour at most, Everyone can learn Everything they really Need to know about Psychiatry.

Ana said...

Take a look at the Transhumanist World Association I just published.
They are winning public credibility because they explain it all as being ethical and a way to improve life.
If immortality is improvement of life...
This is sad.
I'll take a look at your post later.
This is too disheartening.

Ana