From: "Phil G. Fraering" <pgf@srl01.cacs.usl.edu>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 01:50:09 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: nootropic drugs, etc...
Message-ID: <199603191603.AA18735@srl03.cacs.usl.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


   Path: hks.net!news-mail-gateway!owner-cypherpunks
   From: asgaard@sos.sll.se (Asgaard)

   The reason FDA has not approved this drug is most probably because
   it does not make mildly retarded boys less retarded. But of course,
...

Well, it wasn't until the past year that the FDA approved depakote for
things like bipolar disorder.

It can be prescribed for seizures. Psychiatrists have been prescribing
it to their manic-depressive patients for the past ten years to help
with their "seizures" when the patients have been unable to tolerate
the lithium to treat their "seizures." (Depakote is usually used as
an anticonvulsant.)

I suspect the FDA hasn't ever approved _anything_ as a nootropic.
And I guess the nootropic in question isn't useful for something
else.

Depakote has been known safe and successful for about ten years for
the treatment of bipolar disorder. It's been approved for that for
the last year. If the FDA had been more zealous, they would have
probably forced many people into nine years or so of the progression
of bipolar disorder _or_ lithium toxicity.

   on snake oil. It becomes more difficult to uphold a pure market
   philosophy when it comes to poisonous snake oil or, as is often the
   case with potent drugs, effective oil but which will kill you from
   side effects after a delay. FDA has a very good reputation of not
   'recommending' drugs with (delayed) adverse effects outweighing the
   beneficial ones.

Why not let the patients research the drugs themselves? They'll find out
more than their doctors will ever tell them.

[...]

   Until this happens, trust FDA.

Have you ever stopped and wondered just how many drugs out there cause
birth defects, and asked yourself why thalidomide is illegal and other
drugs are legal?

   Asgaard


Phil