Working To Medicate Alcoholism

Big pharma is set to special tailor drugs for the estimated 1 in 10 people in the U.S. who suffer from alcoholism during the course of their life. There are different types of genetic alcoholics, the Wall Street Journal reports, some affect how the liver metabolizes alcohol, others affecting stress, anxiety, depression, reward and pleasure.

Alcoholism, or predisposition to it, is genetic. But what big pharma is trying to figure out is how to profit off of this fact. Because the people doing these studies are funded by big pharma or are part of the establishment that profits off of pharmaceuticals, they’re going to tell you the best way to combat disease is by buying their pills. Witness:

“Imagine this scenario: You go to your doctor and say, ‘I’m drinking and I need help,” says Bankole Johnson, chairman of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia and the study’s lead author. “The doctor can do a blood test and if you qualify, you can get tablets the next day and they’re very likely to be effective. You don’t even have to detox first. If you do not qualify, you don’t waste your time with the medicine.”

Since ondansetron has long been approved in larger doses, that scenario could be a reality in just a few years, predicts Dr. Johnson, who has a financial stake in a company that hopes to develop it as an alcohol treatment.

In the meantime Johnson and his buddies are busy trying to find pills for everything. There is the drug onadansetron for serotonin-related alcoholics, and Zofran, then there’s naltrexone for opioid-receptor alcoholics. There are other genes, the “Asian glow” gene, the DRDW gene which makes people feel very euphoric when drinking, and HTR2b which leads to extreme impulsiveness when drinking, finally, genes related to the receptor to neurotransmitter neuropeptide Y, but big pharma haven’t found drugs for these yet — they’re working on it, though.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been studying a mental health discipline somewhat averse to diagnosis and medication that I find this to be particularly offensive, or perhaps I’m just not a big fan of giving people pills for everything, but I have a hard time believing that the most resourceful country in the world can’t fix peoples’ problems any other way than with medication.

Hasn’t that not been working for our other problems — obesity, ADHD, smoking, etc., etc. — for decades now? Am I over the top, or what? What do you think?