New research to help trials for schizophrenia drugs CLINICAL
trials of drugs once considered dangerous in the treatment of
schizophrenia will now more readily be given the go ahead, one
of Australia's most prominent psychiatrists says, thanks to
significant new research that has shown the brains of
schizophrenics may be under immune system attack. Although
researchers have suspected a link between immune function and
schizophrenia, a lack of evidence meant it was difficult to get
funding to trial immune-system suppressing drugs on
schizophrenic patients, said the executive director of Sydney
University's Brain and Mind Research Institute, Ian Hickie. "In
order to expose people to dangerous treatments – and
immunosuppressive drugs do carry risks – you need serious
evidence to suggest those drugs may be useful in treating the
condition," Professor Hickie said. "In the past, researchers
have had great difficulty convincing an ethics committee that
this is a treatment strategy for schizophrenia." But a study led