Metabolism an unappreciated factor in drug effectiveness

I was touched, and surprised, by your editorial of Friday, May 20, headlined ‘Trying to understand suicide/Figures show we need to do far more’. I was touched by your compassion and surprised by your mention of “variations in metabolism”.

Although gene tests can establish whether patients will tolerate or adversely react to drugs, these tests are not available in Ireland. It is especially psychiatrists who ignore the findings of reports on such drugs, thereby risking patient lives.

Since the introduction of psychiatric drugs, the rate of suicide in schizophrenia has risen 20-fold, according to Healy et al (2006), who compared rates from 1825-1924 to 1994-1999.