‘Game-changer for autism’: 100-year-old drug reverses sympto

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The sample size is a dozen people more than a 100 years ago? Not exactly a game changer, the side effects listed here aren't as bad as probably like 90% of psych drugs tho. Someone else try it first.

A new use is being proposed for a 100yr old drug.

A piece of information not reported thus far:

Disclosure: Robert Naviaux has filed a provisional patent application related to antipurinergic therapy of autism and related disorders.

Money money money

Lol, I'm not surprised. The language he used in the article was one of a salesman, not a medical professional. Thanks for pointing that out though.

Something that runs in my family. I wonder if it affects the way I think.

Does suramin interfere with meiosis, in healthy cells. That is observable.

You should read the full article which is available here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 3.424/full .

Is it possible to alter purine metabolism, without the drug?

Yes, global warming (I mean, "climate change"). The number of times I have heard the expressions "carbon" and "carbon dioxide" used interchangeably are far too many to list.

Last edited by Lintar on 10 Jun 2017, 8:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How very open-minded of you. Do you treat western mainstream media sources with the same "dose of healthy scepticism"?

I really am disappointed at the way people have responded here to this. Yes, this drug appeared in 1916, but that, in and of itself, is irrelevant because it wasn't developed in the first place to treat the condition of autism (it was originally for sleeping sickness), and secondly new applications for old drugs are sometimes found to the surprise of those who discover them.

As for the patent application, well... isn't that what happens with all new drugs, and old drugs for which new uses are found, these days? Why is this so surprising to people here? As the article points out:



This is welcome news! It's about time progress was made in this area, and it's all very well for those who are considered to be "high functioning" to whine and complain about how those nasty people at Autism Speaks want to cure you. You have the luxury of doing this, but what about those who cannot speak at all because they have this condition to a far more severe degree? Do you speak for them as well?

Yes, that's right. Why are you rolling your eyes at this? Don't you think it's possible?

Nothing is proven about Naviaux's hypothesis, he has done a tiny pilot study with children, unreplicated and because of the way the results were evaluated, the validity is questionable ++. Most researchers would not rush off to file for a patent at that stage.

It is also known from independent studies that the conflict of interest by experimenters registering pre-proof patents exerts a biasing effect on findings, whether that happens consciously or not.

It's not a usual practice at all.

It is an old drug off patent. Drug companies have no interest in a drug that they can't have sole exclusive rights to sell it regardless of it's potential benefit.

This is one of the main failures of modern medicine in it's current setup. It fails society when it comes to repurposing old drugs, it fails us when it comes to discovering new antibiotics, and it fails us on any potential treatment that grows in the ground like Cannabis.

Considering the fact that there are more than a few nasty side effects this particular drug has, are you willing to put people through the torture of the side effects for some dubious claim pushed by a guy who for all intents and purposes appears to be some dodgy snake oil salesman?

Is it worth it to subject a lot of people who want to 'restore' the 'normalcy' of a child or relative who is more profoundly affected by autism, when more than a few of them have invested a lot of money in fraudulent approaches that didn't work? --Does this really seem like a good idea to you?

This is promising study, but I think this study should be repeated with larger study sample. If it proves successful in a larger study sample, it will be a great news as it could help several people.

We should work towards more funding for autism research. As this will increase the number of people with autism that gets a job.


Another promising candidate is ocytocin where at drug test was published in nature http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v21/n9 ... 5162a.html. Nature is together with Science the journals with the highest impact factor.

Huge funds are already donated to autism research. Autism Speaks is the most active and largest outfit encouraging donations from the public, and it alone receives millions per year and has done for years. Not one cent of this seems to have translated into jobs for AS adults, (or if it has, we have never heard any report of it here).

A finding from a larger study would not be conclusive without subsequent robust replications by independent (truly independent) researchers. If the original study is methodologically flawed, then few genuine researchers would attempt replication. The pilot study is not reliable for various methodological reasons.

Also, unfortunately, the media reports on single unreplicated studies, in very misleading ways, all the time; but never reports on the meta-analyses which are very important to establishing the validity of a theory.

When performed competently, meta-analysis can really tell us something, as it examines a collation of all or many studies by different researchers on a singular area of theory.