Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

[kronkcarr]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

Wow. Cass, I agree with your statement. Thanks for making it. Dr. Ameisen's death (early to me as I think 61 is young) is a reminder for me to live. I'm so grateful that I'm no longer escaping through alcohol. Reading his book was life changing for me.

[treetops]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

Kronkcarr - 61 is young! Thats one reason why I was so determined to get AL out of my body because I want to have a few more innings on this turf.

[spiritwolf333]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

And LoOp - thanks for bringing this news to our attention. I go back and look at some of your early posts and realize just how supportive you have been all along -not only to this forum, but to Dr. Ameisen as well.

[bleep]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

Cassander;1534334 wrote: I hope and think that he will eventually be recognized as a great man who made one of the great life-saving...and life-giving... discoveries of all time. May he be even more successful in death than he was in life.

Cassander

I too spent a fair amount of time last night thinking about phrasing a eulogy, but this simple statement sums it up very nicely.

Thanks Cass.

[ignominious]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

Very sad. I second the Nobel prize motion, for making a massive leap forward in the understanding of addiction.
Also a reminder that I should stop obsessing about getting everything perfect and start enjoying living.

[skullbabyland]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

Im so sad.

[Xadrian]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

Olivier Ameisen has deceased, but our hero will live on in our hearts.
His incomprehensible important discovery will live on and will continue to save tens of thousands of lifes.

I'm extremely grateful for his discovery and even more grateful that he made it public.
I expect that someday he will get that nobel prize post mortem.

[emc]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

i'm really sad.

A big thanks to this revolutionary pioneer that discovered the cure for alcoholism.

Everybody you helped to cure it's a messenger of your discovery.

Thanks Dr. Olivier

[Cassander]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

Here is a link to his obituary in the widely-read French journal Le Monde yesterday:

Olivier Ameisen, l'ap?tre du Baclof?ne, est mort

And here is my very rough translation into English:

Olivier Ameisen, the apostle of Baclofen, is dead

Le Monde.fr | 19/07/2013 at 20:58 ? Updated 19/07/2013 at 21:30 | By Sandrine Blanchard, Sandrine Cabut and Catherine Vincent

Professor of Cardiology Olivier Ameisen.

Professor Olivier Ameisen, cardiologist, brother of Professor Jean-Claude Ameisen, the current president of the French National Ethics Committee, died on July 18 in Paris of a myocardial infarction. He had just turned 60.

For thousands of alcoholics, he will be the one that allowed them to end their "craving"; the irrepressible need for alcohol. His crusade was for Baclofen: himself a doctor who became addicted to alcohol, he found in an old drug a new path to freedom from addiction, and fought for years to have his discovery accepted.

As a teenager Ameisen was a brilliant pianist, who learned to play by ear. He first imagined a career as a musician. But his parents told him he would have to pass his baccalaureate first. He passed by age 15, but by then it was too late for a career as a pianist. He went to see Arthur Rubinstein for advice, who suggested that he become a conductor and composer. But Amiesen did not want half measures. So he chose medicine.

"THE TREATMENT OF ADDICTION" THE MATTER OF LIFE

"He loved the clinic and research, but I think he always regretted not having a career in music. It was really what he lived for," said Jean-Claude Ameisen, his older brother by a year and a half. In adolescence, the two brothers were inseparable. They studied medicine together preparing exams and taking their internships side by side. It was only when Olivier departed for the prestigious Cornell University in New York in 1983 that they were separated. The young man quickly becomes a prominent cardiologist, but it did not take long for his unrelenting anxiety to sink him into alcoholism. As in everything he did, he went all the way.

He was hospitalized for his alcoholism numerous times, where he was treated by the best specialists in the field. Nothing worked. His career was stopped; he went in and out of detox and from accident to accident. "I really felt like he would never make it," recalls his brother. Until 2001, when a friend gave him an article from the New York Times to read describing the amazing effect of Baclofen, a drug marketed since the 1970s to relieve muscle spasms, in a cocaine addict. For Ameisen, it was the moment.

He dove into the scientific literature, interviewed experts and then he set off. In 2004, he began treating himself with increasing doses of Baclofen. He found himself cured of his addiction, becoming, he said, "indifferent to alcohol." Which was an unheard of result. He recovered his cognitive faculties and found a serenity that he had never known. As a good scientist, he published his first case in late 2004 in a specialized journal on alcoholism. But it was his best-selling book, The Last Glass (Ed. Deno?l, 2008), which finally allowed him to be widely heard.

Baclofen had no official authorization for the treatment of addiction to alcohol, but eloquent witnesses multiplied, and sales soared. While part of the medical community remained doubtful, Ameisen received prestigious support. Professor Jean Dausset, Nobel Prize winner in Medicine in 1980, pronounced that Ameisen had discovered "the treatment of addiction."

Since then, Baclofen became the great business of his life. The cardiologist, who by necessity became an alcohologist, spent his days and nights tirelessly and stubbornly in a battle for the recognition of his treatment. Sending messages around the world, responding to hundreds of anonymous people who turned to him, taking issue with the physicians who would not apply his "method", and criticizing the "reluctance" of France. He wanted training methods to be created, and he despaired the administrative slowness of the French faculty.

"CONQUERING ALCOHOLISM WITHOUT HAVING TO ABSTAIN: A BLASPHEMY"

"Enthusiastic, passionate and extremely endearing, Ameisen suffered greatly from the refusal of addiction specialists to recognize this therapy as an opportunity to help," commented Professor Didier Sicard, who has publicly supported and, on June 3, chaired a symposium supporting Baclofen treatment. The former president of the National Ethics Committee says that it is "a very important scientific discovery that goes beyond alcohol and will justify further work."

The discovery was not well received, however, among other reasons, because it carried an unacceptable message. "With Baclofen you no longer have to be a prisoner of alcohol, which is to say you can win without necessarily being abstinent. In the world of alcohol treatment this was a blasphemy."

"Olivier Ameisen did not expect such enormous resistance from the medical community," said the analyst Caroline Eliacheff, who became friends with him on the release of his book. Describing him as "a genius who became a benefactor of mankind", she also describes his constitutional anxiety, calling it "physically palpable."

It makes no sense, but this impatient, tortured man who had no children himself could not successfully follow through on the incredibly promising pathway he had himself opened. In recent months, however, he did have something to celebrate. Clinical trials have been initiated in hospital and private practice to evaluate the efficacy of Baclofen in alcohol dependence, which could lead to formal approval of the treatment in the coming years.

Pending the results, the Medicines Agency (MSNA) announced on 3 June a "temporary recommendation to use" (RTU) allowing physicians to prescribe Baclofen to their patients legally. "Olivier was very happy with this decision, which like all of us we had waited for for years," said Dr. Renaud de Beaurepaire, a psychiatrist at the Paul-Guiraud hospital at Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) and a prescriber from the beginning. In recent weeks, Olivier Ameisen had said he wanted to open an office for consultation in addiction, to prescribe "his" medicine. The adventure of Baclofen will have to continue without him.

[thernand20]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

I don't want to believe he is gone. I just emailed him today :;(

[MissIndygo]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

I had just started researching him and baclofen and found out he had passed.
Very sad indeed and way too young!
I don't want to stir the pot, but does anybody else think it is odd that a cardiologist dies of a heart attack?
Certainly ironic.
Rest in peace Oliver Ameisen. What a pioneer for pharmaceutical control of alcohol addiction! Much respect!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

MissIndygo;1589952 wrote:
I don't want to stir the pot, but does anybody else think it is odd that a cardiologist dies of a heart attack?
Certainly ironic.

I had a really close friend who died of a heart attack. On Valentine's Day. His wife, a cardiologist, was sitting across the table from him. I kid you not.
He was 38 and had a complete physical six weeks before.

Life. You can't make it up.

[MissIndygo]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

Wow yes that's incredible. How would you feel. Poor thing.

[ignominious]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

MissIndygo;1589952 wrote:
I don't want to stir the pot, but does anybody else think it is odd that a cardiologist dies of a heart attack?

I, for one, have been wondering about this. Also have felt reluctant to post my doubts as I don't want to be a fear mongerer.
Is there any truth to the rumour that he had started drinking again?
Its unlikely as a cardioligist that he would die this way unless it was self induced.

[bleep]

Dr. Olivier Ameisen--Is it true?

Ironic is the word people are looking for. Like an oncologist dying of cancer. Or a dentist dying when all his teeth explode.

Knowing lots about your heart doesn't prevent it packing up on you one day.