I have been engaged in an offline discussion with Spirit and Otter about the recent troll and spam attacks on MWO and how to defeat the trolls and offer a truly helpful website for people who could benefit from baclofen and medical treatment of alcoholism.
Perhaps, as I believe Otter has suggested in the past, its simply a marketing challenge.
I spent some time this early morning reading up on and comparing ALS (Lou Gehrig?s Disease) and alcoholism. As some of you may know supporters of finding a cure for ALS have been using the Ice Bucket Challenge and social media to gather support. They have succeeded big time.
However.
Consider that in the US only about 30,000 people have ALS and about 5,000 Americans a year die from it. This is horrible and tragic, but most of us have never known a person with ALS. This summer, social media is overwhelmed by video images of people taking the Ice Bucket Challenge and according to reports as a result about $41 million has been raised to help find a cure.
By contrast, it is estimated that about 18,000,000 people have an alcohol use disorder in the US and each year about 85,000 Americans die from alcohol-related causes, including both accidents and injuries caused by excessive use of alcohol and chronic disease such as cirrhosis of the liver, as well as cancer and cardiovascular disease. It has been estimated that the combination of drinking and driving in the US results in one injury every minute and one death every 32 minutes.
Moreover, excessive use of alcohol affects nearly every one of us and society overall in a major way.
? More than 50% of American adults (over 100,000,000 people) have a close family member who is an alcoholic.
? In 2006 (apparently the latest date for which figures are available), the estimated annual cost of alcohol abuse in the U.S. was $223.5 billion.
? One study has estimated that alcohol use disorders annually cost $56.7 billion more than the estimated annual economic cost of illegal drug use and $36.5 billion more than the estimated annual economic cost of smoking.
? In 1992 (over 20 years ago), the estimated productivity loss for employees with past or current alcoholism was $66.7 billion.
? The total cost attributable to underage drinking, including costs of traffic crashes, violent crime, injuries, and treatment, is over $52 billion per year.
In sum, excessive alcohol use contributes substantially to serious automobile accidents and loss of life, physical and mental health problems and chronic disease, job loss and employee productivity costs, divorce and family breakup and financial problems, undue allocation of resources to law enforcement and court systems, and workplace accidents and loss of productivity. The list goes on.
In the face of this problem a large part of the treatment response is residential rehabilitation and Alcoholics Anonymous, both helpful (to a point), but neither of which effectively addresses the disease of alcoholism from a medical point of view. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) have been remarkably successful in reducing underage drunk driving, yet the statistics for underage drinking show that it has not been curtailed.
And yet, since at least 2008, it has been known that there is a medication, baclofen, which can arrest craving for alcohol in persons who abuse or are dependent on alcohol. Notwithstanding the anecdotal success reported by many (although certainly not all) people who have undertaken a course of baclofen treatment (no other medical treatment seems to work as well), acceptance by the medical profession and widespread use of baclofen has been inhibited in the United States for lack of definitive double blind clinical trials conclusively establishing its effectiveness.r />
At one point I believe Olivier Ameisen stated that a clinical trial would cost (only) approximately $1 million. To date the Ice Bucket Challenge has apparently raised at least $41 million for ALS. To my knowledge, to date, no funds have been raised in the United States to fund a conclusive study of the effectiveness of baclofen for alcoholism. Clearly those of us who would like to see a medical cure for alcoholism are not doing the right thing to promote the cause.
Even in the face of the recent tragic deaths of high profile celebrities Amy Winehouse, Robin Williams and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (all alcoholics) it seems we would rather wish away Lou Gehrig?s Disease, as terrible as it is, than confront a disease of epidemic proportions which impacts us all.
Perhaps we do have a marketing problem.
Cassander
Perhaps, as I believe Otter has suggested in the past, its simply a marketing challenge.
I spent some time this early morning reading up on and comparing ALS (Lou Gehrig?s Disease) and alcoholism. As some of you may know supporters of finding a cure for ALS have been using the Ice Bucket Challenge and social media to gather support. They have succeeded big time.
However.
Consider that in the US only about 30,000 people have ALS and about 5,000 Americans a year die from it. This is horrible and tragic, but most of us have never known a person with ALS. This summer, social media is overwhelmed by video images of people taking the Ice Bucket Challenge and according to reports as a result about $41 million has been raised to help find a cure.
By contrast, it is estimated that about 18,000,000 people have an alcohol use disorder in the US and each year about 85,000 Americans die from alcohol-related causes, including both accidents and injuries caused by excessive use of alcohol and chronic disease such as cirrhosis of the liver, as well as cancer and cardiovascular disease. It has been estimated that the combination of drinking and driving in the US results in one injury every minute and one death every 32 minutes.
Moreover, excessive use of alcohol affects nearly every one of us and society overall in a major way.
? More than 50% of American adults (over 100,000,000 people) have a close family member who is an alcoholic.
? In 2006 (apparently the latest date for which figures are available), the estimated annual cost of alcohol abuse in the U.S. was $223.5 billion.
? One study has estimated that alcohol use disorders annually cost $56.7 billion more than the estimated annual economic cost of illegal drug use and $36.5 billion more than the estimated annual economic cost of smoking.
? In 1992 (over 20 years ago), the estimated productivity loss for employees with past or current alcoholism was $66.7 billion.
? The total cost attributable to underage drinking, including costs of traffic crashes, violent crime, injuries, and treatment, is over $52 billion per year.
In sum, excessive alcohol use contributes substantially to serious automobile accidents and loss of life, physical and mental health problems and chronic disease, job loss and employee productivity costs, divorce and family breakup and financial problems, undue allocation of resources to law enforcement and court systems, and workplace accidents and loss of productivity. The list goes on.
In the face of this problem a large part of the treatment response is residential rehabilitation and Alcoholics Anonymous, both helpful (to a point), but neither of which effectively addresses the disease of alcoholism from a medical point of view. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) have been remarkably successful in reducing underage drunk driving, yet the statistics for underage drinking show that it has not been curtailed.
And yet, since at least 2008, it has been known that there is a medication, baclofen, which can arrest craving for alcohol in persons who abuse or are dependent on alcohol. Notwithstanding the anecdotal success reported by many (although certainly not all) people who have undertaken a course of baclofen treatment (no other medical treatment seems to work as well), acceptance by the medical profession and widespread use of baclofen has been inhibited in the United States for lack of definitive double blind clinical trials conclusively establishing its effectiveness.r />
At one point I believe Olivier Ameisen stated that a clinical trial would cost (only) approximately $1 million. To date the Ice Bucket Challenge has apparently raised at least $41 million for ALS. To my knowledge, to date, no funds have been raised in the United States to fund a conclusive study of the effectiveness of baclofen for alcoholism. Clearly those of us who would like to see a medical cure for alcoholism are not doing the right thing to promote the cause.
Even in the face of the recent tragic deaths of high profile celebrities Amy Winehouse, Robin Williams and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (all alcoholics) it seems we would rather wish away Lou Gehrig?s Disease, as terrible as it is, than confront a disease of epidemic proportions which impacts us all.
Perhaps we do have a marketing problem.
Cassander
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