I think it's downright ignorant and dangerous to try to patent a combination of an anti-psychotic/anti-depressants both of which are known to have numerous nasty and prolonged side-effects to a patient population that is known to be quite sensitive to medications as part of their illness.
I think we need a quick review of what a patent is and is not. A patent is not medical advice, a patent is not a guarantee of safety, a patent is not FDA approval of a treatment, and a patent is not an invitation for the general public to try out the invention detailed in the patent.
In pharmacology (or any other field of invention), a patent provides protection for its holder such that if they decide to invest the many millions required to develop a drug treatment, they are then given the opportunity to recoup their investment by means of exclusive rights to sell the product for 20 years. Without a patent, you will usually not get any investment into the development of a drug, because there is no way to recoup the investment. Thus a patent just lays the foundation for further research and development of a drug.
The full safety and efficacy profile of a patented pharmacological treatment would only be determined as part of the research and development process, and the clinical trials.
If anyone came across a new compound that could cure ME/CFS, the worst thing in the world they could do would be not to patent it, because then that compound would likely never receive any funding for research, development and clinical trials.
What ME/CFS symptoms are you getting relief from?
Significant improvements in ME/CFS sound sensitivity (hyperacusis), and mild improvements in fatigue and cognition are the ME/CFS symptoms I find very low dose amisulpride helps. Improvements in ME/CFS fatigue were also found in the small scale study linked to in my
amisulpride post.
I also find very low dose amisulpride also helps reduce the ME/CFS information overload on the brain, and reduce the over-sensitivity to the presence of people and the information overload of socializing, so it facilitates easier socializing.
In addition, I find it helps a number of common comorbid symptoms and conditions that my virus triggered, including depression, which is a common comorbidity in ME/CFS anyway.
Side effects of anti-psychotics can be serious, and include the triggering of diabetes or extrapyramidal symptoms like tardive dyskinesia. For this reason, they not used whenever a safer drug will suffice.
However, I am on the
very low dose protocol of amisulpride (= 100th of the normal full dose), and in this very low dose protocol, amisulpride works in the
opposite way to its full dose regimen. In the very low dose protocol, amisulpride actually
boosts the dopaminergic system, whereas in the full dose regimen, amisulpride
inhibits the dopaminergic system (which antipsychotics usually do). Amisulpride is in effect a different drug when used at the very low dose protocol.
It is the dopaminergic inhibition caused by anti-psychotics that is linked to triggering the extrapyramidal symptoms; so the fact that in my very low dose amisulpride protocol I get dopaminergic boosting rather than inhibition likely means that this protocol will not be subject to the risks of extrapyramidal symptoms.
In any case, in the patent they do not talk about antipsychotics, but rather
dopamine stabilizing agents, a drug class which includes the latest third generation antipsychotics like amisulpride and aripiprazole, but also drugs like pridopidine, which are not classed as antipsychotics.