Word: aller
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...road to science is paved with good intentions. Gregory Aller had volunteered for an experiment designed to study the early years of schizophrenia, the onset of schizophrenic relapse, how to predict relapse, and how to determine who would and who would not be affected by withdrawal of medication. In the short term, that meant Aller would get medicine to make him well. But the long-range realities were harrowing. If he got well, the experiment would follow Greg as medication was withdrawn. If he then became ill, he could fall into the worst stages of psychotic relapse. Last March, Keith...
...March 14, 1988, Aller signed his first consent form at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and became a subject for Phase 1 of Developmental Processes in Schizophrenic Disorders. Twice a month he received a 12.5-mg injection of the antipsychotic drug Prolixin Decanoate. The substance took three months to take effect, but the results were miraculous. "Everything disappeared," Aller says. Gone were the space aliens, his grandmother's ghost, the pipe bombs, the sniper...
Meanwhile the researchers were preparing him for Phase 2, formally titled Double-Blind Drug Crossover and Withdrawal Project. Says Aller: "In group- therapy sessions, they implied that going into crossover meant that you were a strong person. It would be a better thing to do than being on medication. It meant you were doing well...
Greg's parents were ecstatic with his progress. They were, however, wary of Phase 2. They talked to Nuechterlein and Greg's caseworker, Joseph Tietz, a graduate student. "We knew when Greg went into the program that they would take him off medication at a certain point," says Gloria Aller. "They explained to us that this was to test whether he really needed it for the long run." The scientists noted that antipsychotic drugs have powerful side effects, and they were trying to identify patients who might be able to stay off medication and avoid them. Among the drug...
...Gloria Aller remained concerned. "More than once I asked them, 'If he starts to slip, you'll put him back on medication?' " She says the staff assured her they would. On June 1, 1989, Greg Aller signed his second consent form. The form blandly said the study's "purpose" was "to take people like me off medication in a way that will give the most information about the medication, its effect on me, on others and on the way the brain works." Further, the clinic promised it would use "active medication again to improve ((Aller's)) condition" if he showed...