No other drug in the United States is prescribed with such stringent controls, according to FDA officials. Once agranulocytosis develops, the patient cannot go back on Clozaril because preliminary research shows that there's a good chance the reaction will recur. Distribution of Clozaril started last February. For many schizophrenic patients, Clozaril may be the drug that allows them to lead a life outside a mental institution. Judy Folkenberg is a staff writer for FDA Consumer.
Many people think of it as the disease that best defines madness.
Schizophrenia can inflict suffering for decades and in 10 percent of the cases lead its victims to suicide. Long considered one of psychiatry's most baffling mysteries, it continues to stump scientists. Most psychiatrists feel that schizophrenia is a collection of brain diseases that they haven't been able to sort out yet. Schizophrenia sufferers can range in severity from the babbling patient who remains in an institution to a responsible job holder on medication. Although much has been learned in the past 40 years, doctors still don't know what causes schizophrenia, and there is no cure.