Was olanzapine better at controlling side effects or symptoms or both?
It was better at controlling symptoms but it produced substantial side effects—principally weight gain. And when we looked at perphenazine, it did not produce any significant degree of neurologic side effects, so it was as effective as the other medications and as comparatively safe. How did the pharmaceutical companies respond to your study? Not happily. Did they try to dispute the results? Yes. Each company has had their own take on the study and its results. Has anyone else replicated your results? As it turned out, at the same time we were doing our study, colleagues in England, unbeknownst to us, were doing a very similar study. This was the CUtLASS study, and it had been commissioned by the National Health Service in the U.K., also to compare first-and second-generation drugs. CUtLASS had a slightly different design, but it was asking the same questions—it was also a practical clinical trial, and it basically came up with the identical results. Even down to the slight superiority
