Dennis P. Harris <NO_SPAM_TO_dpharris@gci.net> is alleged to have said:

However, the organization appears to be a legitimate one.  It is a
group at the University of British Colombia in Vancouver that reviews
the literature on drugs to try to make some sense of it by people who
have no financial ties to the drug companies.  Or in their words:

"The Therapeutics Initiative presents critically appraised summary
evidence primarily from controlled drug trials.  Such evidence applies
to patients similar to those involved in the trails, and may not be
generalizable to every patient.  We are committed to evaluate the
effectiveness of our educational activities using the Pharmacare/
PharmaNet databases without identifying individual physicians,
pharmacies or patients.  The Therapeutics Initiative is funded by the BC
Ministry of Health through a 3-year grant to the University of BC.  The
Therapeutics Initiative provides evidence based advice about drug
therapy, and is not responsible for formulating or adjudicating
provincial drug policies."

In the paper mentioned in the original post, there are also trials with
small but positive outcomes for Aricept.  However, the conclusions
are as was shown: the drugs commonly given for Alzheimer's either
haven't been tested or haven't shown usefulness in treatment of the
disease.

My conclusion: maybe I'm fooling myself, but I saw a difference in my
mother upon starting Aricept plus Namenda, and I'm not pulling her
off of them.

sometimes it's not guilt, it's the caregiver's ability to deal
with the behaviors due to reduced cognitive ability.  if it
appears to be working (i.e. the rate of decline appears slower)
most of us won't try to fix something if it ain't broke.

that won't happen as long as we have a congress that's captive to
corporate pharm & insurance interests.  look at the drug company
benefit bill they passed --- a so-called "medicare drug benefit"
bill that doesn't provide much benefit to seniors but is
difficult to understand.

the whole health care & long term care system is dysfunctional,
mostly due to corporate & professional greed.  we need to get in
step with the rest of the industrialized world and have a
national single payer system.

Understood. I abbreviated the medical history and meant my post to be a
contravening reply to the generally pessimistic reports issued from
reviews of Alzheimer's drugs for the consideration of the readers of the
newsgroups to which the 'letter' was sent.
In my wife's case, Aricept was discontinued, replaced then re-started
for the obvious reason of behavioral and cognitive changes. It was
discontinued by a psychiatrist to the tune of - don't load her up with
medicines that ultimately prove useless. Net result, she then required
antipsychotic and behavorial meds to keep her calm. So much for
therapeutic overload. I read of Memantine, requested opinion and Rx from
the internist. He thought it might be worth while but couldn't perscribe
it because it wasn't approved at that time in the US despite a decade of
use in Germany. I ordered it from England until it was approved by the
FDA and we were able to discontinue all other meds except the Aricept.
She's been treated for Alzheimer's for about ten years now and has
required placement in an Alzheimer's unit for five of those. Do the meds
still help? Honestly, I don't know if and/or to what extent. I am
inclined to doubt if as much as before, certainly, but I am reluctant to
loose the last therapy of known benefit. I know someday she shall cease
to eat/swallow and then I will face the eventuality of 'letting her go'.
'Til then I'll continue to fight like hell and seek/hope for that
'miracle drug' to make itself known.
Sorry to be so verbose but I'm generally withdrawn and probably won't
elaboraste again. Thanks for everyone's patience, understanding and
advice/thoughts. Y'all have a good 'un now, y'heah?  ;-)