Homelessness

Joe Lancaster | 12.5.2024 11:50 AM

Homelessness, sadly, is a pervasive problem that persists even in developed countries like the U.S. Two experts say a policy enforced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is making it worse.

Jeffrey Singer, a physician and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and Josh Bloom, director of chemical and pharmaceutical science at the American Council on Science and Health, wrote an article this week about the Risk Evaluation and Management Strategies (REMS) program, which the FDA can enforce "for certain medications with serious safety concerns to help ensure the benefits of the medication outweigh its risks."

REMS, write Singer and Bloom, "has been largely responsible for the underprescription and underuse of clozapine, the only FDA-approved drug for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, the most severe form of the disorder." The FDA approved clozapine for use in 1989.

There are many reasons a person could find themselves homeless, but severe mental illness is a major contributor. Last month, Esquire ran a first-person account of Patrick Fealey, an award-winning journalist who found himself unable to hold a job after he was diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder in 1997; after struggling for years, he became homeless in October 2023. While admitting that his particular cocktail of drugs is not ideal and negatively affects other parts of his body, Fealey writes that it also "enables me to function and has kept me alive for twenty-seven years."

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