Lorenzo Leggio

We don't make addiction a foundational part of a medical school and residency.

And then the last but not the least, which also is part of the first two reasons, addictions are highly stigmatized, including alcohol use disorder.

So if I have diabetes, I have no problem to talk about having diabetes and going to the doctor.

But if I do have alcoholism disorder, I'm ashamed.

I'm afraid.

I'm concerned.

I'm afraid to be marginalized by the society, which is in fact what is happening.

So when I talk about these issues, I'm not blaming patients or clinicians.

I'm actually pointing out that we have actually still a big hole in not understanding that addictions are chronic medical disease.

We should really treat these disorders just like any other mental health disorder or any medical disorder, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, etc.

I would say, David, you have not made any mistake.

You're absolutely right.

You know, as a physician, as a scientist, this is the most exciting time of my professional career.

So let me make this clear.

We do have effective treatments for alcohol use disorder.

Three of them in particular are

are FDA approved.

So any doctor could prescribe naltrexone-accomposated disulfiram.

Now, the number of medications we have to treat diabetes, hypertension, is actually huge.

So the point I'm making is, first of all, the three medications we have, they don't work for all patients.