Applying Parsimony to "An African Patient With Ziprasidone Intolerance."

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Sir: Awareness of and sensitivity to ethno-pharmacologic issues are vital when treating a person of a particular cultural/racial background, but it seems equally important to apply the principle of parsimony to cases like the one described in a recent (June 2005) letter by Hein and colleagues ("An African Patient with Ziprasidone Intolerance").¹ The authors suggest that their patient, who was of Nubian, Arabic, and Irish background, was particularly sensitive to a typical 40 mg b.i.d. dose of ziprasidone because of his "African ethnicity." They bolstered their claim by citing this case as the second report of a person of African background who experienced severe side effects from a "commonly recommended dose of ziprasidone."