Science Insider
By Jocelyn Kaiser
January 20, 2010

As part of his ongoing investigation of conflicts of interest in biomedicine, Senator Charles Grassley (R–IA) now wants to comb through the e-mails of Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Grassley points out in a letter today to NIH Director Francis Collins that his 2-year probe has found five psychiatrists who failed to report drug company income or had other conflict issues—all of them researchers with funding from NIMH. “I wonder if there is something in particular about this institute that leads to so many funding problems,” the letter says. It asks for Insel’s e-mails and his calendar since 2 May; his phone records for 2009 and 2010; and NIMH staff members’ e-mails and communications regarding Senate investigations or conflicts of interest back to June 2008. Grassley wants all of this by 3 February.

Read entire article:  http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/01/grassley-goes-f.html

« Return to news items

News Feed

Related Posts

• Psychiatrists And Pharma: Undue Influence? Concern about corruption increasing… (1)
• Citing public’s growing distrust of psychiatry, NIMH Chief says psychiatry must “Clean up our act” (3)
• Sen Grassley’s bill now requires public disclosure of ALL Pharma $$ to doctors— Top Psychiatrist calls for “Ethics Cleanup” (1)
• Grassley & Senate Watchdog Target Doctors Prescribing Mass Amounts of Dangerous Drugs (0)
• U.S. to Force Drug Firms to Report Money Paid to Doctors (0)

by CCHR International

An ongoing U.S. Senate investigation headed by Senator Charles Grassley has  sought disclosure of pharmaceutical funding paid to researchers, physicians,  medical schools and medical journals.  Some of the nation’s most prominent psychiatrists have now been exposed for extensive conflicts of interest amounting to millions in undisclosed pharmaceutical funding, including Dr. Charles Nemeroff, Dr. Joseph Biederman, Dr. Melissa DelBello, Dr. Timothy Wilens, Dr. Thomas Spencer, Dr. Alan Schatzberg, Dr. Martin Keller, Dr. A. John Rush, Dr. Karen Wagner, Dr. Jeffrey Bostic and Dr. Frederick Goodwin — many of which serve as advisory board members to mental illness “advocacy groups” which are now also the subject of the Senate investigation for their undisclosed pharmaceutical funding.

The majority of the public may or may not be familiar with these so-called mental health advocacy organizations, such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) or the myriad of bipolar, depression or ADHD “support groups” that are inundating the internet.

But they need to be.

These are groups operating under the guise of advocates for the “mentally ill,” which in reality are heavily funded pharmaceutical front groups – lobbying and working on state and federal laws which effect the entire nation — from our elderly in nursing homes to our military, pregnant women, nursing mothers and school children. Presenting themselves as patient advocacy groups is highly disingenuous not only to their membership, many of which may have a sincere desire to help a loved one or a family member with mental problems, but to legislators, the press and the American public — for they have consistently lobbied for legislation that benefits the mental health and pharmaceutical industries which fund them, and not patients they claim to represent.

Certainly any organization claiming to be for the rights of patients diagnosed mentally ill would have as their primary goal, full informed consent in the field of mental health – including full and complete disclosure of all drug risks, the right to refuse treatment, the right to know that psychiatric diagnoses are not medical conditions (evident by the fact there is not one confirmatory medical/scientific test). Above all such groups would provide patients with an abundance of information on non-harmful, non- drug, medical solutions and options considering the dangerous and well documented risks of psychiatric drugs by international drug regulatory agencies.

These groups do not.

A patients rights group for the mentally ill would never endorse something as absurd and obviously dangerous as giving electroshock to pregnant women, nor condone schools being able to require children to take a psychiatric drug as a condition of attending school. Furthermore, they would never be opposed to the FDA actually doing its job and finally issuing long overdue warnings that antidepressants can cause children to commit suicide, or issue warnings that ADHD drugs have serious and even deadly side effects. Yet these are just some of the actions condoned and promoted by these so-called patients rights groups.

As another example take the federally proposed bill, The Mothers Act; a previous version of this bill called on using a method of “screening” pregnant women and new mothers called EPDS, a screening method documented to triple the number of women diagnosed with Postpartum depression, according to a study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology. The Scandinavian Journal of Public Health stated that EPDS screening was unethical and should not be used. None of the so called advocacy groups for the mentally ill had any objections to this bill whatsoever, or endorsing such an unethical screening tool. They supported it. The bill would have passed with no objections from them whatsoever, if not for the dedication of real advocacy groups with no vested interests (ties to Pharma) opposing language in this bill that would have led to women being falsely diagnosed and put on dangerous psychiatric drugs to “treat” them, unnecessarily placing new mothers and their infants at great risk.

To put it simply, these groups are not what they appear to be. Yet their influence over legislation, lobbying, drug regulation (or lack thereof), and public relations campaigns is substantial and effects the entire nation. For they claim to be the voice of the “mentally ill.” But are they? Or are they the result of a brilliant marketing/lobbying campaign designed to benefit the industry that funds them—the Psycho/Pharmaceutical industry.

To find out how it all started click here: http://www.cchrint.org/psycho-pharmaceutical-front-groups/

« Return to news items

News Feed

Related Posts

• American Psychiatric Association Called Upon to Cut Drug Company Ties and Put Lives of Children Before Profits (5)
• National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) – A Pharma front group (0)
• Behind the Psychopharmaceutical Industrial Complex; Pharma-funded front groups masquerading as “patient advocates” (0)
• DSM Panel Members Still Getting Pharma Funds (4)
• Harvard Expert Ties Mental Illness “Epidemic” to Big Pharma’s Agenda (0)

Believe it or not, The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI),a “patient’s rights group” for the mentally ill, is promoting Electroshock (ECT) for pregnant women as safe and effective. NAMI has recently been exposed for their extensive Pharma funding (3/4 of their donations; $23 million came from Pharma ) which may help explain their long standing promotion and fierce endorsement of psychiatric drugs which they are now attempting to downplay after being the subject of a Senate investigation. Not surprising then is the fact that NAMI also lists Cyberonics, an ECT machine manufacturer as one of NAMI’s Corporate Sponsor in 2008.

From NAMI’s website “The safest way to treat severe depression in a pregnant woman is probably electroconvulsive (ECT) therapy. Patients and families are sometimes frightened by the idea of “shock treatment,” but in fact ECT is safer than antidepressant medication for a depressed pregnant woman. It can be used during any state of pregnancy, but is less risky after the first trimester. The most common side effect of ECT is short term memory loss. Less frequent side effects usually respond to simple treatment. These may include: headaches, mild muscle soreness, nausea, adverse reactions to anesthetic or muscle relaxants, and heartbeat irregularities.

Read entire article: http://www.nami.org/Content/ContentGroups/Helpline1/Pregnancy_Pointers_for_Women_with_Psychiatric_History.htm

« Return to news items

News Feed

Related Posts

• Think They Don’t Electroshock People Anymore? Think Again–Even toddlers and pregnant women are being shocked (26)
• How Vested Interests Created the Perfect Marketing/Lobbying Machine: Mental Health “Advocacy” Groups—Funded by Pharma (5)
• Now Psychs are recommending Electroshock for pregnant women who are depressed. Yep. Electroshock. (0)
• Harvard Expert Ties Mental Illness “Epidemic” to Big Pharma’s Agenda (0)
• Not the Only Psychiatrist Who Opposes ECT (2)