Tag Archives: conflicts of interest

Australia: ADHD guidelines pulled after scandal on U.S. child psychiatrist Biederman’s tainted/pharma funded research

The Australian Government has been forced to stop the release of the ADHD draft guidelines and may have to rewrite them following the embarrassing scandal. A cloud had been cast over the draft’s validity after one of the psychiatrists, Dr. Joseph Biederman, whose research into anti-psychotic drugs helped form the guidelines, was accused of failing to reveal $1.6 million in payments from drug companies.

U.S. Sen Grassley-Demanding transparency for Pharma funds paid to doctors, researchers, patient ‘advocacy’ groups

Senator Chuck Grassley has asked leading medical schools to describe their policies on ghostwriting as part of his continuing effort to shed light on financial ties between the pharmaceutical industry and medical professionals. “I’m interested in transparency, and academic institutions play an important role in establishing adequate and meaningful disclosure,” he said. Grassley also has conducted oversight and sought disclosure with physicians, continuing medical education and the patient advocacy community.

70% of psychiatrists in charge of adding new mental disorders to psych billing bible (DSM) have conflicts/ties to Pharma

Former editors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) have publicly declared their concerns that the ongoing revision process of the influential publication has been cloaked in secrecy. Some critics of the DSM process express other concerns in addition to matters of transparency. It’s been pointed out that about 70% of current task force members have ties to the pharmaceutical industry, up about 14% from DSM-IV.

One of the Pharma funded psychiatrists that spearheaded national child drugging campaign

When asking the question, “Who is responsible?” there is at least one name that stands out. Dr. Joseph Biederman of Harvard University. Biederman is a very high-profile doctor that spear-headed the outbreak of children on psychiatric drugs. Biederman reportedly received $1.6 million from drug makers between 2000 and 2006. However, he failed to report most of this to his university, which may well have considered this to be a conflict of interest.

University of Miami under fire for hiring psychiatrist who took millions in Pharma funds and was “pharma pimping for Paxil”

Bernard Carroll, former head of psychiatry at Duke University and once Charles Nemeroff’s boss, said parts of Nemeroff’s work involved Paxil, a GlaxoSmithKline antidepressant. “Basically, he was doing basic science pimping for Paxil to produce talking points,” Carroll told The Herald in an e-mail Thursday. “All he ever produced was speculation but that was enough to satisfy Glaxo marketing. . . . I have been exposing his shenanigans for some years.”