Tag Archives: conflicts of interest

Harvard Expert Ties Mental Illness “Epidemic” to Big Pharma’s Agenda

For any mental illness or passing mood swing that may trouble a person, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — better known as the DSM — has a label and a code. Recurring bad dreams? That may be a Nightmare Disorder, or 307.47. Narcolepsy uses the same digits in a different order: 347.00. Fancy feather ticklers? That sounds like Fetishism, or 302.81. Then there’s the ultimate catch-all for vague sadness or uneasiness, General Anxiety Disorder, or 300.02. That’s a label almost everyone can lay claim to.Drug companies are particularly eager to win over faculty psychiatrists at prestigious academic medical centers. Called “key opinion leaders” (KOLs) by the industry, these are the people who through their writing and teaching influence how mental illness will be diagnosed and treated. They also publish much of the clinical research on drugs and, most importantly, largely determine the content of the DSM. In a sense, they are the best sales force the industry could have, and are worth every cent spent on them. Of the 170 contributors to the current version of the DSM (the DSM-IV-TR), almost all of whom would be described as KOLs, ninety-five had financial ties to drug companies, including all of the contributors to the sections on mood disorders and schizophrenia.

Drug firms paid ‘independent’ experts

Doctors working in state hospitals and community mental health centers began switching patients to the atypical antipsychotics because they were deemed the best treatment by an expert panel convened by the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

But a detailed examination of public records documents on file in a whistleblower lawsuit that has been joined by the Texas Attorney General’s Office allege that the experts hired to evaluate the drugs and make recommendations for their usage were also accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from the companies developing and marketing the medications.

It started in the middle 1990s when MHMR contracted with University of Texas and some of its professors to evaluate the medications and develop a set of treatment guidelines.

The program was named the Texas Medication Algorithm Project, or TMAP. The result was step-by-step guidelines for treating major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Pharma-Funded Psychiatrists Behind Bogus Child ‘Bi-Polar’ Epidemic- Disciplined for Conflicts of Interest

The primary promoters–inventors, one might say– of diagnosing children with “bipolar” disorder, who for over a decade, aggressively promoted the biopolar diagnosis and use of antipsychotics in children, were disciplined by Harvard University and its affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

An investigation, prompted by Sen. Charles Grassely, was conducted by Harvard University-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. It concluded (earlier this month) that psychiatrist Joseph Biederman and two of his proteges, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens -each of who failed to disclose millions of dollars they had each received from the makers of antipsychotics, the drugs they promoted for the treatment of bipolar in children–had indeed violated the University’s/ and hospital’s conflict of interest reporting standards. The companies that paid them millions include: Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Attention deficit disorder gurus in conflict of interest

TWO of the seven experts advising the government on national guidelines for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder have links to ADHD drug companies, new conflict-of-interest declarations show. Westmead adolescent health expert Michael Kohn, who has been appointed to the National Health and Medical Research Council working group, was paid by Eli Lilly, the maker of the ADHD drug Strattera, to develop educational material.

“How do I get off all the depression drugs?” We asked an expert

Phillip Sinaikin, MD, is a Florida psychiatrist who has been in practice for 25 years. Author of “Get Smart About Weight Control” and co-author of “Fat Madness: How to Stop the Diet Cycle and Achieve Permanent Well-Being,” his new book focuses on excesses and industry influence in the field of psychiatry.
Rosenberg: Your new book, Psychiatryland, traces how deception, conflicts of interest, medical enabling and direct-to-consumer advertising have resulted in millions being on psychiatric drugs they don’t need. One patient you describe has legitimate mourning and grief work to do after his wife leaves him for his own cousin. But his grief is pathologized into “bipolar disorder” by the system, including his own mother.