Tag Archives: psychiatric drugs

How Vested Interests Created the Perfect Marketing/Lobbying Machine: Mental Health “Advocacy” Groups—Funded by Pharma

An ongoing U.S. Senate investigation headed by Senator Charles Grassly has sought disclosure of pharmaceutical funding paid to researchers, physicians, medical schools, medical journals and the patient advocacy community. 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.

Illinois psych hospital dosing foster kids with combinations of dangerous psychiatric drugs as chemical restraints

Department of Children and Family Services Director Erwin McEwen reacted to the findings by angrily criticizing Streamwood Behavioral Health Center owner Psychiatric Solutions Inc., the nation’s largest for-profit behavioral health firm. “Profiteering at the expense of the mental health of vulnerable children will not be tolerated in Illinois.”

Pregnant women should stop medications which cause birth defects: “Psychiatric drugs can & should be avoided”

Dr. Anick Berard, at the University of Montreal in Quebec, said medications such as those which treat severe acne, anxiety and psychiatric drugs, antibiotics, and many drugs prescribed for heart disease and medical conditions “can and should be avoided” by women who are pregnant.

Psychiatrists want ‘binge eating’ as official mental disorder-millions of overweight Americans could be profitable target

The American Psychiatric Association is considering including ‘binge eating’ in its diagnostic manual, but to many skeptics, the recognition of binge eating as a psychiatric disorder does nothing but absolve weak-willed people of their responsibility to rein in a dangerous habit. And some suspect that the diagnosis is a sneaky way to sweep an entire nation of over-eaters under psychiatry’s umbrella — and possibly into the marketplace for new drugs.

Pharma’s Drug Ads: From Million Dollar TV Ads to $1.7 Billion Internet Marketing Campaign

Already, the explosive growth in online advertising has intensified public concerns: the pharmaceutical industry spent more than $1 billion on Internet ads last year and is projected to spend $1.7 billion on such marketing efforts in 2012…