Harvard University Drug Pusher Is Funded By Pharmaceutical Companies

From the New York Times:

A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.

This guy and his cronies are in the pockets of the corporate drug dealers, and use fear and "studies" (read: "carefully crafted presentations of select data taken out of context that supports someone's agenda and makes a profit") to drug children in the name of the great god science.

There's always some justification:

In one example, Dr. Biederman reported no income from Johnson & Johnson for 2001 in a disclosure report filed with the university. When asked to check again, he said he received $3,500. But Johnson & Johnson told Mr. Grassley that it paid him $58,169 in 2001, Mr. Grassley found.

The Harvard group’s consulting arrangements with drug makers were already controversial because of the researchers’ advocacy of unapproved uses of psychiatric medicines in children.

In an e-mailed statement, Dr. Biederman said, “My interests are solely in the advancement of medical treatment through rigorous and objective study,” and he said he took conflict-of-interest policies “very seriously.” Drs. Wilens and Spencer said in e-mailed statements that they thought they had complied with conflict-of-interest rules.

This is just one incident that we know about, and only because an investigation revealed it. How much of this is going on? How many people are being virtual guinea pigs? These drugs are too new for us to know what effects there may be in 5 years, 10 years, whatever.

And get this:

Alyssa Kneller, a Harvard spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement: “The information released by Senator Grassley suggests that, in certain instances, each doctor may have failed to disclose outside income from pharmaceutical companies and other entities that should have been disclosed.”

Ms. Kneller said the doctors had been referred to a university conflict committee for review.

They "may have failed to disclose" a huge conflict of interest. In my house, that's called "lying". And I'm so glad that they've been referred to a "conflict committee". That'll teach 'em.

These guys are pushing the drugs:

In the past decade, Dr. Biederman and his colleagues have promoted the aggressive diagnosis and drug treatment of childhood bipolar disorder, a mood problem once thought confined to adults. They have maintained that the disorder was underdiagnosed in children and could be treated with antipsychotic drugs, medications invented to treat schizophrenia.

Other researchers have made similar assertions. As a result, pediatric bipolar diagnoses and antipsychotic drug use in children have soared. Some 500,000 children and teenagers were given at least one prescription for an antipsychotic in 2007, including 20,500 under 6 years of age, according to Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager.

Read the whole article: Researchers Fail To Reveal Full Drug Pay in the New York Times.

NaturalNews.com has an article about this same man giving psychotropic drugs to 4 to 6 year-olds: Outrage! Preschoolers used as guinea pigs in psychotropic drug tests.

It makes me sick.

From Spinwatch: An Unholy Alliance? Psychiatry and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry

Drug companies are increasingly marketing disorders themselves. Long before a drug is launched disease awareness campaigns are conducted to "create dissatisfaction in the market", "establish a need" and "create a desire," according to a recent issue of a pharmaceutical industry trade journal (Pharmaceutical Marketing, 2002). "Product champions" and "opinion leaders" are recruited from among the academic community to endorse the campaign and author articles in scientific journals and patient groups are supported or even created.

Why have we given up so much power to the experts and the marketers?