The WaybackMachine is a remarkable thing. You enter a URL and it retrieves web-sites long since removed or updated. I put in http://www.psychguides.com/, the website of Expert Knowledge Systems from Rothman’s report, and found copies dating back as far as 1997 – the year after it was founded. The page from April 13, 1997 advertised a conference, listing the faculty:
Expert Consensus Guideline Conferences
ENHANCING CLINICAL DECISION-MAKING USING EXPERT CONSENSUS PRACTICE GUIDELINES
FREE morning seminars in 11 convenient locations in fall ’96 and winter ’97 Earn 4 hours of FREE CE/CME Category 1 Credit per seminar. Presented by Institute for Behavioral Healthcare (add link) in cooperation with Expert Knowledge Systems
Supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Janssen Pharmaceutica, Inc.
Notice the authors of the original guidelines and Dr. McEnvoy who would collaborate on the later 1999 version. But it’s posted because there’s Dr. John Rush who was or would be the director of the Texas TMAP project. It says, "He is currently leading an effort to establish and study practice guideline-oriented treatment in the state of Texas" which, as we know, became the Texas Medication Algorithm Project. Likewise, there’s a link to EKS’ industry connections. I don’t know if this conference tour happened or not. I posted it only to show Dr. John Rush’s early connection to EKS and the Expert Consensus Guidelines.
I swear, seeing that ad actually made my stomach lurch. Some days it’s almost too much for me to try to keep reading this kind of stuff. I went through the same thing back when I first started reading the preschool drugging guidelines. I’d have to quit because I would get physically sick to my stomach and my head would start to pound. I’m convinced that that’s why it’s taken me so long to get a full article out on the topic – it is so distasteful to read and write about – almost unbearable. But then I tell myself that somebody has to do it.