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Posted on Sunday 8 June 2008


Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay

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.

By failing to report income, the psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, and a colleague in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, may have violated federal and university research rules designed to police potential conflicts of interest, according to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Some of their research is financed by government grants.

Like Dr. Biederman, Dr. Wilens belatedly reported earning at least $1.6 million from 2000 to 2007, and another Harvard colleague, Dr. Thomas Spencer, reported earning at least $1 million after being pressed by Mr. Grassley’s investigators. But even these amended disclosures may understate the researchers’ outside income because some entries contradict payment information from drug makers, Mr. Grassley found…
In the late 60’s, I was a National Institute of Health Research Fellow. In 1971, I was drafted into the Air Force. For a lot of reasons, I decided to change specialties and train in Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis and got away from the world of academic medical research. One of the reasons was Richard Nixon who decimated the research funding available from the government. So, by the end of the 1970’s, I was on the faculty of a medical school, teaching psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. In the early 1980’s, medicine was changing. "Managed Care" and HMO’s were becoming the rule, and in Psychiatry, there was a wave of biologocal Psychiatry. When it came to my school in the form of a new chairmen, I left and went into private practice. I wasn’t interested in spending my time writing prescriptions for drugs for people I’d seen only briefly. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. I had a fine career in practice, retiring several years ago.

With the coming of that new chairman, there was a huge pressure to do "research" which meant applying for large grants from drug companies. I sure didn’t want to do that. A few years later, that chairman moved on/up and was replaced with one who was even more into the drug company research than the one before him – Dr. Charles Nemeroff [nicknamed on the Internet "bling-bling Nemeroff] because of his prominent relationship with the drug companies. People like Dr. Nemeroff and Dr. Biederman are all the same. They do drug trials, publish their findings [shaky science at best], and then go on the talking circuit recommending drugs – most often the ones they were paid to study. There’s big money in such endeavors. From Nixon forward, psychiatric research money from the government or other unbiased sources has become non-existent.

When I read an article like this one, I just say, "Right. That’s how it is now – Academic Institutions supporting themselves with drug company grants, then personally profiting from the process." Their "research" is mostly worthless. Their science is mostly shaky. And they’re everywhere. Like a lot of other things, it’s what happens with "privatization." Profit motives take over and corrupt the process. Defense Contractors, Medical Research, etc. The culprit? Deregulation and Privatization. Without "oversight," it will continue unabated.
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.”
Right. When pigs can fly…

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