Revised January 20, 2004My name is Allen Jones. I am a “whistleblower” who has sought the protection of the federal courts to tell the following story. I am employed as an Investigator in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General (OIG), Bureau of Special Investigations. In November of 2002, I entered a CivilRights lawsuit against OIG officials to preserve my right to speak out on issues of vital public interest involving pharmaceutical industry influence on the treatment of mental health patients in state institutions. As an OIG Investigator, I attempted to expose evidence of major pharmaceutical company wrongdoing. The industry was influencing state officials with trips, perks, lavish meals, transportation to and first-class accommodations in major cities. Some state employees were paid honorariums of up to $2,000 for speaking in their official capacities at drug-company sponsored events.
As I attempted to explore and surface these facts I met stiff resistance by OIG officials. I was told that pharmaceutical companies are major political contributors and that I should not continue my probe. The more I attempted to delve, the more I was oppressed by my supervisors. I was effectively threatened with loss of job, career and reputation if I continued to investigate the pharmaceutical companies. In the words of the OIG manager who curtailed my investigation and participated in overt threats against me: “Drug companies write checks to politicians –they write checks to politicians on both sides of the aisle”. I was removed from the drug investigation, forbidden to inquire further, and assigned to menial duties. However, I continued the investigation on my own as a private citizen. The “Model Program” being implemented in Pennsylvania with drug industry hard-sell, misinformation and inducements has just been recommended by President Bush’s New Freedom Commission as a model program for the entire country.
The “Model Program” is the Texas Medication Algorithm Project” and it began in Texas in 1995. TMAP is a Trojan horse embedded with the pharmaceutical industry’s newest and most expensive mental health drugs. Through TMAP, the drug industry methodically compromised the decision making of elected and appointed public officials to gain access to captive populations of mentally ill individuals in prisons and state mental health hospitals. The pharmaceutical industry bypassed governmental safeguards and medical review by creating and marketing TMAP as a “treatment model”that was instituted in various states as an administrative decision by a select few politically appointed officials.
The treatment model accepted by these state officials had a fundamental requirement rooted deep within it: Doctors must first treat their patients with the newest, most expensive drugs patented by the pharmaceutical companies. The state doctors treating mental illness could choose which patented drug to use, but effectively could not choose to use less expensive generic drugs unless and until the patented drugs failed. Drug companies marketed their newer, patented medications as safer and more effective than the older, generic brands. These drugs, they said, not only better treated the symptoms of mental illness, they did so without the troublesome side-effects often seen with conventional medications. However, these new “miracle” drugs did not live up to their hype. They have proven to no better than generics. Most importantly, most of the new drugs have been found to cause serious, even fatal side-effects, particularly in children. It is a statistical certainty that many lives have been lost and many others irreparably damaged…
Drug industry money guided TMAP from conception through development and expansion to other states. The growth of TMAP began with misleading science. It grew and expanded with the aid of compromised public officials at all levels of our government. This is a story of an unhealthy alliance between politics and the pharmaceutical industry [Pharma]. It is a story of the betrayal of our society’s most helpless citizens. Pharma has woven an elaborate marketing scheme from scant evidence and copious illusion. Illusion has become operative “truth”. Operative “truth” has become clinical practice. Clinical practice has become Roulette – and the “House” (Pharma) always wins. I will show you how TMAP became implemented in Pennsylvania. It is a story that cost me my career. First I will tell you about the development of TMAP and why the drug industry found Texas to be the ideal place to begin this project…
Just some things to get you started on the offhand possibility that you don’t know the case [the references from 21. are primary documents in the case]. I still reread them myself periodically to remind myself that all of this really happened. If I’d read it as a summer beach novel, I would have said it was too far fetched. Alas, it wasn’t a novel, it happened. If you’re not yet convinced, read Allen Jones’ Statement and the Daniel Rothman’s Report. What will the Jury say after hearing this story?…
So, will the facts in this case embarrass key figures in academia and at the APA when everything is said and done? The problem is, will the facts do anything of substantive value to correct the wrongs that the “biochemical model” have wrought on the profession? And will anyone trust any psychiatrist if this case, if concluded properly, plays out as hoped and all the profession does is just shrug their proverbial shoulders and go “oh well, win some, lose some”?
Isn’t anyone else embarrassed by the overall behaviors and demeanor of our colleagues these past 15 years selling this crap as benefiting the public when there has been as much harm as good?!
Joel,
“will the facts do anything of substantive value to correct the wrongs that the ‘biochemical model’ have wrought on the profession?”
“… and all the profession does is just shrug their proverbial shoulders and go ‘oh well, win some, lose some’?”
If that’s the case, down we go. But I have a feeling that this case, if justly settled and widely publicized has the potential to be a deal-breaker. That may just be a naive wish, but this case also might start the ball rolling in the other direction. This was not a soft story. It’s downright nasty…
I so hope you are right Doc about starting the ball rolling in the other direction. However, after watching this case unfold since 2004, and all the publicity it has gotten this far, I have serious reservations about getting my hopes up that anything will actually change. According to the GAO, Texas and Mass still have the highest rates for drugging foster kids and that should have ended long ago in those states with all the reports on TMAP and Rebecca Riley.
I recognize that the “over-medicating inertia” is a powerful current, but there comes a point when opposing force reaches a critical point and a tide turns. In my naive world view, the dry pipeline of new drugs, PHARMA turning tails from CNS, the public outcry, increasing exposure of wrongdoing, the non-success of over-medication, and the rise of the psychologists [the petition], there is a possibility that the river can flow the other way. I decided young [actually during Civil Rights days in the South] that those old spirituals we sang like “Keep your eyes on the prize” were just a better way to live with discouraging wrongs than glum acceptance. So I’ll hold my naive course and cross my fingers on TMAP.
PS: I remembered a line from that song, “The only thing we did was wrong, Stayed in that wilderness too long…“
They say everything’s bigger here in Texas…
What a mess!
I wonder if the DSM-V might consider adding biopsychiatry-phobia to their list.
Actually, a fear of pscyhiatry is a healthy fear at this point in time!
Duane