{"id":11693,"date":"2011-08-07T23:49:59","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T03:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=11693"},"modified":"2011-08-08T00:01:49","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T04:01:49","slug":"a-fraternity-of-pseudoscientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/07\/a-fraternity-of-pseudoscientists\/","title":{"rendered":"a fraternity of pseudoscientists&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div align=\"justify\">While we were in Hawai&#8217;i, I had a new toy in my pocket &#8211; an iPhone. It periodically beeps when an email arrives. I get Google Alerts for a variety of things and this one came on top of a volcano [from a recent <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/2011\/08\/02\/2340438\/agings-antidote.html\"><u><strong><font color=\"#000066\">Miami Herald<\/font><\/strong><\/u><\/a>]:       <\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\"><em><sup>Medical studies show a strong correlation between an active lifestyle  and lower mortality rates and overall better health. It&rsquo;s particularly  important given our aging population. Recent census data indicate that  five Florida cities, including Hialeah and Fort Lauderdale, rank among  the nation&rsquo;s top 10 in highest median age (both with 42.2).<\/sup><\/em><\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>&ldquo;It  really has to do with keeping your mind and body active,&rdquo; said Dr.  Charles Nemeroff, director of the University of Miami Center on Aging  and chairman of the department of psychiatry at UM&rsquo;s medical school.  &ldquo;There is an age-related decline in certain functions like memory that  happens to everyone. That&rsquo;s part of the normal process of aging,&rdquo;  Nemeroff said.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>As people age, the number of neurons &mdash; the brain&rsquo;s  cells &mdash; drops off, Nemeroff said. In fact, the brain peaks somewhere  between 25 and 40. &ldquo;Evidence shows if you keep your brain active  as well as your body active, you&rsquo;re going to be successful in terms of  developing your brain. Exercise actually grows new brain cells. So for  the elderly who could be losing brain cells, exercise is really  important,&rdquo; he said.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><em><sup>The part of the brain involved in learning and memory, the hippocampus, produces approximately 3,000 to 4,000 new brain cells a day. Engaging in any kind of physical activity for up to 30 minutes daily helps increase production substantially, Nemeroff said&#8230;<\/sup><\/em><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">I don&#8217;t question that exercise for the elderly is probably a good idea, but the notion of exercising specifically to increase the hippocampal brain cells and thereby avoiding geriatric memory loss strings things together into a creative story that sounds authoritative, but extrapolates us into the realm of science fiction.<\/div>\n<p>                               <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">I suppose that that kind of speculation in a fluff piece for a local newspaper is benign &#8211; no harm done. But when this kind of thinking appears in our scientific literature, it&#8217;s a different story. Here&#8217;s another public health appeal in one of Dr.  Nemeroff&#8217;s classic articles [the one that got him fired from the editorship of <strong><u><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/npp\/journal\/v31\/n7\/full\/1301082a.html\"><font color=\"#000066\">Neuropsychopharmacology<\/font><\/a><\/u><\/strong>]:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup><em>Major  depression is now recognized as a highly prevalent, chronic, recurrent,  and disabling biological disorder  with high rates of <strong><font color=\"#990000\">morbidity and  mortality<\/font><\/strong>. Indeed, major depression,  which is projected to be the  second leading cause of disability  worldwide by the year 2020,  is  associated with high rates of mortality secondary to suicide and to  the  now well-established increased risk of death due to<strong><font color=\"#990000\"> comorbid<\/font><\/strong> medical   disorders, such as myocardial infarction and stroke.  Considerable  strides have been made over the past 2 decades in the  development of  safe and efficacious antidepressants. Although truly <strong><font color=\"#990000\"> novel<\/font><\/strong> therapies  with mechanisms other than monoamine neurotransmitter  reuptake  inhibition represent an active area of investigation, they are  years  away from being clinically available. Unfortunately, up to 50% of   patients with depression do not achieve remission with currently   available treatments in short-term (ie, 6&ndash;8 weeks), double-blind,   clinical trials&#8230;<\/em><\/sup><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">It&#8217;s the lead in to his recommending a Vagus Nerve Stimulator made by a company he and the other authors worked for [he neglected to mention that part]. In fact, he probably didn&#8217;t actually write it himself. This paper was from his Sally Laden ghost-writing period. The logic train goes: <\/div>\n<ul><em><sup><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Untreated depression causes heart attacks and strokes. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Antidepressants only help half the depressed people. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">ergo <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Save the other half from disability or an early death with the novel VNS apparatus.<\/div>\n<p><\/sup><\/em><\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">A piece of swiss cheese logic that would have Aristotle and the logicians of old rolling in their graves. But ghostwriter Sally Laden was taken with this public health theme. Here&#8217;s another version from an editorial she wrote for&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/12893090\" target=\"_blank\"><strong><font color=\"#000066\">Drs. Dwight Evans and Dennis Charney<\/font><\/strong><\/a> published in Biological Psychiatry elaborating that same theme:                       <\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\"><em><sup>Despite efficacious and widely available antidepressants and psychotherapeutic interventions, the psychosocial and medical burden of depression is increasing. In fact, the World Health Organization projects that depression will continue to be prevalent, and by the year 2020, will remain a leading cause of disability, second only to cardiovascular disease). Although we do not know with certainty why rates and disability associated with depression are increasing, it is likely that this mood disorder continues to be remarkably under-recognized and under-treated. Depression frequently occurs in the context of chronic medical illness, and it is only relatively recently that the research community has turned its attention to the  relationship between depression and chronic medical conditions.  However, there is much work yet to be done. The recently released <a name=\"bbib5\"><\/a><span class=\"refPreviewAnchor\">Institute of Medicine 2003<\/span>  acknowledged depression as one of a number of chronic conditions that  requires priority action, but did not address the importance of<strong><font color=\"#990000\"> comorbid<\/font><\/strong>  depression and medical illness. The relationship between  depression and medical illnesses is complex. A chronically ill patient  who also is clinically depressed may experience enhanced morbidity, a  poorer prognosis, and even increased mortality from the medical  diagnosis. Simply put, depression makes everything worse. But the  association with depression goes beyond the effects of <strong><font color=\"#990000\">comorbidity<\/font><\/strong> on  the course and outcome of a medical illness.<strong><font color=\"#006600\"> A burgeoning body of  evidence has now demonstrated that the relationship between depression  and certain medical illnesses may indeed be bidirectional in nature.  Depression may be both a cause and a consequence of some medical  illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, HIV\/AIDS, cancer, and  epilepsy<\/font><\/strong>&#8230;<\/sup><\/em><\/div>\n<p>                      <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup><em>These are powerful messages that must not be ignored. <strong><font color=\"#990000\">The weight of evidence is so persuasive that there should never again be a valid reason for not aggressively seeking out and treating depression in medically ill patients.<\/font><\/strong> Increasing awareness, reducing stigma, and maintaining a high level of vigilance for depression in medically ill patients must become a priority for clinicians. In addition, the efforts of the research communities must continue to better elucidate the prevalence, risk profile, diagnostic criteria, treatment, and biological underpinnings of the comorbid relationship between depression and medical illness. Only by furthering research efforts and aggressively diagnosing and treating depression, will we be able to achieve substantive gains in health care and in our patients&rsquo; quality of life.<\/em> <\/sup><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">In this case, we are being entreated to save lives by treating depression in medically ill patients. There&#8217;s little evidence that medications help people with depression in medical illnesses. There is no solid evidence that treating depression prevents or improves medical illness. It&#8217;s just another fantasy creation designed to get physicians to prescribe more antidepressants &#8211; no scientific basis that I know of. In politics, this is called &quot;spin.&quot; The scientific concepts, public health and prevention, are being co-opted to serve the marketing goals of the pharmaceutical sponsors. This &quot;borrowing&quot; of valid science for other purposes extends far and wide. For example, note the use of the word <strong><font color=\"#990000\">novel<\/font><\/strong> in the VNS example above. It&#8217;s found repeatedly in the literature, a particular favorite of Dr. Nemeroff. Where does it come from?                       <\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><u><a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/j.1752-8062.2008.00023.x\/pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><font color=\"#200020\">CTS: A New Discipline to Catalyze the Transfer of Information<\/font><\/a><\/u><br \/>                     <font color=\"#990000\">Clinical and <\/font><font color=\"#990000\">Translational Science<\/font><\/strong><br \/>                     by Arthur M. Feldman MD, PhD<br \/>                     21 MAY 2008<\/div>\n<p>                     <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><em><sup>Forty years ago, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine  first used the term &ldquo;bench-bedside interface&rdquo; to describe the diffusion  of information that needed to occur between the clinical arena and the  basic science laboratories assessing the biochemical, morphologic, and  genetic phenomenon that characterized the phagocytic process in patients  with chronic granulomatous disease. This concept of &ldquo;translating&rdquo; <strong><font color=\"#990000\">novel<\/font><\/strong> discoveries found at the laboratory  bench into the clinical investigation of new technologies and  methodologies to both diagnose and treat human disease at the bedside  gained increasing focus over the past decade as an explosion of  innovative technology supported scientific advances in numerous fields,  including genomics, proteomics, gene transfer, stem cell biology,  structural biology, and imaging. As these new fields of biology leapt  onto the scientific stage, scientists became increasingly aware that the  road from the bench to the bedside was not a single lane roadway, but  rather a multilane highway that could be traversed in either direction.  Indeed, some of the most important discoveries of the past decade have  come from observations that were made by investigators in the clinical  arena that then stimulated research at the laboratory bench. <strong><font color=\"#006600\">It was this  recognition of the need for a bidirectional linkage between the bench  and the bedside that led to the development of a new moniker for this  type of research: clinical and translational science<\/font><\/strong>&#8230;<\/sup><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">It&#8217;s a catchy idea, Translational Science. The gist of the concept is simple, taking clinical questions into the laboratory, finding solutions, then getting the resulting discoveries or treatments back to the bedside to benefit patients. It specifically refers to the newer technologies [&quot;genomics, proteomics, gene transfer, stem cell biology,  structural biology, and imaging&quot;]. What&#8217;s not to like about that for a research focus? No more egghead scientists in the lab studying things for their simple love of science. Let&#8217;s get our scientists focused on practical solutions to real clinical problems.<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\">&quot;Translational Science&quot; joined &quot;Evidence-Based Medicine&quot; as a buzz-word in psychiatric research. And in psychiatry, &quot;Translational Science&quot; often reduced down to clinical trials of one sort or another. Many grant proposals included a blurb about the urgent, pressing clinical problems addressed by the proposed study. I&#8217;ve already mentioned those introductions in articles that quote alarming public health statistics like the <em>morbidity<\/em> of depression or the <em>comorbid<\/em> relation of psychiatric illness to physical problems &#8211; a standard justification for the poly-pharmacy studies in depression like STAR*D and CO-MED. Note in the piece above from the premier issue of the journal <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Clinical and Translational Science <\/font><\/strong>the phrase &quot;&#8217;translating&#8217; <strong><font color=\"#990000\">novel<\/font><\/strong> discoveries found at the laboratory  bench into the  clinical investigation of new technologies and  methodologies to both  diagnose and treat human disease at the bedside&#8230;&quot; The word &quot;<strong><font color=\"#990000\">novel<\/font><\/strong>&quot; was picked up and added to &quot;<strong><font color=\"#200020\">Translational Science<\/font><\/strong>,&quot; &quot;<strong><font color=\"#200020\">Evidence-Based Medicine<\/font><\/strong>,&quot; and &quot;<strong><font color=\"#200020\">Comorbidity<\/font><\/strong>&quot; in the vocabulary of a subset of our psychiatric researchers. <font color=\"#990000\"><strong>N<\/strong><\/font><strong><font color=\"#990000\">ovel<\/font><\/strong> is used as an excuse for wild speculation that skips necessary basic science underpinnings. Note also the term &quot;<strong><font color=\"#006600\">bidirectional<\/font><\/strong>&quot; in Sally&#8217;s introduction and Feldman&#8217;s description of Translational Science [in <strong><font color=\"#006600\">green<\/font><\/strong>]. While this last comparison may seem far fetched, I don&#8217;t think so. The &quot;concept borrowing&quot; is so rampant as to justify the comparison.<\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">So the notion of &quot;Translational Science&quot; was incorporated<em> in toto<\/em> by our mental health subset, including the NIMH itself, which is funding Translational Centers and giving out Translational Awards [Tom Insel moved to Director of the NIMH from a Translational Center at Emory &#8211; hired there by Dr. Nemeroff]. The Translational idea is, of course, perfect for the psychopharm set because it encourages rapid movement to consumers. Here&#8217;s a funded NIMH Grant write-up from Madhukar Trivedi:<\/div>\n<ul><sup><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"> <em>The timely selection of the best treatment for patients with  depression is critical to the goal of improving remission rates. Due to  the biological heterogeneity and variable symptom presentation of  depression, it is unlikely that a single clinical or biological marker  can guide treatment selection. Rather, a biosignature developed from a  systematic exploration of a group of clinical and biological markers is  more likely to be successful. Two types of biosignatures are needed to  achieve improved outcomes: 1) biosignatures to maximize the selection of  optimal treatment for individual patients at the beginning of treatment  (moderators) and 2) biosignatures to identify indicators of eventual  outcomes early in treatment (mediators). This approach has great  potential to personalize treatment and maximize the number of patients  who can be treated to full remission with a given treatment. We propose a  comparative effectiveness trial of three mechanistically distinct  treatments for MDD (citalopram, bupropion, and cognitive behavioral  therapy) in which we will assess a comprehensive array of carefully  selected clinical (i.e. anxious depression, early life trauma, &amp;  gender) and biological (i.e. genetic, neuroimaging, serum, epigenetic  &amp; qEEG) moderators and mediators of outcome. Using innovative  statistical approaches the identified moderators and mediators will then  be used to develop a differential depression treatment response index  (DTRI). The proposed study is a randomized two-stage trial (Stagel:12  wks; Stage2: 12 wks) design with 675 MDD patients (with a history of one  adequate trial of an SSRI except citalopram) assigned to one of three  treatment conditions (n=225 each). This two stage approach is similar to  a Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (SMART) design. This  application brings together researchers with extensive experience in  conducting large clinical trials and experts at the forefront of the  neurobiology of depression, including: <strong><font color=\"#660033\">clinical trials<\/font><\/strong> (Trivedi, Fava,  Schatzberg, Nierenberg, Shelton, Gaynes, Hollon), <strong><font color=\"#660033\">genetics<\/font><\/strong> (Smoller,  Binder, McMahan, Perils), <strong><font color=\"#660033\">neuroimaging <\/font><\/strong>(Phillips, Sheline, Etkin,  Pizzagalli, Buckner), <strong><font color=\"#660033\">qEEG<\/font><\/strong> (losifescu, Ellenbogen),  <strong><font color=\"#660033\">neurotrophins\/cytokines<\/font><\/strong> (Duman, Sanacora, Turck, Shelton),<strong><font color=\"#660033\"> clinical  predictors <\/font><\/strong>(Shelton, Hollon, Trivedi, Fava, Nierenberg, Goodman,  Yehuda), <strong><font color=\"#660033\">neuroendocrine markers<\/font><\/strong> (Holsboer, Schatzberg, Shelton, Yehuda),<strong><font color=\"#660033\">  epigenetics<\/font><\/strong> (Nestler, Yehuda),and<strong><font color=\"#660033\"> cognitive behavior therapy<\/font><\/strong> (Hollon,  Manber, Arnow). This team will also be guided by internationally known <font color=\"#660033\"> biomarker scientists<\/font> (Holsboer, Schatzberg, Krystal, Charney, Goodman),  as well as a highly qualified group of <strong><font color=\"#660033\">biostatisticians<\/font><\/strong> (Kraemer,  Wisniewski, Schoenfeld).      PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE : This study will examine multiple carefully  selected clinical and biological markers, using both existing state  of-the-art technologies as well as<strong><font color=\"#660033\"> pioneering, innovative<\/font><\/strong> approaches.  Evaluation of the usefulness of these markers in a trial with three  different treatments will assist in generating a depression treatment  response index (DTRI). The DTRI will help clinicians match treatments to  patients with MDD, resulting in timely selection of treatments best  suited for individual patients. Results from this study could  significantly improve the treatment of patients with MDD.<\/em><\/div>\n<p><\/sup><\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">Other than using synonyms for <strong><font color=\"#990000\">novel<\/font><\/strong> [<em><strong><font color=\"#660033\">pioneering, innovative<\/font><\/strong><\/em>], this is a &quot;full Monty&quot; import of the Translational Science concept to psychiatry &#8211; new technologies en masse brought to bear on the [quaisi] clinical problem of &quot;treatment resistant depression.&quot; Trivedi and Rush flunked on&nbsp; &quot;treatment resistant depression&quot; with <strong><font color=\"#200020\">STAR*D<\/font><\/strong>, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">CO-MED<\/font><\/strong>, and<strong><font color=\"#200020\"> TMAP<\/font><\/strong>, so Trivedi&#8217;s come back with a new version. If one were going to do a shotgun study like this on depression, it would seem like one would use these new technologies to look for biomarkers in depression in general, in hopes of refining the hopelessly broad diagnostic category of MDD [Major Depressive Disorder]. That&#8217;s something we need to know. But characteristically, Trivedi&#8217;s study skips this important question, and goes straight to treatment choice in &quot;treatment resistant depression.&quot; He makes his point explicitly in his comments at the <u><a href=\"http:\/\/brainnet.net\/media\/video_action.php?playfor=brainnet&#038;iframe=true&#038;width=770&#038;height=480\" target=\"_blank\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">Mayflower Conference<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/u> held by the Brain Resources company [@ 5:30]:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup><em>We have a history of biomarker studies but I think that .?. is very appropriately talking about trying to find some biosignatures for treatment response. And there I think what we have to start focusing on, not so much and I&#8217;ve been indirectly saying that throughout in my questions, is that we should not only focus on whether we can predict somebody&#8217;s bad outcome or good outcome, because that clinically doesn&#8217;t help. If you tell the patient, &quot;bingo you have a bad disease,&quot; I don&#8217;t think they say, &quot;wonderful doc I&#8217;m so glad you told me.&quot; So clinically that is a big problem. The second issue is that clinicians have to decide on treatments and therefore <strong><font color=\"#200020\">the best goal, interim goal at least, we may want to understand the pathophysiology better and I&#8217;m not against that, but I think we have to help clinicians decide on one versus the other treatment<\/font><\/strong>. <\/em><br \/>              <\/sup><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">So here we have to add another buzz word &#8211; &quot;<strong><font color=\"#200020\">Personalized Medicine<\/font><\/strong>&quot; &#8211; borrowed from medicine proper &#8211; oncology. Rather than looking at the shaky category of MDD and looking for clarity, Trivedi urges us to skip understanding and move to biomarkers for treatment choices [Celexa vs Wellbutrin vs Cognitive Behavior Therapy]. That&#8217;s solid Translational Science &#8211; bench to bedside &#8211; but it&#8217;s hardly science.    <\/div>\n<p>          <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">I know I&#8217;m covering familiar ground here, but there is a point to collecting a few of what could be many examples of perverse science. There is a subset of people in the psychiatric research community who are <strong><font color=\"#660033\">Pseudoscientists<\/font><\/strong>. They have a number of shared characteristics that identify them as a group:           <\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Academic Positions<\/font><\/strong>: They are all well placed in academic positions in prestigious universities, sit on prestigious committees.         <\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">PHARMA Connections<\/font><\/strong>: They all have strong ties with multiple Pharmaceutical Companies [lucrative ties].<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Pop Science, Jargon<\/font><\/strong>: They borrow popular scientific concepts from other disciplines and each other &#8211; quickly learning the lingo and moving from one to the other with ease. They use phrases like <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Translational Science<\/font><\/strong>, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Evidence-Based Medicine<\/font><\/strong>, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Comorbidity<\/font><\/strong>, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Novel<\/font><\/strong>, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Personalized Medicine<\/font><\/strong>, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Alogorithms<\/font><\/strong>,<strong><font color=\"#200020\"> Neurobiology of &#8230;<\/font><\/strong>, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Neurogenesis<\/font><\/strong>, etc.        <\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Inflated CVs<\/font><\/strong>: They all have CVs listing hundreds and hundreds of articles.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Single Purpose<\/font><\/strong>: Almost all of their research is ultimately oriented towards promoting some marketable product &#8211; usually drugs.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Expensive<\/font><\/strong>: They use up an inordinate share of the available research money, public and private.     <\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Fraternity<\/font><\/strong>: They all know each other and frequently appear together as authors or on panels. They frequently quote each other.     <\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Shared Themes<\/font><\/strong>: They are often working on the same things &#8211; treatment resistant depression, personalized medicine, pharmacological augmentation, etc.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Little Scientific Product<\/font><\/strong>: While they are listed authors on many papers and frequent speakers at conferences, they have added little to nothing to the enduring scientific record.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Logic<\/font><\/strong>: They are all given to fuzzy logic and rampant speculation bordering on science fantasy. If it might be true, it is often presented as true.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Wealthy<\/font><\/strong>: They are all rich.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Ethics<\/font><\/strong>: All are ethically challenged, at best.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#660033\">Notoriety<\/font><\/strong>: We all know who they are.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">My last post quoted an article asking &quot;Why Does Academic Medicine Allow Ghostwriting?&quot; In the comments, Dr. Carroll <a href=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/wp-admin\/comment.php?action=editcomment&#038;c=215267\" target=\"_blank\"><u><strong>asks<\/strong><\/u><\/a>:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup><em>Why does the Society of Biological Psychiatry tolerate ghostwriting? Why  does the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology tolerate  ghostwriting? Why does the American Psychiatric Association tolerate  ghostwriting? Why do these supposedly prestigious professional  organizations continue to pander to their corporate supporters and  corporate members, even when those corporations have been adjudicated  felons<\/em><\/sup><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">In this post, I want to ask a similar question, &quot;Why has psychiatry allowed itself to be dominated by this <strong><font color=\"#660033\">fraternity of pseudoscientists<\/font><\/strong>?&quot; It&#8217;s embarassing, but worse, it&#8217;s destroying the credibility and viability of the specialty&#8230; <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While we were in Hawai&#8217;i, I had a new toy in my pocket &#8211; an iPhone. It periodically beeps when an email arrives. I get Google Alerts for a variety of things and this one came on top of a volcano [from a recent Miami Herald]: Medical studies show a strong correlation between an active [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11693"}],"version-history":[{"count":60,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11754,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11693\/revisions\/11754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}