Posted on 07/12/2008 12:01:39 AM PDT by neverdem
It seemed an ideal marriage, a scientific partnership that would attack mental illness from all sides. Psychiatrists would bring to the union their expertise and clinical experience, drug makers would provide their products and the money to run rigorous studies, and patients would get better medications, faster...
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An analysis of Minnesota data by The New York Times last year found that on average, psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from makers of newer-generation antipsychotic drugs appear to have written three times as many prescriptions to children for the drugs as psychiatrists who received less money or none. The drugs are not approved for most uses in children, who appear to be especially susceptible to the side effects, including rapid weight gain.
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Dr. Niederhut said company-sponsored doctors had spread the word that new and expensive drugs were better in treating bipolar disorder than lithium, the cheaper old standby treatment.
“It’s a sales pitch, and now it’s looking like a whole lot of people would have done better if they’d started on lithium in the first place,” Dr. Niederhut said in a telephone interview. “The profession absolutely has to come clean on these industry deals, and soon.”
Tighter rules, stronger statements and more debate may not make much difference, if Mr. Grassley’s findings are any guide. Universities have rules requiring that faculty members disclose their outside income so that conflicts of interest in research or patient care can be managed. But some of the psychiatrists named in the investigations apparently ignored the rules.
“I think we may be coming to a point where hospitals and medical schools have to get serious about sanctioning,” said Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, director of the division of psychiatry, medicine and the law at Columbia. “You can suspend doctors’ privileges, or suspend their right to...”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
How much does Grassley and his mobster colleagues take from corn growers? It’s time for MOST incumbents to go.
The American Psychiatric Association has long been corrupted by multiple influence groups.
Cell Phone Radiation Alters Human DNA Expression
MIT opens new ‘window’ on solar energy
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
INDEED.
As has the American Psychological Association.
That’s a major reason why I let my membership lapse early on.
I didn’t need to be formally associated with a bunch of God hating, rebellious, hypocritical, puffed up, over-blown wind-bags prancing about as UNgod’s gift to sanity and the UNAmerican way.
Is there a specific reason for not including the AMA?
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