… Wall Street Journal article about the devastating consequences of doping tens of thousands of children with anti-psychotics, but it should.  This is his legacy.

Harvard University, which continues to employ Biederman, should also take a bow.

The growth in antipsychotic-drug prescriptions for children is slowing as state Medicaid agencies heighten their scrutiny of usage and doctors grow more wary of the powerful medications.

The softening in sales for children is the first sign that litigation, reaction to improper marketing tactics, and concern about side effects may be affecting what had been a fast-growing children’s drug segment.

… Antipsychotics have faced heightened scrutiny and investigation over the past year. In November, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee asked the FDA to research children’s use of the drugs and expressed concern about possible side effects such as weight gain and increased diabetes risk. And 11 state attorneys general are investigating alleged marketing of Eli Lilly & Co.’s antipsychotic Zyprexa for uses the FDA hasn’t approved.

In January, Eli Lilly agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle allegations it improperly marketed Zyprexa. The company also agreed to plead guilty to a criminal charge of promoting the drug for unapproved uses.

A Lilly spokesman declined to comment on ongoing litigation and said the company doesn’t track the drug’s use in children.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. agreed to pay $515 million in September 2007 to settle allegations it promoted Abilify for use in children. The FDA didn’t approve of the use of the drug in children older than 10 until 2008.

… Some states began moving to require special approval before they would cover a claim for an antipsychotic. A group of 16 states started studying the use of psychiatric medication in children in 2007 in an effort they dubbed “too many, too much, too young” …

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Via Alliance for Human Research Protection.

Well, yes, when people die because dangerous drugs have won approval based on lies medical school professors in the pay of drug companies have told about them, that’s certainly a disservice.

Prominent cardiologist Dr Marvin Konstam (Tufts University Medical Center, Boston, MA) agreed to be lead author on a 2001 Circulation paper about the COX-2 inhibitor rofecoxib (Vioxx, Merck), which was written in-house by Merck scientists, according to claims made in a federal court in Australia last week. The paper was designed to deflect safety criticisms, some experts believe, following the publication of an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) two months previously that first demonstrated an increase in cardiovascular side effects with the drug.

This is very significant, says Dr Steve Nissen (Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio), who was an author on the JAMA paper. “During the three years after publication of the Konstam manuscript, millions of patients around the world were prescribed rofecoxib by physicians who believed that the drug was safe. In this case, a ghostwritten article caused great harm to the public health.”

Pretty ugly stuff, huh? Only comes out when there’s a big lawsuit from the injured… or their survivors.

But think of it from Konstam’s perspective. He makes money, gets another publication, and doesn’t have to lift a finger.

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UPDATE: Colin, a reader, adds important information to this post. UD is very grateful. It goes without saying that these are enormously complicated stories, and UD is happy to pass along details, amendments, etc.

Merck pulled the drug the day after an internal study – much like the kind attacked above – found that taking the drug for more than 18 months in a row raised the risk of cardiac problems. This is also true of other drugs in the class – but only Merck reacted, and thus exposed itself to all the lawsuits, most of which, by the way, they have won; the other drugs remain on sale. (As a side note, the FDA asked Merck to sell Vioxx with a new warning label, and the company refused.) I very much take the point about ghost-writing, but in the case of Vioxx the system did work: professional scientists employed by a drug company conducted a scientific study, reported its negative results to management, and action was taken promptly despite the huge financial consequences. None of this, of course, answers the point about academic scientists putting their names to things they did not write, but I still think it’s important to have all the facts of the case.

…on this blog, because I’m about universities. But don’t lose sight of the larger sleazy picture.

… ass? Merkins aren’t made for that purpose.

Thus Ezra Merkin’s attempt to cover his ass in the Madoff matter by having his sister write a New York Times opinion piece minimizing his involvement was doomed to fail.

Yet the real question is how she managed to get the piece published at all. It’s rank conflict of interest, an attempt by a protective sister to twist the facts of her brother’s culpability.

Gawker and the Jewish Journal, among others, have expressed amazement at what looks to UD like simple corruption on the part of the NYT. Daphne Merkin’s a longtime contributor to the newspaper, no doubt a friend of some on the editorial board, and they’re doing a friend a favor by letting her try to influence the many lawsuits currently being filed against her brother.

It’s disillusioning for poor UD. She never thought of the New York Times as a provincial newspaper.

… close up.

Faculty outrage over well-publicized administrative bonuses there has reached the boiling point, including some in the faculty senate calling for a vote of no confidence in Clemson president James Barker and provost Doris Helms, who saw her pay increase by 32.8 percent over the past two years.

Adding fuel to that already burning fire was news earlier this month that Barker’s son was recently hired in the Office of Marketing Services to make $51,000 and Board of Trustees vice chairman Joseph Swann’s daughter, attorney Erin Swann who works in Barker’s office, received a 24.2 percent raise. The information came out of a faculty senate meeting on Tuesday, March 10, in which Clemson French professor emeritus John Bednar brought the personnel and raise issues to the floor and issued strong condemnations of Clemson’s leadership.

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Over the past two years, Clemson gave pay raises ranging from 10 percent to 100 percent to 99 people — only 46 of whom were faculty members; the majority of those raises went to administrators, coaches and extension employee[s]. The university also has come under fire — rightly so — for hiring the president’s son and giving a 24 percent raise to a lawyer whose father is vice chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Background, if you can stomach it, here.