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As Always, Lawrence Diller…

… a powerful writer, gets to the core of a complex situation. This is from today’s San Francisco Chronicle:

… Virtually all researchers say they are not influenced by drug company money. Doctors rarely out-and-out lie about their research, but spin influences how a study is set up, its statistical analysis and interpretation. Research on drug studies repeatedly shows that drug trial results are tilted toward a positive description of the drug’s effects when the research is funded by a drug company rather than the government or an independent agency.

Big Pharma money is most powerful when promoting [Joseph] Biederman‘s research and point of view over competing models. Drug companies copy and mail his important papers on psychiatric drugs to every American physician working with children. A member of the Biederman team is at every important meeting on children’s psychiatric issues and medical education. Their presence, and often the conference, itself, are supported by drug industry dollars.

Only when children die or side effects are severe – as in the FDA hearings on children and antidepressants in 2004, and in the recent publicity over obesity and diabetes caused by the bipolar drugs – do opposing viewpoints get the country’s eyes and ears.

Biederman’s conflict of interest problems have exposed his strong pro-drug views to the public for scrutiny. Until now, fear of the Biederman team has operated quietly on the small club of child psychiatric researchers. Only when 2-year-olds started taking three psychiatric drugs simultaneously under a Biederman protocol for bipolar disorder did the emperor’s clothes become so invisible as to begin the naming of names…

Two-year-olds on three drugs simultaneously. Jesus.

Margaret Soltan, March 27, 2009 9:58AM
Posted in: conflict of interest

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2 Responses to “As Always, Lawrence Diller…”

  1. david Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 3:32PM

    PBS Frontline had a documentary about children being over medicated.
    Here is the link.

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02p41&continuous=1

    Take a look at the young man who ended up with tardive dyskinesia. I think he took Seroquel. Or maybe Geodon.

    Newsweek had a story a while back as well.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/137517

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 4:07PM

    david: Thank you for those links. I’ve already in fact blogged about the Frontline show –

    http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?p=6119

    – but I appreciate the reminder. And I’ll check out the Newsweek article.

    UD

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