Every now and then University Diaries looks in on Harvard professor Joseph Biederman. She’s doing it today because he’s featured in a Duff Wilson article about the over-prescription of anti-psychotic drugs in this country.
… Documents produced in recent litigation and in congressional investigations show that some leading academic doctors have worked closely with corporate benefactors to expand the use of anti-psychotics.
The most well-known is Joseph Biederman… His studies, examining the prevalence of bipolar psychological disorders in children, helped expand practice standards, leading to a 40-fold increase in such diagnoses from 1994 to 2003. [Yeah you read dat right. Forty-fold.]
… Between 2000 and 2007, he also got $1.6 million in speaking and consulting fees — some of them undisclosed to Harvard — from companies, including makers of anti-psychotic drugs prescribed for children who might have bipolar disorder, a Senate investigation found in 2008.
Johnson & Johnson gave more than $700,000 to a research center that was headed by Biederman from 2002 to 2005, records show, and some of its work supported the company’s anti-psychotic drug, Risperdal. Biederman said that the money did not influence him and that some of his work supported other drugs.
… A Harvard spokesman said [Biederman is] still under review…
Yes, take your time reviewing him. He’s only been at it for a decade or so. Take another decade. There’s so much more he can do with Harvard’s prestige backing him up.
October 4th, 2010 at 1:06PM
Biederman is such a disgrace. But then again, what else can you expect from Harvard?
October 4th, 2010 at 1:45PM
The provost of Harvard University, Steven Hyman, MD, is a past director of NIMH and a card carrying neuropsychopharmacologist. He doesn’t need time to get up to speed on Biederman. So why are we still waiting?
January 18th, 2012 at 6:40PM
[…] it’s marketed. What child can resist free legos? Risperdal puts legos stamped with the word RISPERDAL in pediatricians offices! If the sight of a three-year old playing with toys advertising her […]