Doctors Fail to Disclose $$ from Drug Companies | Arthritis Information
Bloomberg.com
Harvard Doctors Failed to Disclose Fees, Senator Says (Update2)
By Rob Waters
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Harvard Medical School doctors who helped pioneer the use of psychiatric drugs in children violated U.S. government and school rules by failing to properly disclose at least .2 million from drugmakers led by Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly & Co., a U.S. senator said.
Joseph Biederman, Timothy Wilens and Thomas Spencer conducted studies on how kids are affected by drugs such as Lilly's attention deficit treatment Strattera. They filed yearly disclosure forms with the Boston school showing they got a total of 0,000 from several drugmakers, Senator Charles Grassley said in the Congressional Record. When Grassley sought added documentation in March, they admitted getting more, he said.
Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said the ethics violations put the medical school and the affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital, where the three work, in jeopardy of losing federal funds. The hospital and school said they will investigate the researchers and review current ethics policies.
``Obviously, if a researcher is taking money from a drug company while also receiving federal dollars to research that company's product, then there is a conflict of interest,'' Grassley said in a statement. He sent letters to the medical school and the U.S. National Institutes of Health last week.
Biederman directs, and Wilens and Spencer are affiliated with, a research center at Mass General that studies psychiatric medications in children. Biederman is the leading proponent of the idea that bipolar disorder, once viewed as an adult disease, can begin early in childhood and be treated with drugs.
Bipolar Disorder
Biederman's research helped convince many psychiatrists and pediatricians to look for and diagnose bipolar disorder in children, said Larry Diller, a behavioral pediatrician in Walnut Creek, California, who has written two books on the overuse of psychiatric drugs by children.
``He single-handedly put pediatric bipolar disorder on the map,'' Diller said in a telephone interview yesterday.
The number of kids diagnosed as bipolar increased 40-fold between 1994 and 2003, according to a recent study. Sales of drugs used to treat the condition doubled from 2003 to 2006.
Grassley, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, has proposed legislation that would require disclosure of the fees physicians receive for speaking, consulting and research.
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I would like to know if the money, trips, and other perks are being accurately reported to the IRS. Hillhoney, that was a comment posted on the site where I saw this article earlier - if he didn't tell the school, you know he didn't tell the IRS, they said.
How does the man sleep at night?
They sleep just fine - corruption kills common sense - they actually think they can get away with it, and its okay. I watched a PBS Frontline special called "The Medicated Child." From its website:
"In recent years, there's been a dramatic increase in the number of children being diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders and prescribed medications that are just beginning to be tested in children. The drugs can cause serious side effects, and virtually nothing is known about their long-term impact. "It's really to some extent an experiment, trying medications in these children of this age," child psychiatrist Dr. Patrick Bacon tells FRONTLINE. "It's a gamble. And I tell parents there's no way to know what's going to work."
And now we read about the doctors recommending such treatments have been receiving money from the manufacturers of these drugs and not declaring it. The parents of these children have put their faith and trust in these physicians, and now with this revelation, in addition to all the stress in their lives, they must agonize if the medical advice to take these drugs was compromised.
Link to PBS program on the medicated child:
Some of the parents of these children should not be allowed to have children. I know a couple who doctor-shopped to several different pediatricians until they finally convinced one to put a 4-year old on Ritalin. Even the preschool teachers begged the parents not to medicate the kid. A year later his little brother got drugged too. The only thing wrong with these two boys is they drew the short straw in the parent pool.
My local school district loves to get kids drugged too. I was at a school board meeting a few years ago where one of the school psychologists was giving a presentation to the board. One of his big boasting points was that they had succeeded in getting every single child in a particular class (grade school) on ADHD medication.
My neighbors' son's teacher kept calling them in, saying their son needed therapy and maybe medication. They were so confused. They have an older daughter who went through school fine, and knew their son was not
her, but didn't see anything outrageous in his behavior or schoolwork. I'd never seen him misbehave or out of control, either.
But it kept happening, and I think the son even starting getting a little defiant because of it, not wanting to required reading, etc., so they broke down and made the appointments.
At a classmate's birthday party, in talking with other parents, they found out that 10 of the 13 boys there had been told the same thing.....
And when they went to the appt., the receptionist said, "Wow! You go to ABC School, too? We have been getting so many referrals from there!"
But they still put him on meds! And we never see him anymore. It seems like he stays inside all the time now.
From Pharmagossip, "How Bad Were the Harvard Crew at Math?"
http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-bad-were-harvard-psych-crew-at-math.html
I think there is an over prescription of drugs for "attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity." But what is extremely disturbing about the above news article, is that one of the doctors, Biederman, a researcher, that accepted money from drug companies and didn't disclose, was influential in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children (which previously was considered an adult disorder) and treating them with potent antipsychotic drugs never tested on children. Children developed side effects from these drugs, and then were given drugs to treat the side effects!
[QUOTE=Suzanne]My neighbors' son's teacher kept calling them in, saying their son needed therapy and maybe medication. They were so confused. They have an older daughter who went through school fine, and knew their son was not
her, but didn't see anything outrageous in his behavior or schoolwork. I'd never seen him misbehave or out of control, either.
But it kept happening, and I think the son even starting getting a little defiant because of it, not wanting to required reading, etc., so they broke down and made the appointments.
At a classmate's birthday party, in talking with other parents, they found out that 10 of the 13 boys there had been told the same thing.....
And when they went to the appt., the receptionist said, "Wow! You go to ABC School, too? We have been getting so many referrals from there!"
But they still put him on meds! And we never see him anymore. It seems like he stays inside all the time now.
[/QUOTE]
The district gets more $$$ for kids with "issues" so it's in the school's best interests to find issues in as many kids as possible. Same goes for bilingual education - the district gets 00 extra per kid per year in bilingual, despite poor performance compared to the kids whose parents choose sheltered immersion.
What's sheltered immersion?
Pip
[QUOTE=Pip!]What's sheltered immersion?
http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2008/06/attention-parents-professor-biederman.html
Thanks Suzanne for posting the link to Couric's story about the mom being tried for murder of her daughter by allegedly overdosing her on antipsychotic drugs for her diagnosed bipolar disorder.
The girl was only three years old when diagnosed and prescribed 3 medications for bipolar disorder. The doctor treating her was a follower of Biederman, who we know to have been receiving monies from drug companies at the time he was doing research and promoting his theory and drug treatment of children with bipolar disorder.
The mother may have been negligent in the administration of these powerful medications, but it was a doctor that prescribed these drugs, most of them used off-label, with no clinical studies on the effects of children or the combined effect of taking multiple antipsychotic drugs.
Its mentioned in Couric's story that the mother is now on antidepressants.
With caretakers like that, the poor kid didn't stand a chance.
bumping for babs
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