Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA)

The Phobia Society of America was formed in 1980 but changed its name in 1986 to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America.[1] This was when former NIMH director, psychiatrist Herbert Pardes decided that mental illness advocacy groups could generate increased psychiatric research dollars. ADAA describes itself as having an “internationally renowned board certified psychiatrists and psychologists, social workers and psychiatric nurses.”[2]

Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, and other drug-industry groups heavily subsidize the group.[3]

As a milestone in its history and “achievements,” it notes that the year it was formed the American Psychiatric Association issued “version III of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM) and “for the first time in history defines and differentiates anxiety disorders as specific illnesses that can be diagnosed and treated.”[4] [emphasis added]

  • Within five years (1985), nearly $868 million was spent on antianxiety and sedative-hypnotic drugs for outpatients.[5] By 1994, sales of these drugs in the US had reached $1.2 billion, with about 60 million prescriptions dispensed.[6]
  • As stated above, in 1986, Herbert Pardes, already ADAA’s advisor, was part of its Scientific Council with another NIMH guru Robert Hirschfeld.[7] Pardes had a strategy of using “advocacy groups” to lobby Congress for more NIMH research dollars. The same year as he formed ADAA’s Scientific Advisory Board, he was on the advisory board of the National Depressive and Manic Depressive Association (NDMDA) and the National Association for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD)—all groups that Pardes needed to lobby for more research dollars for NIMH.
  • That same year NIMH released a study to conveniently reveal that “panic disorder” had a “pervasive social and health consequences similar to or greater than those associated with major depression.”[8] This is not to say that people do not experience anxiety, but psychiatrists had an agenda to redefine people’s anguish in terms of “illness” or “disease” in order to turn them into a cash cow for research funds and insurance reimbursement. By 1990, the FDA approved Xanax for treating “panic disorder” and the following year convened a “Consensus Development Conference” to determine the cause, history and course of “panic disorders.”[9] The Consensus Panel was planned by or its members/speakers included:
  • Lewis Judd (NIMH director), Robert Hirschfeld, Martin Keller and key psychiatrists from the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University and APA such as Jack Gorman and Allen Frances, Myrna M. Weissman, Ph.D., (DBSA), Thomas W. Uhde, M.D. (ADAA), M. Katherine Shear, M.D. (ADAA, Columbia University); Michael Liebowitz (ADAA and major links to pharmaceutical companies), Wayne J. Katon (ADAA); James C. Ballenger (ADAA), Sally Winston, PsyD (ADAA).[10]
  • Not surprisingly, the consensus called for the development of a “reliable, valid, standard measures of assessment” [screening, using the APA’s DSM], more research and an “aggressive educational campaign to increase awareness” mounted for doctors, families and the media.[11] Concurrently, ADAA and NIMH teamed up to launch the “Panic Disorder Prevention and Public Education Program.”[12]
  • Pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Forest Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Solvay Pharmaceuticals, and Wyeth fund ADAA.[13]
  • Expanding ADAA’s National “Stress Out Week” to college campuses, ADAA partnered with Active Minds to bring National Stress Out Day to students nationwide. This is marketed as “educating” students through campus-wide activities about the difference between stress and anxiety and an anxiety disorder.
  • In April 2008 the event was organized by Active Minds chapters on 42 college campuses in the US and Canada. The groups expected to double this in 2009. It received unrestricted grants and support from AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Forest, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and Wyeth.[14]
  • AstraZeneca funded its 2009 annual conference.[15]

Disease Mongering for Paxil

  • One of the advisory board members of ADAA is Michael R. Liebowitz Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the College of Physician and Surgeons at Columbia University and director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic of the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He has hefty ties to the pharmaceutical industry.[16] He has served as a consultant for Forest, Wyeth, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Roche, UCB, GSK, Pherin, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Solvay. Speakers’ Bureau for Pfizer, Wyeth, Forest, and Solvay; and he has received research grants from Novartis, Wyeth, Lilly, UCB, GSK, Forest, and Cephalon.[17]
  • Mental health “advocates” attribute a turn in “academic thinking” regarding social phobia to a study in July 1985 by Liebowitz titled, “Social Phobia: Review of a Neglected Anxiety Disorder.” He criticized the DSM-III’s limited definition. Liebowitz’s article caused the medical community to take another look at social phobia, said Jerilyn Ross, President and CEO of ADAA.[18]
  • Liebowitz was on the DSM-III-R advisory panel charged with updating the entry on social phobia, the definition of which was loosened in the 1987 revision. In light of additional analysis, he explained, the committee decided to include a generalized subtype of the condition.[19]
  • More “comprehensive screening questionnaires” were developed and this along with the expanded definition championed by Liebowitz meant, “the drug companies developed a keen interest in the plight of the socially phobic,” according to a website exposing the risks of antidepressants.[20] The “Social Anxiety Scale” that he invented asks subjective questions about whether a person fears meeting strangers, talking face to face with someone you do not know very well, writing while being observed, working while being observed, and acting, performing or speaking in front of an audience.[21]
  • A 1996 ADAA brochure on social phobia, “supported by an educational grant from SmithKline Beecham,” notes that “[m]edications are usually effective in the treatment of social phobia and can be used with or without other treatments.”[22] Paxil FDA approved to treat panic disorder in May 1996.[23]
  • In 1999, the Executive Committee of ADAA’s Scientific Advisory Board included Charles Nemeroff as Director. Currently it includes Nemeroff (also on DBSA advisory board), Robert Hirschfeld, Ronald Kessler (DBSA), Alan Schatzberg (DBSA), Myrna M. Weissman (DBSA) and Daniel S. Pine, MD who is still employed by NIMH. (see below)
  • That same year, ADAA came under media scrutiny with the psych-pharmaceutical marketing of the social phobia, ”Social Anxiety Disorder” (SAD) while the antidepressant Paxil was going through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process to treat this “disorder.”
  • Shankar Vedantam writing in the Washington Post, said that in 1998-99: “Psychiatrists and patient advocates appeared on television shows and in articles explaining that the debilitating form of bashfulness was extremely widespread but easily treatable.”[24]
  • “The stories and appearances were part of a campaign, coordinated by a New York public relations agency [Cohn & Wolfe], that included pitches to newspapers, radio and TV, satellite and Internet communications, and testimonials from advocates and doctors who said social anxiety was America’s third most common mental disorder with more than 10 million sufferers.”[25]
  • Cohn & Wolfe represented SmithKline Beecham (now known as Glaxo SmithKline), which makes Paxil. So successful was the campaign that media accounts of social anxiety rose from just 50 stories in 1997 and 1998 to more than 1 billion references in 1999. Sales of Paxil, which had been lagging those of Prozac and Zoloft, jumped, increased 18% in 1998 alone.[26] In 1999 the FDA approved Paxil to treat “social phobia.”[27]
  • Cohn & Wolfe and SmithKline established a front group for the purpose of marketing the “disease”—Freedom from Fear. It then joined in a collation formed called the “Social Anxiety Disorder Coalition” to promote the campaign: the American Psychiatric Association and ADAA. By early 1999 the firm had created a slogan, “Imagine Being Allergic to People,” and wallpapered bus shelters nationwide with pictures of a dejected-looking man vacantly playing with a teacup. “You blush, sweat, shake-even find it hard to breathe,” read the copy. “That’s what social anxiety disorder feels like.” The posters made no reference to Paxil or SmithKline; instead, they bore the insignia of a group called the Social Anxiety Disorder Coalition. And Cohn & Wolfe handled all media inquiries on behalf of the group.[28]
  • When the magazine Mother Jones ran an expose on this in 2002, the writer phoned the coalition’s hot line and said callers were “greeted by a recording that announces simply, ‘This program has successfully concluded.’”[29]
  • Cohn & Wolfe’s strategy also included a video, radio and matte news releases and a bylined article that smaller newspapers could run unedited. Journalists were told that SAD “affects up to 13.3% of the population” and is “the third most common psychiatric disorder.” By contrast, the DSM claimed the figure could be as low as 3%–even if that were true—and that only 2% “experience enough impairment or distress to warrant a diagnosis of social phobia.”[30]
  • Featured in the PR firm’s properties was Jack Gorman, a Columbia University psychiatrist and former director of the Mental Health Clinical Research at the New York State Psychiatric Institute who appeared in TV shows, such Good Morning America on behalf of the Social Anxiety Disorder Coalition (ADAA). He pleaded that patients recognize the disease. Gorman was a paid consultant to at least 13 pharmaceutical companies, including three SSRI antidepressant makers.[31] This outside income more than doubled Gorman’s annual state salary of $115,378.
  • Gorman, the former president and psychiatrist-in-chief of Harvard University’s McLean Hospital and former director of the Mental Health Clinical Research at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, has been found guilty of negligence on more than one occasion for engaging in “inappropriate sexual contact with a patient.” In September 2007, the New York State Board for Professional Medical Conduct reported Gorman had been found guilty of negligence on more than one occasion for engaging in “inappropriate sexual contact with a patient.” A month later Gorman also surrendered his right to practice medicine in Massachusetts, following a state investigation into the same allegation.
  • In 1999, he also resigned as Deputy Director of NYPSI following the New York Post’s exposure of his undisclosed conflicts of interests with drug companies. Between April 1, 1997 and March 31, 1998 Gorman had received over $140,000 from pharmaceutical companies that he had failed to disclose to the Institute.
  • Another frequent “talking head” in the SAD campaign, Dr. Murray Stein of the University of California at San Diego, also served as a SmithKline consultant, and the company funded many of his clinical trials on SAD.[32]
  • In 1999, Pfizer gained FDA approval to market Zoloft as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Until then, the condition had been associated almost exclusively with combat veterans and victims of violent crime; now, Pfizer set out to convince Americans that PTSD could, in fact, afflict almost anyone.
  • Pfizer funded the creation of the “PTSD Alliance” in 2000 staffed by employees of Pfizer’s New York public-relations firm, the Chandler Chicco Agency, and operated out of the firm’s offices. Jerilyn Ross, president and CEO of the ADAA Anxiety Disorders Association of America, quoted in media about PTSD.[33]
  • The PTSD Alliance still exists as a website but provides no information about the “group” other than linking to a page that says its “member organizations represent a spectrum of issues related to PTSD including trauma-related stress, anxiety disorders and women’s healthcare: – Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA) (advisor: Jerilyn Ross, ADAA President and CEO), the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) (advisors: Edna Foa, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania who served on the APA committee to write the definition of SAD[34]; and Rachel Yehuda, Professor of Psychiatry, Bronx VA Medical Center and Mt Sinai, NY) and the Sidran Traumatic Stress Foundation (advisors: Esther Giller, executive director and Elizabeth Vermilyea, training director) – American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) (advisor: Deborah Horan).[35]
  • It says: “This alliance was funded by an unrestricted educational grant from Pfizer, Inc.”[36] Pfizer initiated the Alliance program “in conjunction with FDA approval of Zoloft for treatment of PTSD.”[37]

The following are a sample of ADAA’s Board Members/Advisors

  • JERILYN ROSS, MA, President and CEO of ADAA, is a psychotherapist, author and director of The Ross Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. She has served on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the federal government’s Panic Disorder Prevention and Public Education Program.[38] Financial Disclosure: SmithKline Beecham (now GSK).[39]
  • MICHAEL R. LIEBOWITZ, MD, is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the College of Physician and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York. Dr. Liebowitz is also Director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic and Research Psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He is also Managing Director of The Medical Research Network LLC and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders and Anxiety.[40] Financial Disclosure: Research support from Eli Lilly, Wyeth, GSK, Avera, Novartis, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, TikVah Therapeutics, Forest, Sepracor, Horizon, and Johnson & Johnson. Consultant: Eli Lilly, Avera, AstraZeneca, Pherin, Wyeth, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Zars Pharma and TikVah Therapeutics. Speakers’ Bureau: Wyeth and Bristol Myers Squibb. He has licensing agreements for rating scale and/or electronic capture devices with GSK, Pfizer, Avera, Eli Lilly, Indevus, TikVah Therapeutics, and Servier. He holds the copyright of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale; Equity/ownership: in the Medical Research Network, a private research group, and ChiMatrix (a company specializing in electronic capture data.)[41]
  • DR. ROBERT HIRSCHFELD, Professor and Chair, University of Texas Medical Branch, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He spent six years as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association. Serves on the Board of Directors of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and served as its President. He also is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance and NARSAD.[42] Financial Disclosure: Serves as an advisor or consultant to Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Forest, GSK, Janssen, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Organon, Inc., Pfizer, Pfizer-Roerig Shire, Organon, Sandoz, Pharmacia and Upjohn, UCB Pharma, and Wyeth-Ayerst, and Zonagen, Inc.[43] Chair, Work Group to Develop Guidelines for Bipolar Disorders of the Task Force on DSM-IV—which came under major scrutiny because of the undisclosed financial ties of many of the DSM Task Force members to drug companies.[44] Dr. Hirschfeld is a psychiatrist who during an 11 year period (1992-2003) received more than $5.7 million in pharmaceutical company grant money for research—an average of over half a million dollars a year. Between 1974 and 1990 he also received $25 million from NIMH for clinical studies.[45]
  • WAYNE J. KATON, MD, Professor, Vice Chair Director Division of Health Services and Psychiatric Epidemiology University of Washington Medical School Seattle, WA. He is the 2009 Treasurer of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine (APM).[46] He has been principal investigator on three NIMH awards regarding depression, anxiety, and somatoform disorders in primary care as well as the principal investigator of two studies funded by the Hartford and MacArthur foundations.[47] Financial Disclosure: Honoraria or consulting fees: Eli Lilly, Forest, Pfizer and Wyeth.[48] Advisory Board: Eli Lilly, Wyeth; Speakers Bureau, Pfizer, Forest, GSK.[49]
  • RONALD C. KESSLER, PhD, professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. He was the principal investigator for a nationwide survey conducted to determine the state of mental “illness” in the country and claimed that nearly 50% of all Americans suffer from a mental illness during their lifetime. A second survey conducted added “Adult ADHD” with that part of the assessment funded by Eli Lilly.[50] Financial Disclosure: Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GSK, Ortho-McNeil, Pfizer and Wyeth.[51] He’s also on the Scientific Advisory Council of The Jed Foundation.[52]
  • R. BRUCE LYDIARD, MD, PhD, director of Southeast Health Consultants, LLC. He trained in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital where he also served as Chief Resident of Psychopharmacology and as been the principal investigator of over 150 clinical trials and NIH-funded studies. He is a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), a group of psychiatrists with financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Financial Disclosures: Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Glaxo-Welfcome, Parke-Davis, US Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, Roche, SmithKline Beecham, Pharmacia & Upjohn, Wyest-Ayerts, Abbot Labs, AstraZeneca, Hoescht Marian Russell, Astra/Merck Group, Merck & Co.; Solvay, Forest, Dupont Pharma, Novartis, Organon, Ravizza Farmaceutica.[53]
  • CHARLES NEMEROFF MD: He was the principal investigator of a $3.95 million NIH grant to study several drugs by GSK. But he was at the same time making hundreds of thousands of dollars doing promotional talks for the same company. Nemeroff simply lied to Emory University officials about the magnitude of that income. According to the New York Times, he signed a letter dated July 15, 2004, promising Emory that he would keep his earning from GSK to less than $10,000 per year. But that same day, Nemeroff was at the Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he was earning $3000 for a talk for GSK, part of $170,000 in income he earned from the company that year—17 times the figure that he had agreed to. He has been under Senate investigation for his undisclosed $1.2 million earned from Pharma. Despite his conflicts, in November 2009, he was named Chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Miami medical school.[54] Financial Disclosure: He is on the Board of Directors of or receives support from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), Mental Health Foundation, NARSAD, DBSA (Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance), NIMH, CeNeRx, Corcept, NovaDel Pharmaceuticals and Reevax. Scientific Advisory Board: AstraZeneca, Forest, Johnson & Johnson, NARSAD, PharmaNeuroboost, and Quintiles.[55] Employed by: Serves on the Board of Directors of ASFP, ASPIRE, NovaDel Pharmaceuticals, and the George West Mental Health Foundation. He has equity in CeNeRx and Reevax, and Cypress Bioscience. Stock: in Corcept and NovaDel.[56]
  • KATHARINE PHILLIPS, MD, Professor of Psychiatry Human Behavior, Brown University, director of Butler Hospital’s Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Body Image Program and is a member of numerous editorial boards, the Board of Directors of American Psychiatric Publishing (APPI), the American College of Psychiatrists, and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). She chaired the committee that produced a white paper on gender for the Research Agenda for DSM-V and in 2009 was elected President of the Board of Directors at American Psychiatric Publishing.[57] From 2002-2006 she chaired the NIMH’s Interventions Research Review Committee (Scientific Review Group).[58] She co-authored Advancing DSM: Dilemmas in Psychiatric Diagnosis.[59] Financial Disclosures: Solvay, Forest, Lilly Research Labs, Gate Pharmaceuticals.[60]
  • DANIEL S. PINE. M.D.: Research scientist at the National Institute of Health (NIH). Deputy Editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry.[61] Chief, Development and Neuroscience Branch, Chief, Child and Adolescent Research in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, NIMH, on Scientific Council of NARSAD.[62] On the DSM-V Task Force and Work Group: Chair, Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence Work Group.[63], On the Executive Committee of Active Minds, on the Scientific Advisory Board of NARSAD and Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA).[64] Pine also serves as the Chair of the Psychopharmacologic Drug Advisory Committee for the Food and Drug Administration and the Chair of the Developmental Working Group for the DSM-V Task Force.[65]
  • JERROLD F. ROSENBAUM, MD, Chief of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, President and Executive Director of MGH Mood and Anxiety Disorders Institute (MADI), developing what was an outpatient service into a clinical research center. He co-wrote the Handbook for Psychiatric Drug Therapy, published in 2009. He was a co-signatory of a 2009 article about conflicts of interest published in the APA’s American Journal of Psychiatry, which defended the acceptance of pharmaceutical advertising for the journal. The authors claimed “Congressional hearings and articles in the New York Times or Boston Globe are far removed from our own practices.” As one website exposing conflicts of interest stated, “the APA offered no major new initiatives or proposals to address the ongoing crisis of pharmaceutical funding that has been improperly accepted by researchers and leading experts, a situation that has led to numerous major investigations and had an impact on the public’s perception of psychiatry.” Other signatories included Daniel S. Pine (see above), Nancy C. Andreasen (consultant to Janssen), Jeffrey A. Lieberman (see above), A. John Rush (himself under Senate investigation), James H. Scully (APA’s medical director and CEO) and DBSA advisory board members Patricia Suppes and Myrna M. Weissman (both with ties to the pharmaceutical industry.) Financial Disclosures: Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilluy, US Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, Sanofi, Forest, Organon, Lichtwer Pharam, Wyeth-Ayerst, Parke-Davis, Janssen Pharmaceuitca & Research Fdn, Pharmacia & Upjohn.[66] Further, he has served on the advisory board for Cyberonics, Novartis, Organon and Wyeth-Ayerst, and has been on the advisory board and as speaker support for Eli Lilly and Forest Labs.
  • PETER ROY-BYRNE, MDC: Chief of Psychiatry, Harborview Medical Center Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington at Harborview Medical Center University of Washington. His 2009 curriculum vitae lists: Post graduate training at NIMH (1982-1984), President, Society for Biological Psychiatry, 2006-2007; Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), and Member of its Ethics Committee, (2006-2010; American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Member, Interventions for Mood and Anxiety Disorder Study Section, NIMH. Financial Disclosure: Conducted Clinical Trials for Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Smith-Kline-Beecham.[67]
  • ALAN F. SCHATZBERG (under Senate investigation for failing to disclose Pharma funding). Chairs the psychiatry department at Stanford University and is the 2009 president of the APA. In 2008, Schatzberg was investigated for his failure to disclose the $6 million he owned in stock in Corcept Therapeutics, which participated in a National Institutes of Health study he oversaw. In 2002, Schatzberg didn’t report any income from Johnson & Johnson, but the drug maker later reported to Senate investigators that Schatzberg was paid $22,000 that year. In 2004, Schatzberg reported receiving between $10,000 to $50,000 from Eli Lilly, yet it was reported that he was paid more than $52,000 that year. Financial Disclosure: Co-founder of Corcept, Consultant: Abbott, Aventis, BrainCells, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CeNeRx, co-founder of Corcept, Eli Lilly, Forest, GSK, Innapharma, Janssen, Merck, Neuronetics, Novartis, Organon, Pathways Diagnostics, Pharmacia, Pharma Neuro-Boost, Quintiles, Synosis, Solvay, Somerset, Wyeth, and received grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Wyeth; Speakers’ Bureau: GSK; Equity holdings in Corcept, Forest, Merck, Neurocrine and Pfizer, and named inventor (holds patent) on pharmacogenic use patents on prediction of antidepressant response.[68]
  • MURRAY B. STEIN, MD, MPH, Professor of Psychiatry and Family & Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he directs the Anxiety & Traumatic Stress Disorders Program. a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ANCP), and Deputy Editor for the journal Depression & Anxiety. Stein chaired the APA Workgroup to Revise the Panic Disorder Treatment Guidelines (2006-2008). He is currently a member of the DSM-V Anxiety Workgroup, and Chair of the NIH Interventions in Mood and Anxiety (ITMA) Review Group (2006-2009).[69] Financial Disclosure: Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Forest, Hoffman La Roche, Novartis, Parke Davis, US Pharmaceuticals, SmithKline Beecham, Solvay, Janssen Pharmaceutica Research Fdn, Pharmacia & Upjohn.[70]
  • MICHAEL VAN AMERIGEN, MD, Co-Director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at McMaster University Medical Center and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is also on the Scientific Council of the Anxiety Disorders Association of Canada. Financial Disclosure: US Pharmaceutical, Pfizer, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Solvay, Parke Davis, SmithKline Beecham.[71]
  • MYRNA M. WEISSMAN, PhD. Professor of Epidemiology & Psychiatry, Chief of the Division of Clinical & Genetic Epidemiology Columbia University. On the Board of Directors of Screening for Mental Health.[72] Financial Disclosure: Solvay and Wyeth and has significant other interest or affiliation with GSK.[73] Also Janssen Pharmaceutica Research Fdn, Pharmacia & Upjohn, Lilly Research Labs, and Merck.[74] In the past five years she’s also received investigator-initiated grants from Eli Lilly, and the Josiah Macy Foundation (famous in the 1950s as a conduit for funneling CIA money into mind control research, including LSD experiments—one in which psychiatrists kept subjects hallucinating on the drug for 77 days).[75] In 1999, the New York Post, in an article titled, “Analyze This: Docs Get Drug Company $$,” reported: “The world’s pharmaceutical giants are pouring big bucks into the bank accounts of state psychiatrists and researchers in charge of drug experiments” on New Yorkers. Among others, the article cited Weissman, “who fattened her bank account with speaking fees from Wyeth-Ayerst and Solvay and is running a Solvay-sponsored study.”[76] Serving the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, reporting in 1992 and 1996 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), “Weissman and colleagues found that more and more Americans are becoming depressed, they are getting depressed at a younger age, and the severity and frequency of depression is rising.”[77]
  • KAREN DINEEN WAGNER, MD: Vice Chair, Dept. of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Director, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX: Between 2000 and 2008, Wagner was engaged in an NIH study on the use of Paxil to treat teenage depression and another study on teen anxiety. During this time, GSK, the maker of Paxil, paid Wagner $160,404, yet she only reported $600 in income to the university. Eli Lilly also paid her over $11,000 in 2002 and that money was not disclosed either.[78] From 2003 to 2004, while receiving additional funds from Glaxo, she served on the university committee policing conflict of interest.[79]
  • Wagner was a co-author of the infamous Brown University study 329 on Paxil (along with fellow DBSA advisory council members Martin Keller—the lead author—Barbara Geller and Neal Ryan[80]) who exaggerated the alleged benefits of the antidepressant and downplayed the risks—including self-harm—mostly cutting; aggression—violent to others; and suicidality—suicidal thoughts and actions, suicide attempts. Almost 8% of the children had to be hospitalized as a result. The authors concluded: “Paroxetine is generally well tolerated and effective for major depression in adolescents.”[81] Study 329 was cited in a New York case where GSK was charged with “repeated and persistent fraud” in suppressing research on paroxetine that had shown increased the risk of suicidal thoughts and actions in children taking it. On June 3, 2004 GSK paid $2.5 million to settle the lawsuit.[82]
  • Wagner Financial Disclosure: Research/support: Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Forest, IMH. Novartis, Otsuka, Janssen, Pfizer, and UCB Pharma, NIMH. Consultant for or on the Advisory Board of Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Forest, GSK, Janssen, Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer, Sanofi Aventis, Solvay, UCB Pharma, and Wyeth-Ayerst. Speakers’ Bureau: Abbott Eli Lilly, GSK, Forest, Pfizer, and Novartis.[83] Served as a NIMH consultant to Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cyberonics, Eli Lilly, Forest Laboratories, GSK.[84] Wagner helped develop the controversial Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) psychiatric drug program invented by drug companies for Texas to force doctors to prescribe the most expensive psychotropic drugs, and currently the subject of a substantial lawsuit.[85]
  • RISA WEISBERG, PHD, Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, Brown University. On the Editorial Board of Depression and Anxiety 2008- present, Cognitive and Behavioral Practice 2007- present and The Primary Care Companion to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. In 2000, she was a researcher in a study that screened patients for anxiety in waiting rooms at 14 general medical settings, and those with a sufficient number and severity of “anxiety symptoms” were administered a another diagnostic interview based on the DSM. The study, part of a larger Primary Care Anxiety Project funded by an unrestricted grant from Pfizer was conducted with Ronald Kessler, Martin B. Keller and others. Not surprisingly, the researchers found that 83% of primary care patients reported at least 1 traumatic event in their lifetime (of these 44% met a “DSM-criteria.” The results therefore showed the continued need to “assess patients presenting at general medical facilities about trauma history.”[86]. Financial Disclosure: US Pharmaceutical, Pfizer.[87]

[1] http://www.adaa.org/AboutADAA/25YearsHistory/HighlightofPast.asp.

[2] http://www.rosscenter.com/the_ross_center/.

[3]“Disorders Made to Order,” Mother Jones, July-August, 2002; http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/07/disorders-made-order.

[4] http://www.adaa.org/AboutADAA/25YearsHistory/HighlightofPast.asp.

[5] http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/148/5/644.

[6] “CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM PHARMACEUTICALS, PART 1,” Medical & Healthcare Market Guide, 1995, p. 107.

[7] http://www.adaa.org/AboutADAA/25YearsHistory/HighlightofPast.asp.

[8] http://www.adaa.org/AboutADAA/25YearsHistory/HighlightofPast.asp.

[9] http://www.adaa.org/AboutADAA/25YearsHistory/HighlightofPast.asp.

[10] http://consensus.nih.gov/1991/1991PanicDisorder085html.htm.

[11] http://consensus.nih.gov/1991/1991PanicDisorder085html.htm.

[12] http://www.adaa.org/AboutADAA/25YearsHistory/HighlightofPast.asp.

[13] http://pharmafiles.net/?action=view_person&person_id=934.

[14] http://www.adaa.org/sites/default/files/2008annualreport.pdf.

[15] http://www.adaa.org/conference&events/documents/adaa_final_program09.pdf.

[16] http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/selling-shyness.htm.

[17] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/471885.

[18] http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/selling-shyness.htm.

[19] http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/selling-shyness.htm.

[20] http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/selling-shyness.htm.

[21] http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/disorder/liebowitz/.

[22] http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/selling-shyness.htm.

[23] http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18263942.html.

[24] Shankar Vedantam, “Drug Ads Hyping Anxiety Make Some Uneasy Drug Ads Hyping Anxiety Make Some Uneasy,” Washington Post, 16 July 2001; http://www.commercialalert.org/issues/health/drug-marketing/drug-ads-hyping-anxiety-make-some-uneasy.

[25] Shankar Vedantam, “Drug Ads Hyping Anxiety Make Some Uneasy Drug Ads Hyping Anxiety Make Some Uneasy,” Washington Post, 16 July 2001; http://www.commercialalert.org/issues/health/drug-marketing/drug-ads-hyping-anxiety-make-some-uneasy.

[26] Shankar Vedantam, “Drug Ads Hyping Anxiety Make Some Uneasy Drug Ads Hyping Anxiety Make Some Uneasy,” Washington Post, 16 July 2001; http://www.commercialalert.org/issues/health/drug-marketing/drug-ads-hyping-anxiety-make-some-uneasy.

[27] http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/psychopharmacology/a/paxilgad.htm.

[28]“Disorders Made to Order,” Mother Jones, July-August, 2002; http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/07/disorders-made-order.

[29]“Disorders Made to Order,” Mother Jones, July-August, 2002; http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/07/disorders-made-order.

[30]“Disorders Made to Order,” Mother Jones, July-August, 2002; http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/07/disorders-made-order.

[31]“Disorders Made to Order,” Mother Jones, July-August, 2002; http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/07/disorders-made-order.

[32]“Disorders Made to Order,” Mother Jones, July-August, 2002; http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/07/disorders-made-order.

[33]“Disorders Made to Order,” Mother Jones, July-August, 2002; http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/07/disorders-made-order.

[34] http://www.adhdfraud.org/commentary/7-20-01-1.htm.

[35] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_20050229/ai_mark09032284/, www.PTSDAlliance.org

[36] http://www.sidran.org/sub.cfm?contentID=5&sectionid=1.

[37] http://www.istss.org/publications/TS/Winter00/winter00frame.htm.

[38] http://www.adaa.org/AboutADAA/Articles/BioJerilyn.htm.

[39] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2000.pdf.

[40] http://www.columbia-socialanxiety.org/staff_liebowitz.html.

[41] http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/165/5/621.pdf.

[42] http://psychiatry.utmb.edu/Clinical/Bios/Hirschfeld.htm.

[43] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/527672, Authors and Disclosures section; http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Browse&link2=Results&id=1693; http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Browse&link2=Results&id=1693v.

[44] http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Browse&link2=Results&id=1693v.

[45] http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Browse&link2=Results&id=1693v.

[46] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2007.pdf; http://sph.washington.edu/faculty/fac_bio.asp?url_ID=Katon_Wayne.

[47] http://www.apm.org/ann-mtg/2009/index.shtml.

[48] http://primarycareed.previewcme.com/cms/node/5684.

[49] http://www.amaprimarycare.org/Education-Activities/Depression/Current-Opinions-in-Depression-Management.aspx.

[50] http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/41/9/22.full?maxtoshow=&HITS=&hits=&RESULTFORMAT=1&andorexacttitle=and&titleabstract=ADHD+%2522social+status%2522+reward+dopamine&andorexacttitleabs=or&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=120&sortspec=relevan.

[51] American Psychiatric Association 2007 Annual conference financial disclosure.

[52] http://www.jedfoundation.org/about/boards.

[53] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2000.pdf.

[54] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1318257.html.

[55] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1318257.html.

[56] http://books.google.com/books?id=quQY1R8vsZcC&pg=PT18&lpg=PT18&dq=charles+nemeroff+consultant+for&source=bl&ots=2z2uOElBLw&sig=q3F43gLwns_scLAIkGjl_Ii_zmY&hl=en&ei=w-sGS5nqE5TYsgPG0OTACQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBIQ6AEwBDge#v=onepage&q=charles%20nemeroff%20consultant%20for&f=false.

[57] http://bms.brown.edu/DPHB/admin/documents/InProgressFinal1-09.pdf.

[58] http://biomed.brown.edu/facultydirectory/profile.php?id=1100924943.

[59] http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Advancing-DSM/Katharine-A-Phillips/e/9780890422939.

[60] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2000.pdf.

[61] http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/member_information/practice_information/practice_parameters/conflicts_of_interest_for_practice_parameters_not_listed_in_parameter.

[62] http://www.narsad.org/?q=node/18/aboutus.

[63] http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Research/DSMIV/DSMV/MeettheTaskForce/DanielPineMD.aspx.

[64] http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Research/DSMIV/DSMV/MeettheTaskForce/DanielPineMD.aspx.

[65] http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Research/DSMIV/DSMV/MeettheTaskForce/DanielPineMD.aspx.

[66] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2000.pdf.

[67] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2000.pdf; http://depts.washington.edu/pbscifac/Roy_Byrne_CV.pdf.

[68] http://books.google.com/books?id=Xx7iNGdV25IC&pg=PR25&lpg=PR25&dq=Charles+Nemeroff+speakers+bureau+for+Eli+Lilly&source=bl&ots=Us94As88Qx&sig=X6FlAKkyfYYhCS_T4WlF9PqRNoE&hl=en&ei=xlwES8PcCY-isgPx4bXSDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Charles%20Nemeroff%20speakers%20bureau%20for%20Eli%20Lilly&f=false.

[69] http://www.mindsite.com/about_us.

[70] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2000.pdf.

[71] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2000.pdf.

[72] http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/97/29/.

[73] http://www.signsofsuicide.org/corporate_officials.htm; http://www.signsofsuicide.org/funding.htm.

[74] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2000.pdf.

[75] Gordon Thomas, Journey into Madness, Medical Torture and the Mind Controllers, (Corgi Books, 1989) p. 236; John J. McGraw, Brain & Belief, An Exploration of the Human Soul, (Aegis Press, 2004), p. 234. http://books.google.com/books?id=1QO8iqCeKjwC&pg=PT245&lpg=PT245&dq=josiah+macy+funded+CIA+experiments&source=bl&ots=FAVVgdbBzm&sig=S-YN48Cqj1q2p93rGalCDEl-5I4&hl=en&ei=NXEQS_ugCYnanAel-sm3Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBTgo#v=onepage&q=josiah%20macy%20funded%20CIA%20experiments&f=false.

[76] http://www.signsofsuicide.org/DisclosureDocuments/Weissman.htm.

[77] http://uspolitics.tribe.net/m/thread/66d70738-2b49-468c-b972-82b3494a347e.

[78] http://kevinpmiller.blogspot.com/2009/02/evelyn-pringle-ssri-pushers-under-fire.html.

[79] http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/09/grassley-targets-another-academic-over-conflicts/; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122109019382321441.html?mod=dist_smartbrief.

[80] “Efficacy of Paroxetine in the Treatment of Adolescent Major Depression: A Randomized, Controlled Trial,” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: July 2001 – Volume 40 – Issue 7 – pp 762-772;

http://journals.lww.com/jaacap/Abstract/2001/07000/Efficacy_of_Paroxetine_in_the_Treatment_of.10.aspx.

[81] “Efficacy of Paroxetine in the Treatment of Adolescent Major Depression: A Randomized, Controlled Trial,” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: July 2001 – Volume 40 – Issue 7 – pp 762-772;

http://journals.lww.com/jaacap/Abstract/2001/07000/Efficacy_of_Paroxetine_in_the_Treatment_of.10.aspx.

[82] David B. Caruso, “GlaxoSmithKline begins releasing data on drug trials,” Associated Press, 2 Sept. 2004; The People of the State of New York, by Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York vs. GlaxoSmithKline.

[83] http://books.google.com/books?id=Xx7iNGdV25IC&pg=PR25&lpg=PR25&dq=Charles+Nemeroff+speakers+bureau+for+Eli+Lilly&source=bl&ots=Us94As88Qx&sig=X6FlAKkyfYYhCS_T4WlF9PqRNoE&hl=en&ei=xlwES8PcCY-isgPx4bXSDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Charles%20Nemeroff%20speakers%20bureau%20for%20Eli%20Lilly&f=false; http://www.rutherford.org/pdf/tmap_project.pdf.

[84] http://www.rutherford.org/pdf/tmap_project.pdf.

[85] http://www.rutherford.org/pdf/tmap_project.pdf.

[86] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181217/.

[87] http://www.psychconflicts.org/pdfs/APA_Program_2000.pdf.

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