Tag Archives: pharmaceutical industry

Psychiatrists And Pharma: Undue Influence? Concern about corruption increasing…

Two essays published in separate periodicals this week raise troubling questions about the extent to which psychiatrists may be unduly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, and how this relationship may effect public trust in psychiatry. The upshot? The concern about corruption, or at least the appearance of corruption is palpable. Sigmund Freud (see photo) would not be pleased. Interestingly, one of the authors is Tom Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Citing public’s growing distrust of psychiatry, NIMH Chief says psychiatry must “Clean up our act”

Is the new Journal of the American Medical Association a special issue on reform? It doesn’t stop with its demands for new publication standards. It’s also showcasing a rallying cry from National Institute of Mental Health Director Dr. Thomas Insel, who calls on his fellow psychiatrists to “clean up our act.”

Sen Grassley’s bill now requires public disclosure of ALL Pharma $$ to doctors— Top Psychiatrist calls for “Ethics Cleanup”

Dr. Thomas Insel stops short of calling researchers corrupt or asking them to stop taking money from drug companies. But he highlights a “bias in prescribing practices” that favors brand names drugs over cheaper generics and non-drug treatments. And he says the situation must change with new standards for transparency and full disclosure of psychiatry’s collaborations with industry.

“Desperate to sell drugs, psychiatrists use their ‘scientific’ manual…an ever-broadening panoply of absurd new syndromes”

The irresistible, plus-size piñata for on-the-case journalists is the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, now undergoing revision. The DSM famously includes snoring and jet lag as mental disorders. I took a whack last year, calling the 880-page doorstop “a naked land grab by a profession threatened with marginalization by biomedical research.”

Psychiatry’s New Billing Bible, The DSM: A Goldmine of Mental Disorders for Pharma

The American Psychiatric Association’s release of the proposed fifth revision of its billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) fuels University of California’s Dr. Irwin Savodnik’s statement, “The very vocabulary of psychiatry is now defined at all levels by the pharmaceutical industry.”