After reports that most donations made to the big advocacy group came from drug makers in recent years, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) agreed to disclose its funding sources. The disclosure, however, came after protracted criticism of NAMI for coordinating lobbying efforts with drug makers and pushing legislation that also benefits the pharma industry.
Dr. Brad Hagen, a clinical psychologist and faculty member at the University of Lethbridge, the reason for the skyrocketing rates of depression are a matter of heated debate. “Depending on how you look at it, depression either started becoming more common or recognized, or it became marketed,” says Hagen. Sales of antidepressant drugs worldwide are in the tens of billions of dollars each year. Dr. Hagen says the number of sales is actually quite “mindboggling.”
Joanna Moncrieff of University College London wrote an opinion piece recently for the BBC. Contrary to the impression promoted by the psychiatric and drug industries, psychiatric drugs do not work by correcting a chemical imbalance in the brain.
Senator Chuck Grassley has asked leading medical schools to describe their policies on ghostwriting as part of his continuing effort to shed light on financial ties between the pharmaceutical industry and medical professionals. “I’m interested in transparency, and academic institutions play an important role in establishing adequate and meaningful disclosure,” he said. Grassley also has conducted oversight and sought disclosure with physicians, continuing medical education and the patient advocacy community.
Former editors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) have publicly declared their concerns that the ongoing revision process of the influential publication has been cloaked in secrecy. Some critics of the DSM process express other concerns in addition to matters of transparency. It’s been pointed out that about 70% of current task force members have ties to the pharmaceutical industry, up about 14% from DSM-IV.