Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts

"As states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty.

...the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved."

—by Gardiner Harris, "Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts," June 27, 2007, The New York Times

Doctor Says Psychiatrist is Responsible for Child's Death

[Note: Neither Dr. Biederman nor the child's psychiatrist have been charged with anything. The responsibility aspect refers to the practice of prescribing multiple strong psychiatric drugs—including some not approved for children—to a young child. Also, Dr. Biederman has received research funding from 15 drug companies and serves as a paid speaker or adviser to seven of them, including Eli Lilly.]

This doctor deserves an acknowledgment for his courage. Thank you, Dr. Diller!

"As a doctor, I did the nearly unthinkable at a recent conference on bipoloar disorder in children. I charged another doctor with moral responsibility in the death last December of Rebecca Riley, a 4-year-old girl from Hull. Naming names in medicine is just not done very often — and I knew the personal and professional risks I was taking. Yet I felt compelled to name Joseph Biederman, head of the Massachusetts General Hospital's Pediatric Psychopharmacology clinic, as morally culpable in providing the "science" that allowed Rebecca to die.
...
"Finally, it's sad but true — the field of child psychiatry is afraid of Biederman....academic researchers in child psychiatry risk losing their funding if they criticize this darling of the pharmaceutical industry, which provides most of the money these days for psychiatric research."

—by Dr. Lawrence Diller, "Misguided Standards of Care," June 19, 2007, The Boston Globe, boston.com

Dr. Lawrence Diller practices behavioral/developmental pediatrics in Walnut Creek, Calif., and is the author of "The Last Normal Child: Essays on the Intersection of Kids, Culture and Psychiatric Drugs."