How Drug Company Money Has Corrupted Psychiatry

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http://www.antipsychiatry.org/mosher.loren.1.htm

How Drug Company Money Has Corrupted Psychiatryby Loren R. Mosher, M.D.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the nationwide organization

to which most psychiatrists belong. In some ways it is a trade union. A large

proportion of its income is from drug company advertising in its journals and

newspaper. It also receives " unrestricted educational grants " and convention

revenue from drug companies. Drug company sponsored symposia and exhibitions

dominate the two major annual psychiatric conventions. Of course, the symposia

speakers are paid handsomely for their half-day appearances. In my opinion, the

APA is so dependent on pharmaceutical company support that it can not afford to

criticize the overuse and misuse of psychotropic drugs. Perhaps more

importantly, the APA is unwilling to mandate education of psychiatrists about

the the seriousness of the short and long-term toxicities and withdrawal

reactions from the drugs.

The drug companies pay speakers ($1000-2000 per appearance) who give

psychiatric grand rounds and/or evening speeches (dinner provided by the

company) to local psychiatric societies. Speakers come from lists of

psychiatrists who will basically endorse their products. Doctors training to be

psychiatrists are specially targeted for these speakers.

The drug companies give contracts to university based and private

psychiatric research companies to conduct drug trials that are required for U.S.

Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the drugs they sell. The company

provides the protocol and the researcher may receive as much as $40,000 per

patient that completes the study. This allows the drug company considerable

influence on the way the drug studies are conducted. All of these drug

manufacturer activities have increased in scope and intensity since the

introduction of newly patented drugs, beginning with Prozac in 1989. They must

reap the profits before patents run out.

Research protocols used in studies of psychiatric drugs required for the

approval of the FDA are supposed to be reviewed by Institutional Review Boards

(IRB's) to be sure they do not pose undue risks to the study subjects. Members

of these boards have been found to be highly paid consultants to drug companies

whose protocols they review. That is, they have obvious conflicts of interests

and are not objective, unbiased reviewers of the psychiatric drug studies over

which they pass judgment. The latest " novel " anti-psychotic drug that has been

approved by our federal drug regulatory agency (FDA) is Zeldox, which the FDA

allowed to be introduced to the US market despite Zeldox's dangers.

In my view American psychiatry has become drug dependent (that is, devoted

to pill pushing) at all levels - private practitioners, public system

psychiatrists, university faculty and organizationally. What should be the most

humanistic medical specialty has become mechanistic, reductionistic,

tunnel-visioned and dehumanizing. Modern psychiatry has forgotten the

Hippocratic principle: Above all, do no harm.

THE AUTHOR, Loren R. Mosher, holds a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.D.,

with honors, from Harvard Medical School, where he subsequently received his

psychiatric training. He is now Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, School of

Medicine, University of California, San Diego, and Director of Soteria

Associates, 2616 Angell Avenue, San Diego, Calif. 92122, (858) 550-0312, Fax

(858) 558-0854. See www.mosher-soteria.com.

 

 

 

 

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