Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay
A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.
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Dr. Biederman is one of the most influential researchers in child psychiatry and is widely admired for focusing the field’s attention on its most troubled young patients. Although many of his studies are small and often financed by drug makers, his work helped to fuel a controversial 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, which is characterized by severe mood swings, and a rapid rise in the use of antipsychotic medicines in children. The Grassley investigation did not address research quality.
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Universities ask professors to report their conflicts but do almost nothing to verify the accuracy of these voluntary disclosures.
“It’s really been an honor system thing,” said Dr. Robert Alpern, dean of Yale School of Medicine. “If somebody tells us that a pharmaceutical company pays them $80,000 a year, I don’t even know how to check on that.”
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These "antipsychotic" drugs are major tranquilizers that keep people in line through heavy sedation like unruly zoo animals. Nobody should have this stuff forced on them, especially children.
There's been a massive push lately to justify the use of these drugs on children; lots of Newsweek cover stories about "growing up bipolar" and other transparent propaganda. People are unbelievably outraged if a parent lets their teenager smoke pot, yet society says it's okay to give younger kids drugs that are proven to cause permanent debilitating brain damage. The funny thing is that brain damage is in the side effects list of the drugs(as tardive dyskenesia), yet most people still believe that anyone who thinks the drugs are harmful is a fringe conspiracy theorist.
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