Prominent Child Psychiatrists Fail To Disclose Conflicts Of Interest

By sskrplaw on June 10, 2008 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

reports that two prominent child psychiatrists failed to disclose they each had received more than a million dollars in consulting fees from drugmakers from 2000- 2007. During this time, and based in no small part on the work of Dr. Joseph Biederman and Dr. Timoth Wilens, diagnosis rates for pediatric bipolar disorder increased 40 times. Today, as many as 500,000 children receive at least one prescription for antipsychotic drugs, including 20,500 under the age of 6 years old.

Senator Chuck Grassley told the Times that, by failing to report this income from the companies who reap hundreds of millions of dollars from their work, the two psychiatrists may have violated university, state and federal rules governing conflicts of interest. Grassley has been conducting hearings on academics who receive grant money from BigPharma and the potential financial conflicts that might arise from such relationships.

Harvard Spokeswoman Alyssa Kneller told the Times: “The information released by Senator Grassley suggests that, in certain instances, each doctor may have failed to disclose outside income from pharmaceutical companies and other entities that should have been disclosed.” She added that a university conflict committee is reviewing the physicians’ conduct.

The kinds of studies these psychiatrists and others are conducting on young children is highly questionable. Bloomberg News reported that Dr. Biederman is currently recruiting 4- to6-year-olds with supposed bipolar disorder to test AstraZeneca's antipsychotic, Seroquel, and another group of 6- to 12-year-olds to test Equetro, developed by U.K.-based Shire Ltd.

Alan Milstein