Greedy High Profile Child Psychiatrist & Sick Drug Company = Bad News for Kids

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Another reason to end for-profit healthcare.

Portion below; whole thing here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/health/25psych.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

When a Congressional investigation revealed in June that he had earned far more money from drug makers than he had reported to his university, Dr. Joseph Biederman, a world-renowned child psychiatrist, said that his “interests are solely in the advancement of medical treatment through rigorous and objective study.”

But e-mails and internal documents from Johnson & Johnson made public in a court filing reveal that Dr. Biederman pushed the company to fund a research center at Massachusetts General Hospital whose goal was “to move forward the commercial goals of J&J,” the documents state. The documents also show that Johnson & Johnson wrote a draft summary of a study that Dr. Biederman, of Harvard University, was said to author.

Dr. Biederman’s work helped to fuel a 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder and a rapid rise in the use of powerful, risky and expensive antipsychotic medicines in children. Although many of his studies are small and often financed by drug makers, Dr. Biederman has had a vast influence on the field largely because of his position at one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the world.

Johnson & Johnson manufactures Risperdal, also known as risperidone, a popular antipsychotic medicine. More than a quarter of Risperdal’s use is in children and adolescents.

Last week, a panel of federal drug experts said that medicines like Risperdal are being used far too cavalierly in children and that federal drug regulators must do more to warn doctors of their substantial risks. Other popular antipsychotic medicines, also referred to as neuroleptics, are Zyprexa, made by Eli Lilly; Seroquel, made by AstraZeneca; Geodon, made by Pfizer; and Abilify, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Thousands of parents have sued Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly, claiming that their children were injured after taking the medicines, whose risks the companies minimized, the parents claim. As part of the suits, plaintiffs’ attorneys have demanded millions of documents from the companies. Nearly all of those documents have been provided under judicial seals, but a select few that mentioned Dr. Biederman became public after plaintiffs attorneys sought a judge’s order to require Dr. Biederman to be interviewed by plaintiff attorneys under oath.