Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15388

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Publication type: news

Rubenstein S.
Authors of Psychiatric Guidelines Get Funding from Drug Makers
The Wall Street Journal Blog 2009 Apr 2
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/04/02/authors-of-psychiatric-guidelines-get-funding-from-drug-makers/

Full text:

In yet another example of influential doctors’ deep ties to industry, a study due out this month finds that almost all of the psychiatrists who wrote the field’s recent treatment guidelines had financial relationships with drug makers.

The Boston Globe got wind of the study, which found that among 20 authors of the guidelines for treatment of depression, dipolar disorder and schizophrenia, 18 had at least one financial tie to a drug maker, and 12 had ties in at least three categories, such as consulting, research grants, speaking fees or stock ownership. The study, whose lead author is Lisa Cosgrove of the University of Massachusetts at Boston, is expected to be published on the Web site of the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, the Globe says.

The guidelines are a powerful influence on the way doctors treat patients. This week, big-name docs argued in a JAMA paper that medical specialty groups, which put out the guidelines, should tightly limit their funding from industry. (Drug trade group PhRMA responded that industry funding helps doctors obtain important medical information.) Earlier this year, amid news that many heart-disease guidelines aren’t backed up by rigorous scientific testing, an editorial in JAMA argued that guidelines “often have become marketing tools for device and pharmaceutical manufacturers.”

The American Psychiatric Association told the Globe its guidelines are heavily vetted and that docs who get large portions of their incomes from drug makers are kept off the panels.

One consultant on the bipolar guidelines, Roy Perlis of Massachusetts General Hospital, has disclosed in published papers consulting or speaker’s fees from AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer. He noted in an interview with the Globe that two main points in the bipolar disorder guidelines include support for use of lithium, a cheap generic drug, as well as talk therapy.