Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16681

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Silverman E
NAMI: AstraZeneca Is A ‘Strong, Effective Partner’
Pharmalot 2009 Oct 26
http://www.pharmalot.com/2009/10/nami-astrazeneca-is-a-strong-effective-partner/

Full text:

Last week, the National Alliance on Mental Illness vowed to lessen its ties to the pharmaceutical industry after a US Senate Finance Committee probe found the most donations to the big advocacy group came from drug makers. Since then, documents have surfaced indicating the extent to which NAMI cavorted with one drug maker, AstraZeneca (see here and here).
The latest batch include the presentation that NAMI officials made in December 2003 to AstraZeneca execs at their Wilmington, De., headquarters (you can look here). One of the NAMI officials present was , Jim Dailey, a NAMI state advocacy director in Kentucky, who agreed to participate in the Seroquel consultant program run by AstraZeneca. The slides would appear to underscore the close ties that NAMI has long refused to discuss or disclose.
The presentation given by Mike Fitzpatrick, who headed NAMI’s policy research institute and is now the executive director, includes details on the crisis in state budgets at the time, Medicaid funding and tips on building community coalitions – at state and local levels – to further support for using antipsychotics. These were among the points discussed in the ‘Campaign for the Mind of America,’ which noted the issue is access to treatment and the need to integrate national and grassroots efforts.