Drugs Drugs Drugs: Big Pharma Psychs Out the Shrinks

Published on Monday, April 6, 2009 by Unsilent Generation

Big Pharma Psychs Out the Shrinks

by James Ridgeway

Just about everyone by now knows how the drug industry works to poison the minds of American doctors-not that many of them have resisted drinking the Kool-Aid, which comes in the form of ego-tripping awards, junkets, dinners, research funding, and cash in exchange for endorsing or prescribing the latest and most lucrative drugs. But even against this backdrop of sleaze, the latest news on the ties between Big Pharma and Big Psych could take your breath away.

It turns out that not just some, but most of the shrinks who wrote the American Psychiatric Association's most recent clinical guidelines for treating depression, bipolar disorders, and schizophrenia-which together account for $25 billion in prescription drug sales annually-had financial ties to drug companies, according a study to be published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, as reported in the Boston Globe.

Summarizing the findings, which were compiled by researchers largely from public records, the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report states: Read more.