Harvard Medical Doctors were secretly on the Big Pharma take for millions of dollars to promote anti-psychotic drugs

 In 2007, Minnesota tightened regulations, banning drug makers from giving doctors more than $50 worth of food or gifts per year, which significantly reduced visits from sales representatives, according to The New York Times.

 

Between 1997 and 2005, at least 103 Minnesota doctors disciplined by the state medical board received roughly $1.7 million from pharmaceutical companies, often for speaking or consulting

. Sanctions included penalties for improper prescribing, substance abuse, and poor patient care. Despite the state's disclosure laws, drug firms continued to hire these sanctioned physicians....Of the 103 doctors, 39 had been disciplined for inappropriate prescribing practices, 21 for substance abuse, 12 for substandard care and three for mismanagement of drug studies.  https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/dr00045329/

Pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly (the maker of Prozac), have historically paid thousands of physicians for speaking, consulting, and marketing, a common practice to boost drug prescriptions

. While specific names of all doctors paid solely for Prozac are often proprietary to industry disclosures, thousands of psychiatrists and primary care physicians have been paid for peer-to-peer marketing by companies like Eli Lilly, Forest, and GSK

High school students began being treated with antidepressants for clinical depression in significant numbers during the

late 1980s and 1990s, particularly after the introduction of SSRIs like Prozac.....

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2427133/

 

Dr. Joseph Biederman

began his focused research on pediatric bipolar disorder in the early to mid-1990s, with studies examining consecutive patient referrals at his clinic starting in 1991. His work, which gained prominence alongside colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital, significantly influenced the diagnosis and treatment of the disorder in children during that decade.....The largest contributor was Johnson & Johnson (maker of Risperdal), along with payments from Eli Lilly (maker of Strattera) and other undisclosed manufacturers of antipsychotic medications.

 

The Harvard medical doctor widely reported for failing to disclose substantial payments from pharmaceutical companies while leading research that drove the diagnosis and medicating of childhood depression (and bipolar disorder) is

Dr. Joseph Biederman. 

• Who He Is: Dr. Biederman was a renowned child psychiatrist and chief of pediatric psychopharmacology at Massachusetts General Hospital, a major teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School.
• The Scandal: A 2008 Congressional investigation, championed by Senator Charles Grassley, discovered that Biederman had failed to report more than $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers (including those that manufactured anti-psychotics) to Harvard officials between 2000 and 2007.
• Impact on Research: Biederman's work was central to promoting the use of medications for treating pediatric bipolar disorder, which saw a 40-fold increase in diagnoses from 1994 to 2003.
• Consequences: Following the investigation, Harvard announced that Biederman would be punished and subject to monitoring. Biederman stated he complied with rules in good faith and that his research was not influenced by the funding.
• Colleagues Involved: Two other Harvard colleagues, Dr. Timothy Wilens and Dr. Thomas Spencer, were also found to have received large amounts of undisclosed funding—over $1 million each—during the same period..........