Dr. E. Jane Costello, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University, acknowledges: “The system of diagnosis is still 200 to 300 years behind other branches of medicine.” Psychiatry also fails to be guided by an evidence-based positive benefit / risk assessment of its prescribed treatments.
The ethics of this radical drug experiment is being challenged by Dr. Jerald Block, a forthright psychiatrist and experienced system's analyst. His critical appraisal, published in the Bioethics Forum, Hastings Center Report.
Disease mongering: " This program has been developed for people who, while in the prime of their lives, are at high risk for developing a debilitating mental illness."
Legislation is needed to ensure that conflicts of interest rules in medicine are enforced. One method for reigning in the abuse is to prohibit government grant awards to any researcher who violates financial conflict of interest rules.
AHRP applauds the California chapter of the NAACP for unanimously passing a resolution to end the abusive prescribing of psychotropic drugs for children in foster care!
Off-label prescribing of drugs for unapproved uses puts consumers at high risk of harm–but it is the single most lucrative marketing strategy.
Today's news report circulated by the media about the negative findings of a much touted, but uncontrolled observational study of depression (STAR*D) promotes the business interests of SSRI antidepressant drug manufacturers.
"Some politicians, public health officials, mental health activists and pharmaceutical companies have worked to establish mental-health screening programs in schools and the community….Researchers and clinicians, meanwhile, say they are far from having developed accurate predictors of a child developing depression. The younger the child, the murkier the crystal ball."
An Orwellian nightmare is being implemented on infants even as the evidence demonstrates that the psychiatry's practice guidelines are corrupted by
industry.
Business Week reports: "From 1986 to 2003 the number of nonsurgical cardiac procedures, such as propping open arteries with wire-mesh stents, rose twelve fold, according to the American Heart Association.
Medical researchers who commit fraud and research misconduct are caught only when a person of conscience steps up to the plate and blows the whistle. There are no systemic, independent checks and balances to prevent research fraud or abuse of patients.
Infomail 2005 News Stories on Human Research Protection and Commentary by Vera Hassner Sharav Subscribe to the AHRP infomail list Dec 16: Drugs, Devices & Doctors – NYT Paul Krugman Dec 11: Scientific Fraud & Corruption on Both sides of Atlantic: Merck / Proctor & Gamble Dec 11: Gov Accountability…
