Psychiatric Drug Industry

Backstory: A pill they won’t swallow

Here’s an inspiring news article in the Christian Science Monitor’s Religion & Ethics section about medical students REFUSING to take drug company gifts for ethical reasons!

Chemical Imbalance Fraud

 

American Psychiatric President Admits “Bio Bio Bio” Rules

When the elected president of the American Psychiatric Association complains about undue influence of the psychiatric drug industry on his profession then you know there’s a problem. Here are MindFreedom’s comments, followed by the text of President Stephen S. Sharfstein’s essay warning about “Big Pharma’s” huge “kickbacks and bribes.”

Editorial: Should Advocacy Groups Take Psychiatric Drug Money?

UKAN members are voting on whether or not to accept donations from the psychiatric drug industry. UKAN invited David Oaks, director of MindFreedom International, to contribute an essay on the subject to their newsletter.

Psychiatric Drug Corporations Enter USA Schools With New Program

An article reveals that the American Psychiatric Association is launching a curriculum in USA schools to promote their perspective on the mental health system, which tends to promote psychiatric drugging. Funders of the APA’s campaign are mainly drug companies giving more than $400,000 in total.

forwarded info on Eli Lilly attempt to stop suppress information on Zyprexa

MFI has received forwarded emails, which MFI did not originate, about a campaign to disseminate material in the public interest about hazards related to the psychiatric drug Zyprexa manufactured by Eli Lilly. Eli Lilly is seeking to use the courts to suppress this information.

Psychiatric drug maker gives record pay-off

Pfizer manufacturers the psychiatric drug Zoloft, and announced they were giving a record “golden parachute” to their top executive Hank McKinnell.

Alert protests NASW link to psychiatric drug industry

Nineteen social work academics have signed an open letter protesting the way the National Asociation of Social Workers (NASW) has entered into a financial relationship with the huge psychiatric drug manufacturer Jannsen.

TMAP

Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) might have a fancy name but it is a cookie-cutter assembly line approach to choose psychiatric drugs. The creation and promotion of TMAP has been heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. By no coincidence, TMAP tends ot promote drug, drug, drug, drug, drug, drug, drug… starting with some of the most expensive drugs first.

A Collection of Articles on Disease Mongering in PLoS Medicine

In 2006 PLoS Medicine published articles about how the marketplace, especially the pharmaceutical industry, has been promoting diseases where none are to be found. PLoS Medicine says it is an open-access, peer-reviewed medical journal published monthly online by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a nonprofit organization.

AstraZeneca Faces 10,000 Lawsuits Over Seroquel Drug (Update2)

AstraZeneca Plc, the U.K.’s second- largest drugmaker, has been sued by almost 10,000 people in the U.S. over claimed injuries from defects in the company’s antipsychotic drug Seroquel, according to a court filing.

US Congress Investigates Psychiatric Drug Industry

Several different USA Congressional committees have been asked to investigate corruption, fraud and cover-up by the psychiatric drug industry.

Doctors can launder drug money

PharmaTimes reports that an analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association saw researchers examine publicly available data for two US states, Vermont and Minnesota, which demonstrated that drugmakers could avoid disclosing details of payments to doctors by classifying the payments as trade secrets, failing to file an annual report or not identifying the recipient of the money.

Lilly settles 900 Zyprexa claims

INDIANAPOLIS, June 12 (UPI) — Indianapolis-based drug giant Eli Lilly and Co. said Tuesday it settled 900 more product liability claims against its top-selling drug Zyprexa.

An interview with Ben Hansen: The Drugging of America

Ben Hansen, of the Bonkers Institute for Nearly Genuine Research, is alarmed by the over-diagnosis of mental disorders and the widespread use of psychiatric drugs in our society. In this interview, Hansen notes that identification and labeling of consumers is essential to the marketing of drugs, and that “In 1997 the FDA loosened restrictions on direct-to-consumer advertising on television. It’s been a rapid downhill slide ever since.”

Bush-Controlled FDA Moonlights as Big Pharma Pusher

Columnist Evelyn Pringle examines the consequences, in terms of deaths and injuries, in the wake of the Bush Administration’s enabling of the virtual takeover of the Food and Drug Administration by the pharmaceutical industry. Pringle cites the FDA’s announcement that its approval of drugs and prescription labels preempts the rights of consumers to file product liability lawsuits against drug companies. The changes went into effect in 2006, and have been used by drug company lawyers all over the country to challenge civil tort claims in court.

“Psychiatric Drugs: An Assault on the Human Condition”

A Street Spirit interview with Robert Whitaker, who has investigated how the psychiatric drug industry is endangering the American public by covering up the untold cases of suffering, anguish and disease caused by the most widely prescribed antidepressants and antipsychotic medications.

“Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher: God’s Call to Loving Arms”

Gwen Olsen explores the dark side of psychiatric drug marketing and sales, based on her fifteen years experience as a sales representative working for drug companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Gwen is currently a writer, speaker, and natural health consultant.

As mental illness has become profitable, we are seeing more of it

Author, psychologist and activist Bruce E. Levine compares the profit and fraud of the military-industrial complex to the psychopharmaceutical-industrial complex.

Dr. Drug Rep

A psychiatrist who has taken thousands of dollars in psychiatric drug company pay-offs to present promotional speeches about their products exposes some of the techniques, and promises never to behave that way again.

Making a Killing

Those interested in an investigation by a journalist of psychiatric drug company research fraud are encouraged to obtain the Sept./Oct 2010 issue of Mother Jones and read the “Making a Killing” article here. Carl Elliott reveals how clinical trials and even whole universities are manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry.

“The Many Faces of Big Pharma’s Disease Mongering”

An article by Martha Rosenberg on the Common Dreams website that explores the great extent of the pharmaceutical industry’s reach.

MindFreedom International’s Correspondence with Pfizer

In 2004, MindFreedom challenged pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to produce evidence of the chemical imbalance its drugs were advertised to correct. This folder contains a record of the correspondence that took place.

MFI Alerts Result in Many Speaking Out To NIMH

Because of a MindFreedom alert, many people wrote to the USA National Institute of Mental Health by the 21 Dec. 2007 deadline with comments about NIMH research goals over the next three to five years. Read some of the remarks and find out how to contact NIMH after the deadline.

MFI Alert Creates Torrent of Comments to NIMH Asking For “More Choices!”

Here are just a few of the e-mails sent to the USA National Instyitute of Mental Health after MindFreedom issued an alert issued an aler about an NIMH Strategic Plan.

Selected Advertisements from the American Journal of Psychiatry

These images, primarily from the 1950s and 1970s, are advertisements for certain drugs, procedures, and equipment scanned from the pages of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

A whistleblower inside the FDA sounds an alarm by future of psychiatric drugging.

MindFreedom received the below commentary piece by an individual who works inside the Food & Drug Administration. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect MindFreedom.

Bitter Pill

The weekly newspaper for Portland, Oregon, USA ran this story by long-time journalist/investigator Philip Dawdy, who himself is an individual diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.

Has Big Pharma Corruption Suppressed Effective Treatment Options?

Psychologist, author and MindFreedom member Bruce Levine writes in his Alternet article, “Establishment psychiatry is under attack in Congress. Investigators are recognizing that not all mental health treatments come in a pill.”

FDA Scientists Ask Obama to Restructure Drug Agency

Scientists from USA Food and Drug Administration have written a letter to President-elect Barack Obama pleading with him to fix their “broken” agency.

NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness

This is a folder regarding “NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness,” a USA-based nonprofit founded by parents of individuals in the mental health system. While some NAMI members support the mission of MindFreedom and are members, some of the leaders of NAMI have worked to oppose many of our social change movement’s goals. NAMI is one of the few large mental health organizations to refuse to disclose the full amount of funding from the pharmaceutical industry, which according to media investigations is substantial.