Dr Joseph Bray is faces being struck off after he had an affair with a patient at The Priory in Southampton and allegedly made sexual comments towards another

A Report from the Daily Echo in the UK

A HAMPSHIRE psychiatrist had an affair with a patient and made sexual comments about another, a hearing was told.

Now married father of two Dr Joseph Bray faces being struck off by a fitness to practice tribunal. The tribunal heard Bray began flirting with a woman known as Patient B during counselling sessions and later began a sexual relationship with her. During three consultations he stroked Patient B’s hair, kissed her on the side of the head and told her “if only I was 20 years younger”.

Mr Williams said the consultations ‘crossed boundaries’, including giving out his personal email address, and added: “The doctor has demonstrated that he is willing to cross boundaries of a relationship with Patient B and to go all the way to a full-blown relationship.” The tribunal also heard he treated a patient who came to him for help coping with her husband’s womanising by comparing her appearance against her husband’s mistress.

The hearing was told in a ‘crudely-worded’ consultation Bray, 57, used Google to search for pictures of the mistress and then compared their physical appearances.

Bray allegedly told the woman, known only as Patient A, “men aren’t biologically programmed for monogamy,” and added: ‘‘When my wife dies, I will shag as many women as I can.’’ Patient A was said to feel ‘’awkward and uncomfortable’’ over the counselling she received from Bray after she attended the £3,000 a week Priory Hospital, Southampton, in ‘‘emotional distress.’’

Paul Williams, counsel for General Medical Council, told the tribunal in Manchester:

“Dr Bray’s persistent focus on the context of emails received by the husband made her feel awkward and uncomfortable. She felt it was sufficient to say the content was explicit.
“She says she found it distressing and unprofessional for the doctor to Google her husband’s mistress and begin passing comments about women.
“These are utterly inappropriate remarks during a consultation and so deeply sexualised in nature.
"She says it was unprofessional for him to make personal remarks regarding her appearance, even if complimentary.”

Mr Williams added: “The conversation turned from simple relationship matters to physical appearance, attraction and discussing sexual matters.”

The consultant, who lives in the New Forest, had been working at The Priory Hospital since 2007. Bray admits acting inappropriately during his consultation with Patient A but denies his conduct was sexually motivated. He admits all allegations regarding his conduct and inappropriate, sexual relationship with Patient B.

British Psychiatrist Adam Osborne is suspended AGAIN... over 'serious misconduct' with female patient

From this Report in the Daily Mail

Adam Osborne, 38, who has a private practice in Central London, last week had his licence suspended by the General Medical Council (GMC) after being accused of having a two-year sexual affair with a highly vulnerable woman patient who has psychiatric issues, is married and has two children. The news comes five years after he was suspended by the GMC for ‘dishonest and misleading’ behaviour in prescribing drugs to his cocaine-addicted prostitute lover. The latest blow means he cannot practise in any capacity as a doctor until an investigation into the new allegations has been concluded. The suspension will prove highly embarrassing for (his brother) the Chancellor (George Osborne), coming as he prepares for Wednesday’s crucial Budget, the last before May’s General Election. If the investigation results in a Fitness To Practise hearing, which is held in public, Dr Osborne could face further sensitive personal information being revealed. And if the allegations are upheld, he could be struck off. In the wake of the hearing, Dr Osborne’s personal website was taken down. His Linkedin page states that he has a special interest in adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, personality disorders, depression and anxiety. Dr Osborne currently runs Devonport Psychiatry, which is based in Marylebone, Central London, but is officially registered to his home address in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, which he shares with his wife Rahala Noor, a plastic surgeon. His suspension in 2010 stemmed from a series of allegations surrounding his use of prescription drugs, which centred on allegations of a relationship with a prostitute. The GMC said that his ‘relationship’ with the woman had ‘clouded his judgment’ and led him to prescribe powerful anti-psychotic drugs, dishonestly use a false name and fail to inform her GP. Dr Osborne was also disciplined for prescribing contraceptive pills to his then girlfriend, Rahala, a strict Muslim who would become his wife, and an anti-smoking drug to an unnamed family member. The GMC hearing was told that Dr Osborne had been in a relationship with the prostitute, referred to as Miss B, from 2007 to 2008 while he was separated from his girlfriend and he was a trainee psychiatrist in Manchester.

More Details and Photos at the Daily Mail

Psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed sacked by the Australian over new plagiarism allegation

As reported in the Guardian

Many more details at the story link

The psychiatrist and columnist Tanveer Ahmed has been sacked by the Australian for plagiarism – just two years after being dropped by the Sydney Morning Herald for a series of similar cases.

Ahmed was exposed by ABC TV’s Media Watch in 2012 and consequently lost his regular spot as a commentator for Fairfax Media.

On Monday the blogger Ketan Joshi accused Ahmed on Twitter of plagiarising the US political website Prospect in his latest article for the Australian, a controversial opinion piece on domestic violence.

The editor of the Australian, Clive Mathieson, told Guardian Australia he became aware of the accusation on Monday.

“When the Australian discovered it, we discussed it with Tanveer Ahmed and it was decided he would no longer be writing for us,” Mathieson said.

How to Prevent Legal Psychiatric Abuse

I recently came across this article by Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D.

Of course, she is plugging a book on her website, but the advice for battered and abused women is good.

It doesn’t take long in this field to stumble upon a causality of the legal psychiatric system. If you are a battered woman or work with domestic abuse survivors, then you, too, know the incidence of abuse by psychiatric labeling to this vulnerable group of people.

Who Is Crazy?

From the moment she asserts her truth that she is “the abused,” the psychological abuse begins. She is told, “It’s all in your head.” “You’re out of your mind.” “You’re crazy!”

Then, as she ventures out into the world for support and validation of her crippling relationship circumstances, another wave of psychological insult is upon her. She can be told by the very mental health professional she sought comfort from that she is a borderline personality disorder or has a severe mood disorder.

Then, if children are involved, she could even have Munchausen by Proxy. Whatever it takes to just get a label on this ranting, whining woman. But, is she really crazy? Does she really have a psychiatric disorder? Or, are these psychiatric labels used to contain, discredit and silence the alleged domestic violence?

The Psychiatric Rape and Incarceration of Battered Women

Battered women have been institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals for decades. It’s the tried and true means to silence the abuse to her and save face for her abusive partner or former partner.

When the label doesn’t do it in and of itself, more stringent measures are taken to impose psychiatric confinement to the battered woman. She could be picked up by the police and escorted into a 72-hour psychiatric hold for “evaluation.”

We have seen women parked in mental institutions just because their abusive partners claim they belong there. The saddest cases I see are the women who are in and out of psychiatric hospitals over and over again for a span of years.

These women can be subjected to psychotropic medications, solitary confinement, physical restraints and electroshock treatment all in the name of mental health “care.” In many cases, they can emerge from the psychiatric system unrecognizable to their family and former friends.

Often, when they do return to their lives, they discover they have no family or friends. It is not uncommon for their former abusive partners to engage the support of the victim's immediate family to carry out the psychological abuse toward them.

How to Prevent Legal Psychiatric Abuse

The answer to “How to Prevent Legal Psychiatric Abuse” rests in the statement/question. The operative word is “prevent.” You must be vigilant in your steps to prevent it, because once it starts, it quickly can spiral out of control.

Here are some things you will want to know to help you prevent legal psychiatric abuse.

1) Never subject yourself to a voluntary psychiatric hospitalization unless you yourself are seeking care by doing so.

2) Recognize that a psychiatric residential stay is not required to do a psychological evaluation.

3) Pick your own mental health professional, rather then subjecting yourself to the care of someone chosen by your abusive partner.

4) Give yourself a reality check... Seek the input of an independent professional not entangled in your court case to provide you with psychological care and assessment.

5) Trust your gut even when it offers up mixed signals. Deep in your soul, you know who is really "crazy."

If you are a domestic abuse survivor, you will want to keep your eyes wide open and follow the above pointers while you campaign for your safety and psychological well-being.

Psychiatrist hired as chair at University of Alberta resigns amid sex scandal

As reported in the Star

A psychiatrist facing an allegation that he had sex with a patient in Ontario has resigned from his new job as department chair at the University of Alberta.

Dr. Claudio Soares was hired to head up the university’s psychiatry department effective Sept. 1, but was placed on leave before he could start.

The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons is investigating a charge of professional misconduct against him. It’s alleged that Soares had a sexual relationship with a female patient between November 2007 and May 2009.

At the time, he was a professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and also director of the Women’s Health Concerns Clinic, which is affiliated with the school.

Jo-anne Nugent, a spokeswoman at the University of Alberta, said she couldn’t confirm when staff officially hired Soares or when they found out about the allegation against him.

The university’s website says he visited the Edmonton campus several times as a candidate for the job and made research presentations as early as January.

Nugent said Soares was placed on leave the same day he was to start as chair. And on Monday he “resigned effective immediately.”

Nugent wouldn’t say whether the university plans to review its hiring procedures.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario issued a hearing notice about Soares on July 11. On Aug. 7, it sent a public notification to other provinces informing them that Soares was not to be left alone with female patients during its investigation.

Documents also allege that Soares failed to fully co-operate with an investigator from the college.

College spokeswoman Kathryn Clarke said Soares no longer has a licence to practise in Ontario. His certificate of registration expired on Sept. 1 when his academic appointment ended at McMaster.

“Despite the fact that he is no longer licensed, the referral to discipline remains in effect because we have continuing jurisdiction for professional misconduct or incompetence.”

She said it may take a couple of months before a hearing date is set.

Kelly Eby, a spokeswoman for the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Alberta, said it’s not known if Soares had applied to practise in the province, but he is not currently listed as having a licence or permit.

She said Soares didn’t necessarily need one. If his job as chair at the University of Alberta were strictly administrative, a permit would not have been required.

The British Parliament's Health Select Commitee has issued a damning report on the alarming failings in children’s mental health services

You can read the report online here and download a PDF of the 179 page report as well.

As reported in the Mirror:

Thousands of mentally unwell children are being failed because of “serious and deeply ingrained problems” in the provision of care, MPs warn today.

In a damning 117-page report, the Health Select Committee lays bare the alarming failings in children’s mental health services.

The official House of Commons probe was prompted in part by a series of campaigning articles in the Mirror, which submitted evidence to the committee’s inquiry.

Its report warns how “in many areas early intervention services are being cut or are suffering from insecure or short term funding”.

[...]

Earlier this year the Mirror uncovered how 4,391 children aged 10 or under had received treatment for stress, anxiety or depression since 2009 at two of the biggest NHS mental health trusts.

But Tory MP Dr Sarah Wollaston said it was a “disgrace” that data had not been collected centrally for over a decade.

She highlighted how the cost of a child’s in-patient bed in a mental health ward costs £25,000 a month. If that sort of cash had been spent on early schemes such as drop-in services it could have helped avoid the need for dozens of children to be admitted to hospital, she said.

While it is praise worthy that they want to do something for the children, they seem to be overlooking the inherent failure of psychiatry itself. No wonder the system is in such deplorable condition.

Ex-psychiatrist in Cresco sex case has long history of lewd behavior

As reported in the Pocono Record

Charged in Monroe County with soliciting sex from what he believed to be a 13-year-old boy, a former psychiatrist has had his license revoked in three states including Pennsylvania, and served jail time in New Jersey for lewdness, according to the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine.

[...]

Monroe County District Attorney's Office detectives arrested Kessler at his home Friday.

This resulted from an investigation detectives began in May, after a woman told state police a suspicious adult had been contacting her 13-year-old son on Facebook.

Authorities said this adult, identified as Kessler and using a fake name online, contacted a detective posing as the boy and began a sexual conversation.

Authorities said Kessler, thinking he was still talking to a minor, sent links to pornographic videos, along with a photo of a nude male he identified as himself, and told the detective he wanted to perform oral and other sex. Kessler's license to practice psychiatry in Pennsylvania had been revoked in July 2012 by the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine, said Pennsylvania Department of State spokesman Ronald Ruman. Kessler's license revocation was the latest development in a troubled history that began in 2001. The Board of Medicine's license revocation ruling reveals the following details:

• A graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and Central Connecticut State University, Kessler was first licensed in 1999 in New York, where in June 2001 he completed a four-year internship/residency at what was then Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Hillside Hospital.
• Kessler later was licensed in Massachusetts.
• On July 1, 2001, he began a residency in a child/adolescent psychiatry program at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts.
• On July 8, Kessler was charged with "open and gross lewdness" and disorderly conduct, after two men told police he had exposed himself to them and masturbated in his car in a doughnut shop parking lot in Walpole, Mass.
• This prompted Cambridge Health Alliance to fire him from its child/adolescent psychiatry program Aug. 1.
• In November 2001, with the earlier criminal case still pending, Kessler again was charged with open and gross lewdness and indecent exposure.
• Two boys, ages 10 and 12, told police they saw him nude and masturbating in the front window of his mother's Falmouth, Mass., home.
• With two criminal cases now pending against him, and unable to find work since his termination from Cambridge Health Alliance, Kessler returned to New York.
• Because he did not renew his Massachusetts license when it came due in December 2001, the license was labeled "revoked," though not due to any disciplinary action at that time.
• Kessler applied at Brunswick Hospital Center in Amityville, N.Y., and Holliswood Hospital in Queens, N.Y.
• He omitted his Massachusetts employment on both applications, and put "no" when asked on Brunswick Hospital Center's group malpractice insurance policy application if he'd ever been charged with a felony.
• On Dec. 1, 2001, Kessler started working full time at Brunswick.
• On June 2, 2002, Kessler was convicted of open and gross lewdness in the second criminal case in Massachusetts.
• He began the long process of appealing the verdict, but there is no mention of whether he served any jail time, according to state papers.
• On June 3, he pleaded not guilty to open and gross lewdness in the first criminal case, while the disorderly conduct charge in that case had been dismissed, but the matter would be continued for another year.
• In October 2002, Kessler admitted on his New York license renewal application to having been charged with a crime and disciplined by a hospital.

Based on this, the New York Board for Professional Medical Conduct charged him in December 2002 with lying on his hospital job applications about never having faced any criminal charges.

Psychiatrist Frederick Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic in Baltimore, testified at the January 2003 board hearing on the charges.

Berlin said Kessler has "a sexual disorder characterized by exhibitionism and an urge to be seen masturbating by young males," but that Kessler at the time was being adequately treated for the disorder.

Psychiatrist Marc Reubins testified Kessler has "a systemic disorder characterized by anxiety and depression," while psychiatrist Seymour Block agreed with the anxiety assessment.

Deeming Berlin's testimony the most convincing, the board in February 2003 found Kessler's actions constituted "fraudulent practice" and "moral unfitness to practice medicine," and revoked his New York license.

Kessler then became a licensed life, accident and health insurance broker in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. He went to work for a New Jersey firm specializing in minimizing health insurance cost increases related to disease management.

He also gave monthly free seminars in New York for high school students and parents on maximizing college financial aid, and prepared state and federal income tax returns for people and businesses.

Meanwhile, the first criminal case against him was finally dismissed in June 2003.

In September of that year, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine moved to take disciplinary action against Kessler's Massachusetts license based on the conviction in the remaining criminal case and his New York license revocation.

In November 2004, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned the criminal conviction.

Despite this, the Board of Registration in Medicine in July 2006 revoked Kessler's right to renew his Massachusetts license.

The board found he had "undermined public confidence in the integrity of the medical profession, lacked good moral character and had been disciplined by another state for the capacity to deceive and defraud."

After moving to Pennsylvania, Kessler in November 2006 applied to practice medicine in this state.

The Board of Medicine in January 2007 denied his application based on the New York and Massachusetts license revocations.

Kessler and Reubins, the psychiatrist who had testified on his behalf before the New York board, appeared at an October 2007 appeal hearing.

Reubins told the Board of Medicine that Kessler had been in no further trouble since 2001, was getting treatment for his anxiety and wanted to get back into medical practice.

Agreeing with Reubins that Kessler should have another chance to practice medicine, the board in December 2007 granted Kessler a five-year probationary license with terms and conditions, including the successful completion of a board-approved clinical skills evaluation/remediation program.

From October 2008 to June 2009, Kessler worked at ISL Psychiatric Services in Stroudsburg, and then as associate medical director for a school-based partial hospitalization program in Monroe and Northampton counties from July 2009 to May 2011.

He traveled among area schools, treating children with various mental illnesses.

From 2010 until March 2011, Kessler covered for the staff psychiatrist at Shawnee Academy in Shawnee-on-Delaware, a residential treatment facility for children with severe mental illnesses.

He was then at Pocono Psychiatric Associates in Smithfield Township.

But trouble again surfaced in November 2010, when Kessler for the third time was charged with lewdness.

Three juvenile males allegedly saw him masturbating in a vehicle at the Sutton Park Mall in Flanders, N.J.

Kessler in March 2011 pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 days in county jail and fined $1,000. This led to his Pennsylvania license eventually being revoked in July 2012.

It's unknown how or if Kessler was employed when charged Friday in the current criminal case.

He was placed in Monroe County Correctional Facility in lieu of $50,000 bail and will appear in district court at a future date.

Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, Beverly Hills Psychiatrist Who Treated Anna Nicole Smith, Has License Suspended

As Reported in the Huffington Post

LOS ANGELES -- State medical board officials say a Beverly Hills psychiatrist who treated Anna Nicole Smith has had her license suspended for a criminal conviction involving the Playboy Playmate.

The March 30 decision by the Medical Board of California did not name any patients in the case against Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, but the filing listed the court number of the Smith case.

Eroshevich's license was revoked, but the revocation was stayed.

Instead, Eroshevich's license will be suspended for 90 days and she will be placed on five years of probation by the state licensing agency for wrongly prescribing opiates and other misconduct.

As terms of her probation, the board ordered Eroshevich to take classes on prescribing practices, ethics. She must also undergo psychiatric and medical evaluations. When she returns to practicing medicine, it will be under the supervision of a monitor approved by the state's licensing agency.

Eroshevich was with Smith when the former Playboy Playmate checked into the Florida hotel, where she later died of an accidental overdose.

According to the medical examiner's office in Florida, Eroshevich authorized all 11 prescription medications in the Florida hotel room where Smith was found unresponsive shortly before her death on Feb. 8, 2007.

More than 600 pills – including about 450 muscle relaxants – were missing from prescriptions that were no more than five weeks old.

Eroshevich was initially convicted of two felonies in the drug trial involving the treatment of Smith. One was later thrown out and the other was reduced to a misdemeanor. The misdemeanor is under appeal.

According to the medical board filing, Eroshevich admitted misconduct in signing off on two workers' compensation and disability claims without actually examining the patients.

The examinations were done by Eroshevich's colleague in 2004 and 2006.

Misuse of Psychological Tests in Forensic Settings: Some Horrible Examples

As seen on ParentingPlan.net We have not quoted the entire paper, but only the introductory section with a few of the smaller examples.

The original post has many fine examples, plenty of detailed references, and is oriented to situations where parents are separated. Unfortunately, given other news reports of recent years, this paper is still quite relevant

Misuse of Psychological Tests in Forensic Settings: Some Horrible Examples

Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield

American Journal of Forensic Psychology, Volume 11, Issue 1

Psychological tests are often used inappropriately and are misinterpreted and overinterpreted in the forensic setting. This harms the person being evaluated and interferes with the cause of justice. It also does a disservice to the reputation of psychologists and the science of psychology. Actual examples of misuse of particular techniques and tests and misinterpretation illustrate what has been done in forensic settings.

A forensic evaluation is different from a clinical evaluation. When an evaluation is done in the clinical setting, the conclusions are used to develop a treatment plan. These conclusions form working hypotheses which can be confirmed or rejected during treatment. However, in the forensic setting, a one-time decision is made about the individual — a decision which can markedly affect the person's life.

If tests are misinterpreted in the clinical setting, the treatment plan developed from the evaluation may not be the most effective for the client. However, since treatment plans are generally modified and revised throughout the course of treatment, the mistaken conclusions can be corrected. But, an erroneous decision in the forensic setting can result in immediate and severe consequences, such as losing custody of a child or being jailed. If decisions and recommendations by the psychologist are not based on adequate data, the psychologist is acting both incompetently and unethically.

In addition, conclusions drawn by the psychologist are subject to cross-examination in the adversarial setting. If the conclusions are not based upon adequate data, the psychologist's testimony will be discredited or impeached by a skillful opposing attorney. Therefore, the psychologist should only present conclusions in reports and testimony which can be defended when challenged in cross-examination.

In the course of examining hundreds of reports, we have seen many examples of tests that are misadministered, misinterpreted, overinterpreted, or should never have been given in the particular setting. We are presenting a sample of these to illustrate what should be avoided by any psychologist who does forensic evaluations.

DRAWINGS

Tests such as the House-Tree-Person (HTP) and Kinetic Family Drawings are often overinterpreted and misinterpreted. There is a lack of validity and reliability in the use of drawings as projective assessment devices. In a review of the Draw-A-Person test in the Seventh Mental Measurements Yearbook, Harris (1) notes that there is very little evidence for the use of "signs" as valid indicators of personality characteristics. With children's drawings there is so much variability from drawing to drawing that particular features of any one drawing are too unreliable to say anything about them. The Tenth Mental Measurements Yearbook (2), in reviews by Cundick and Weinberg (p.422-425) continues the consistent finding since the first edition, 1938, that interpretations of drawings (as are often done in forensic evaluations) are unsupported by empirical evidence. Both reviewers note that there are no normative data establishing reliability and validity of the Kinetic Drawing System.

Here are some of the examples as given:

Example 2

A four-year-old girl was asked to draw a picture of herself and the family doing something. She instead, according to the school psychologist who was evaluating her, "seemed to be preoccupied with drawing circles within circles which she called 'caves.' Her second representation bore a significant resemblance to male genitalia (when asked what it represented, she reported that it was a ball rolling into a lion's cave)." This was interpreted as being suggestive of sexual abuse and the fact that the child has been subjected to some type of traumatic experience.

When we saw the child, now age five, we tested her and found borderline to low-average intelligence and no ability to draw anything other than scribbled circles. The child clearly had difficulties with visual motor perception and indeed, could not draw, a fact which was ignored by the other evaluator. This example, therefore, illustrates the importance of recognizing the child's developmental level.

Example 5

A four-year-old girl's drawing of a tree in the HTP was considered significant because the child, when asked to draw a tree, also drew a cactus. This was interpreted in terms of "unconscious expression of danger and fearfulness." However, the child was not asked if she had a cactus in her yard (this was in Texas).

The child also brought a drawing of a clown's face to the therapist which she had ostensibly drawn while in the waiting room with her parents. The clown was interpreted as being significant because "there is an element of sadness in the clown's eyes." This clown is of much greater sophistication and detail than the child's other drawings. When pressed about this in his deposition, the psychologist acknowledged that the parents probably drew it and she colored it. This example illustrates both problems in administration and in interpretation.

Example 20

A baby was returned to the foster mother following a visit with the parents and was described as having the "smell of sex." An emergency hearing was held in which social services attempted to cut off visits because this "smell of sex" triggered the suspicion that the parents were having sex with their baby. A psychologist agreed that the sex smell was significant and indicated probable abuse on the part of the parents. Fortunately, the parents had been at a church potluck dinner during the entire visit so they were able to disprove, the accusations.

We can just imagine the horror that happens when this gets involved with separation and divorce proceedings.

Science and the Psychiatric Publishing Industry

A paper in the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Volume 11, Number 1, 2009 , pp. 29-36(8) Publisher: Springer Publishing Company, by McLaren and Niall

Abstract

Objective: An empirical examination of the scientific status of psychiatry.

Method and Results: Analysis of the publications policy of the major English-language psychiatric journals shows that no journal meets the minimum criteria for a scientific publishing policy.

Conclusion: Psychiatry lacks the fundamental elements of any field claiming to be a science. Furthermore, its present policies are likely to inhibit scientific development of models of mental disorder rather than facilitate them. The psychiatric publishing industry is in urgent need of radical reform.

We told you so.

Fourteen psychiatric patients have been sterilised in the Perm region of Russia against their will and without an appropriate court ruling.

As reported in Russia Today

This was the striking discovery made by the region’s human rights committee over the course of a two-year investigation, revealing numerous grave offences.

After receiving more than 50 complaints from patients of the 15 psychiatric asylums in the Perm region, an investigation was launched to analyse living conditions in these institutions. After two years of detailed study, a series of shocking discoveries was made.

Read more

Fourteen young women, born in the 1970s and 1980s were sterilised against their will, without the signed permission of their families or any appropriate court ruling. As the report states, the most poignant justification of these actions came from an unnamed asylum staff member. They did it so that the women “would not give birth to lunatics”.

In the Russian legislation, sterilisation of legally capable women is only permissible with their accord and when they’re aged over 35, or already have two children. When the woman is not legally capable, the signed permission of two gynaecologists and a court ruling are required.

There exists, however, an appendix to the law, which states that sterilisation can be carried out based purely on medical reasons if there exists “a threat to the woman’s life or health”. Staff have tended to interpret this appendix at will, using it to cover many sterilisations.

According to the human rights commission, the staff at the institutions were not even aware that a court decision was required to conduct the procedure. They based their decision simply on the advice of the institution’s administration.

Other infringements

It was discovered that the shocking cases of unlawful sterilisation were not the only cases of severe breaches of human rights in these psychiatric institutions. The official report drafted by Tatyana Margolina outlined three main areas of severe infringements of human rights in these institutions: medical care, the right to housing and the right to fair employment.

Perhaps the most fundamental malpractice in the institutions is the lack of adequate healthcare provision. According to the report some psychiatric institutions do not even have an appropriate medical licence.

Despite being state organisations, the institutions need to renew their medical licence every few years. Of those whose license had expired, the most recent renewal was in 2001. Since then, no new medical or diagnostic supplies were provided and no new medical personnel had been taken on.

“In several institutions medical attention was not provided and people simply died,” Margolina pointed out in the report. “Their death was a result of appropriate measures not being taken in due course.”

The lack of a medical licence resulted in the absence of basic medicines and diagnostic equipment. This has resulted in several deaths due to negligence in the last two years alone. The report refers to a number of unnamed cases. The causes of death named by coronary analysis include untreated and misdiagnosed pneumonia, a stomach ulcer and meningitis.

The last case is given specific attention. The patient was admitted to an institution and passed away only days later. The orderly simply gave the patient medicines against flu-like symptoms and proceeded to ignore the case for the next two days, during which the patient’s condition steadily worsened. Renewed medical attention was only given when the patient was on his deathbed, but it was too late. Even then, an appropriate diagnosis was not made.

Staff members point out that they don’t even call ambulances for the patients since the medics simply refuse to drive out to the institutions. In most places, no individual rehabilitation programmes were developed for patients. Some do not even have a stock of the required anti-psychotic drugs.

As a result, the patients’ abilities are not developed to their fullest potential. According to the report, some of the patients would have had the chance to do basic manual work and provide for themselves if given the appropriate training. Nevertheless, such fundamentals as sports equipment, professional and educational training and development programmes simply do not exist in Perm region institutions.

The living space provided for the patient is often far less than the basic minimum required by the Russian state. Some patients live in as few as three square metres of individual space with no access to privacy – nurses often break through locked doors and into restrooms as well as shower facilities.

The report points out that the conditions in the institutions breach several clauses of the UN charter and the human rights declaration: the patients do not have access to medical care, individual space, basic dignity, employment and personal development. Nevertheless, the report only goes as far as “advising” the local administration and the relevant institution to take these facts into account.

Regional problem?

Despite the gravity of the problem and its deep-rooted nature, the local administration appears to be inert in dealing with it. RT tried to get information of what the regional government is planning to do in order to resolve this shocking breach of basic human rights.

“Tatiana Margolina is refusing to give any comments on the situation, referring to the fact that it is a regional problem and the report was released regionally,” the human rights commissioner’s press office told RT.

When the local administration’s press office was contacted directly, RT was told that the general office does not have the competence to comment on such issues, and the human rights commission should be contacted.

As a result, no official comment was given on how the living conditions of the psychiatric patients will be ameliorated. So, despite the severe cases of human rights breaches and even abuse from state care providers being brought to public light, it remains unclear what will be done.

SSRI Pushers under Fire

We now have another excellent story by Evelyn Pringle, as seen in the Scoop Independent News, and elsewhere.

SSRI Pushers under Fire

By Evelyn Pringle

Throughout the 1990's, most doctors who attended conferences, medical seminars and other events were not aware that the so-called "key opinion leaders" encouraging them to prescribe the new generation of antidepressants for everything under the sun, including to children as young as infants, were nothing more than highly paid drug pushers for Big Pharma.

For years, the research that showed SSRI antidepressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) were dangerous and practically useless was kept hidden, while the studies published and presented to potential prescribers painted a glowing picture of success. These days, a person would be hard pressed to find someone who does not have a family member or friend labeled mentally ill and taking drugs like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro and Celexa, or their chemical cousins Effexor, Cymbalta and Wellbutrin.

About once a year, a new round of headlines about all the money made by the SSRI pushers comes and goes; but nothing really ever seemed to stick, until now.

The Senate Finance Committee, with the ranking Republican, Senator Charles Grassley, leading the charge, is investigating GlaxoSmithKline regarding new revelations in a report filed in litigation showing that the company manipulated the numbers on adverse events related to suicidality in clinical trials back in 1989, to make it appear that Paxil did not increase the risk of patients experiencing suicidal behavior when, in fact, trial subjects on Paxil were eight times more likely to attempt or commit suicide than patients taking placebos.

Quite a few of the top pushers are also under investigation by the Committee due to revelations that millions of dollars has changed hands between the SSRI makers and the academics who signed off on some of the most fraudulently reported research in the history of modern medicine. A full list of names is easy to compile by scanning the literature on SSRI studies conducted on children. The same names appear repeatedly.

In alphabetical order, the Fortune 500 team of pushers, at a minimum, includes Drs Joseph Biederman, David Brent, Jeffrey Bridge, Daniel Casey, David Dunner, Graham Emslie, Daniel Geller, Robert Gibbons, Frederick Goodwin, Martin Keller, Andrew Leon, John Mann, John March, Charles Nemeroff, John Rush, Neal Ryan, David Shaffer, and Karen Wagner.


Truth Buried in Litigation Graveyard

On February 6, 2007, the world famous historian on psycho-pharmacology, Dr David Healy, published a commentary entitled, "Why you should never trust new wonder drugs," in the UK's Daily Mail stating:

"Ten years ago, I sat faced with boxes and boxes that contained a dirty secret. Inside were thousands of confidential internal company documents about Prozac."

"The secret they revealed was that public statements about the safety of the drug were a lie; that the company knew Prozac was responsible for a raised risk of suicide and was only slightly more effective than a placebo."

Several years later, Dr Healy recounts, he was faced with the secrets of Paxil. "No one outside the two companies, and few within them," he writes, "knew what those boxes contained; I saw them because I was an expert witness in a court case."

"Documents prised out of companies by American court cases," he says, "have become the main way we have of discovering the truth about some of our best-selling drugs."

"The scientific literature, the very place doctors would look for a warning," he writes, "contained barely a hint of problems.”

"What's more, no one seems likely ever to have to answer for what appears to be fraud," he points out.

"In other organizations when evidence of disregard for public safety emerges, heads roll," Dr Healy said. "But there have been no resignations following these drug disasters - barely a flicker of embarrassment."

The UK's medicines “watchdog,” the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, he reports, "has never taken any action against the academics who make fraudulent claims in ghostwritten articles, nor doctors working for the companies who repeat such claims, even when they have been shown to be untrue."

"And no one in Britain," he points out, "has any means of finding out why their husband or child might have died."

Seven years before Dr Healy wrote this commentary, in a Prozac case for which he served as an expert witness, the plaintiff's legal team learned that Eli Lilly had withheld evidence in a jury trial when the May 7, 2007 Boston Globe reported that Lilly had agreed to pay $20 million for the rights to a patent on a new version of Prozac that would reduce "akathisia," the very side effect long believed to increase the risk of suicidal behavior, three months before the trial began.

While testifying under oath, Lilly researcher, Gary Tollefson, had told the jury, "there is absolutely no medically sound evidence of an association between any antidepressant medicine, including Prozac, and the induction of suicidal ideation or violence."

When in fact, the wording in the patent for the new formula stated "fluoxetine (Prozac) produces a state of inner restlessness (akathisia), which is one of its more significant side effects," and the "adverse effects which are decreased by administering the R(-) isomer of fluoxetine include but are not limited to headaches, nervousness, anxiety, insomnia, inner restlessness (akathisia), suicidal thoughts and self mutilation."

Patients who lived to talk about a failed suicide attempt have described the SSRI-induced akathisia, as being so unbearable that their only option for relief seemed to be death.


America’s Most Wanted

Dr Daniel Casey was a major player in the SSRI drug-push and useful in many ways to the companies promoting the drugs. He was the chairman of the very first FDA advisory committee that met in 1991, to decide whether a warning about the increased risk of suicide should be added to the label of Prozac, the first SSRI approved in the US, and voted it down. He was also the chairman of the advisory panel that voted to approve Zoloft for Pfizer later that same year.

Bob Sorenson was a sales representative for Pfizer for 21 years. He moved to Oregon shortly before Zoloft was approved. During the first week at his new location, Pfizer’s chief of marketing at the time told him he needed to start calling on a doctor by the name of Dr Daniel Casey at the V.A. in Portland because he was very important to the company.

Dr Casey worked at the V.A., but never treated patients for depression, Mr Sorenson says. "His expertise [was] psychotropic drugs and experimentation."

The chief of marketing said he was interested in finding out what Dr Casey thought of the company's new drug, Zoloft. The company tried to call on him that day, but Dr Casey was not in. Mr Sorenson called on him later in the week and learned that Dr Casey was the lead investigator on Zoloft, which was up for approval by the FDA advisory committee Dr Casey chaired.

"He said I shouldn't be there, but I did ask how it looks for the drug and he said very well," Mr Sorenson recalls.

Dr Casey ended up making a ton of money from Zoloft. "He told me personally one time that he made enough from Pfizer in one year to purchase two cars," Mr Sorenson reports.

Dr Casey became a member of Pfizer's Advisory Board for Zoloft, which meant "all expense paid trips," including honorariums, to anywhere Pfizer wanted him to advise, at any location in the world, Mr Sorenson explains.

"Many speakers were sought out that would only give lectures that put Zoloft in a positive light," he notes, "there was no room for a balanced lecture."

"Dr Casey later became one of the most sought after speakers for the Pfizer promotion of Zoloft," he says, "the reps loved him because of his positioning of Zoloft."

Mr Sorenson was often told to take information to speakers, "including Dr Casey, to have them add the information to their lectures," he reports. "I look back at it now and see how wrong it was," he states.

"As far as the suicide issue," Mr Sorenson says, "the standard company line was that parents and doctors should be monitoring these kids because after being on Zoloft they finally feel good enough that they can carry out their suicide tendencies."

"Another tactic was to blame Paxil and Effexor," he recalls, "it was those drugs that caused suicidal tendencies, not Zoloft."

"Finally," he notes, "the statement was made that if they didn't take Zoloft, they probably would have committed suicide anyway."

Sales reps would practice and rehearse these statements at sales meetings to be able to respond to concerns or objections raised by Doctors about Zoloft’s relationship to suicidality, he says. "There would be contests as to who could detail the drug the best with objections," he recalls.

Pfizer was able to get rid of employees and still keep them quiet, he says, by offering severance packages of up to a year's salary, while forcing them to sign a confidentiality agreement, in which they promised not to sue, or speak adversely about Pfizer, as part of the deal.

Many people were so surprised at being terminated that they felt forced to sign because Pfizer kept the pressure on, he explains. They feared they wouldn’t find another job before financial problems set in, but regretted signing the agreement later, he says.

Mr Sorenson did not sign an agreement when he was fired. His young son had developed cancer, but Pfizer expected him to continue to attend out-of-town meetings and refused to believe that his son was terminally ill, he recalls. After 20 years with the company, Mr Sorenson was let go when he insisted that he needed to remain near his dying son and distraught wife. The Sorenson's son passed away on April 1, 2005.


Going rate for Legal Drug Pushers

SEC filings for Cypress Bioscience provide a good source for estimating how much money legal drug pushers can make each year, from each company, because the names of several appear in these filings. According to its website, “Cypress Bioscience is committed to developing and commercializing pharmaceutical products and personalized medicine laboratory services that allow physicians to serve unmet medical needs.”

Drs Martin Keller and Charles Nemeroff, two of the most prolific depression-mongers, have served on the company’s board of directors, on its scientific advisory board and as consultants for this company. Under their 2004 Consulting Agreements, Cypress was required to pay them $50,000 per year for services rendered up to and including “two days per fiscal quarter.” In addition, the company could request additional services at a rate of $5,000 per day.

During 2003, Dr Nemeroff was paid $19,000 for additional services under his agreement, and Dr Keller was paid an extra $18,000. But they were only making $2,000 per day that year. As members of the Psychopharmacology Advisory Board, Dr Nemeroff earned $19,000 and Dr Keller $18,000 in 2003.

For their service as directors of the company in 2002, they each received $24,000. They were also offered stock options regularly. Cypress is only company. A bio on Dr Keller in a July 25, 2002 agenda for an annual meeting states that he is also a consultant to, "Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Forest Laboratories, Janssen, Merck, Inc, Organon, Otsuka Pharmacia/Upjohn, Pharmastar, Pfizer, Inc. and Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories."

It also shows he serves on the scientific advisory boards of, "Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cephalon, Cyberonics, Inc., Eli Lilly, Forest Laboratories, Merck, Inc, Mitsubishi, Organon, Pfizer, Sepracor, Scirex, SmithKline Beecham, Somerse, Vela Pharmaceuticals and Wyeth-Ayerst."

Dr David Dunner and a few more of the usual suspects appear in the Cypress SEC filings as advisory board members as well.

Dr Nemeroff's role in the prostitution of research is legendary. In April 2004, Shannon Brownlee, author of, "Overtreated," wrote an article in the Washington Monthly entitled, "Doctors Without Borders," after he was caught failing to disclose his financial ties to the companies whose treatments he promoted in a paper in Nature Neuroscience, and noted:

"With financial ties to nearly two dozen drug and biotech companies, Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff may hold some sort of record among academic clinicians for the most conflicts of interest.

"A psychiatrist, a prominent researcher, and chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral science at Emory University in Atlanta, Nemeroff receives funding for his academic research from Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Wyeth-Ayerst--indeed from virtually every pharmaceutical house that manufactures a drug to treat mental illness.

"He also serves as a consultant to drug and biotech companies, owns their stocks, and is a member of several speakers' bureaus, delivering talks--for a fee--to other physicians on behalf of the companies' products."

Dr Nemeroff stood to "reap as much as $1 million in stock" from just one company that manufactured one of the products in his Nature Neuroscience paper, she noted.

"But the drug industry's most powerful means of boosting the bottom line is funding research," Ms Brownlee writes, "which allows companies to control, or at least influence, a great deal of what gets published in the medical journals, effectively turning supposedly objective science into a marketing tool."

She notes how companies are able to routinely delay or prevent the publication of data and specifically how the majority of studies which found antidepressants to be no better than placebos, "never saw print in medical journals."

In conclusion, she states, "I'm struck more than anything by the apparent lack of shame among clinicians when it comes to this issue."

Two years later, on July 19, 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that the journal, Neuropsychopharmacology, published by the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), planned to publish a correction of a favorable review of a new depression treatment device because it failed to list the ties of the eight academic authors to the device maker, Cyberonics, including lead author Dr Nemeroff, the editor of Neuropsychopharmacology at that time. The FDA had approved the VNS device in July 2005 over the objections of "more than 20" FDA scientists, Bloomberg reported a day earlier on July 18, 2006.

"This is about as classic an example as you'll ever find of conflict of interest and manipulation by thought leaders who are beholden to corporations," Dr Bernard Carroll, a member of the ACNP, told Bloomberg. "This article is a piece of a slick, skillfully coordinated PR campaign directed by the corporation," he said.

Ten days before the Wall Street Journal article, Cyberonics had sponsored a little noticed symposium on treatment-resistant depression at the annual Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum Meeting. The main presenters at the July 9, 2006 event were Drs Nemeroff, Dunner, and Keller (the lead author of the infamous Paxil “Study 329” on adolescents).

"In recent years, new treatment modalities have emerged, among them, the only FDA-approved treatment option specifically designed for this patient population, VNS Therapy," Dr Dunner stated in a press release for the event.

Dr Dunner was one of the authors vouching for the new device in the Neuropsychopharmacology paper. However, a “stamp of approval” from this guy should be taken with a grain of salt. Back in March 1995, he also vouched for Paxil as lead author of a study titled, "Reduction of suicidal thoughts with paroxetine in comparison with reference antidepressants and placebo," in the journal of European Neuropsychopharmacology. However, he later admitted that he never reviewed any of the actual data from that study.

Dr Nemeroff apparently learned nothing from the public embarrassment of the previous scandals. Last week, he was forced to step down as Chair of Emory’s psychiatry department. According to a December 23, 2008 posting by Ed Silverman, on the popular blog, Pharmalot:

"Under pressure from a US Senate Finance Committee investigation, renowned psychiatrist Charles Nemeroff is giving up the post he held for 17 years and must follow new restrictions on his outside activities, according to an Emory University statement.”

“Emory’s own investigation found Nemeroff received more than $800,000 from Glaxo, which paid Nemeroff more than any other drugmaker, but he never reported the fees. There were more than 250 speaking engagements between 2000 and 2006.”

"Moreover, Emory will not submit any National Institutes of Health grant or other sponsored grant or contract requests in which Nemeroff is listed as an investigator or has any other role for a period of at least two years,” Pharmalot reports.

All total, Dr Nemeroff earned more than $2.8 million from drug companies between 2000 and 2007, but failed to disclose at least $1.2 million to Emory, according to the Senator.

Dr Keller’s disclosure records are under investigation as well He also appears center stage in a new book by former Boston Globe reporter, Alison Bass, called, "Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial," The book contains a treasure trove of insider revelations with specifics on Dr Keller's endless conflicts of interest, along with other academics on the take. However, Ms Bass first broke the Keller story back on October 4, 1999, in the Globe, when she reported that he was forced to forfeit "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in state grant money in 1998.

She explained how in the same year that Dr Keller authored a review article in "Biological Psychiatry," and concluded that the newer antidepressants Zoloft, Bristol-Meyer’s Serzone, and Wyeth’s Effexor were more effective, he received $77,400 in personal income and $1.2 million in research funding from Bristol-Myers, as well as $8,785 in personal income from Wyeth.

In "Side Effects," she notes that Dr Keller did not report any income to the IRS from Glaxo for 1998, but says he did receive money from the Paxil maker, and also earned $62,500 from Celexa maker Forest Labs that year.

Dr Keller published 3 studies, "with colleagues," in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, touting the efficacy of Zoloft in 1998, and received $218,000 in personal income and more than $3 million in research funding from Pfizer the same year, Ms Bass reports.

The "colleagues," referred to include the all-time champion of child drugging, Dr Joseph Biederman, the main promoter of the bogus epidemic of childhood bipolar disorder. He too is under investigation for taking $1.6 million from drug companies between 2000 and 2007, and only disclosing a fraction of that amount to Harvard. On December 30, 2008, Harvard’s teaching hospital, Massachusetts General announced that Dr Biederman was no longer participating in several industry-funded trials and had agreed to “not to participate in any outside activities that are paid for or sponsored by industry, such as consulting activities or speaking engagements.”

In most of the SSRI trials conducted on children, "colleagues," will also include Dr Graham Emslie of Prozac fame, and the Zoloft Czar, Dr Karen Wagner, both from the University of Texas.

Back in April 2004, the British Medical Journal published a paper by a research team led by Dr Jon Jureidini, head of the department of psychological medicine at Women's and Children's Hospital in Australia, after a review of the clinical trial data on the safety and efficacy of antidepressant use with children. The review included the published trials, along with some unpublished data made public by the Committee on Safety of Medicines in the UK.

The Australian team was extremely critical of the published papers on the major trials of Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, with Emslie, Wagner and Keller listed as lead authors. "In discussing their own data," the team wrote, "the authors of all of the four larger studies have exaggerated the benefits, downplayed the harms, or both."

"It is vital," they wrote, "that authors, reviewers, and editors ensure that published interpretations of data are more reasonable and balanced than is the case in the industry-dominated literature on childhood antidepressants."

Seven months later, the New York Times ran a report by Barry Meier on November 29, 2004, throwing another spotlight on the trail of corruption within the SSRI research factories, and zeroed in on Dr Wagner. He noted that, from 1998 to 2001, she was one of several researchers participating in more than a dozen industry-funded pediatric trials of antidepressants and other drugs, and that some of the results were published, but many were not.

In her Zoloft study, Dr Wagner acknowledged that she had received "research support" from several drug makers including Pfizer, which paid $80,000 to the center in connection with the test, Mr Meier reports. But she did not state that she received “sizable payments” from Pfizer for work related to the study, he says.

The same month that patients were first recruited for the Zoloft trial, in a financial filing with the school in December 1992, Dr Wagner reported that she received more than $10,000 from Pfizer, with no further details. A lawyer for the school told Meier that Dr Wagner said Pfizer had paid her $20,500 during the course of the Zoloft trial. But records for payments she received in speaking and consulting fees could not be located.

In September, Dr Wagner’s name was added to the Senator Grassley’s investigative roster, along with Dr John Rush. Between 2000 and 2005, Glaxo alone paid Dr Wagner $160,404, but only $600 was disclosed to the University, according to the Senator. She was also paid over $11,000 in 2002, by Eli Lilly, and that money was not disclosed either. Lilly paid Dr Rush $17,802 in 2001, but he only reported $3,000, Senator Grassley said.

Dr Emslie’s financial trail to the drug makers gained media attention last summer due to his prominent role in the “Texas Children's Medication Algorithm Project,” and the creation of a drug formularies for children. He was chairman of the panel that wrote guidelines instructing doctors to prescribe SSRIs off-label to kids for depression in 1998. On August 18, 2008, the Dallas Morning News ran the headline: “Conflict of interest fears halt children's mental health project.”

“A state mental health plan naming the preferred psychiatric drugs for children has been quietly put on hold over fears drug companies may have given researchers consulting contracts, speakers fees or other perks to help get their products on the list,” the News reported. University disclosure forms indicate that Dr Emslie “has made at least $130,000 in drug company speakers fees and consulting contracts since 2002,” the paper noted.

In discussing the investigation of Dr Wagner on the Senate floor, Dr Grassley pointed out that she was a co-author on Paxil Study 329. In 2001, when the study was published, Glaxo “reported paying her $18,255,” he said. “Study 329 was cited in a New York case where GlaxoSmithKline was charged with ‘repeated and persistent fraud,’” the Senator added.

Dr Emslie was also a co-author on the Paxil study and a check of the full list for 329, reveals that 5 of the co-authors appear with Dr Emslie on the guidelines for the “Children's Medication Algorithm Project,” including Karen Wagner, Boris Birmaher, Barbara Geller, Neil Ryan and Michael Strober. Dr Rush’s name is also on the Texas guidelines but he moved to Singapore last August.

********

Evelyn Pringle

epringle05@yahoo.com

(Written as part of the SSRI Litigation Round-Up, Sponsored by Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman’s Pharmaceutical Litigation Department at http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com)

(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Scoop Independent News and an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate America)

Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research

Seen on the ZME Science Blog, via a link to the story recently on Reddit, in reference to this paper

A drug company is a commercial business whose focus is to research, develop, market and/or distribute drugs, most commonly in the context of healthcare; from wikipedia. But according to a study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development, contrary to the industry’s claim.

But how could this be you might ask yourself. Well the answer is fairly easy; regardless of its purpose of helping people it is a bussiness and thus it has to make money and the way of making money is by advertising more and researching less. The researchers’ estimate is based on the systematic collection of data directly from the industry and doctors during 2004, which shows the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent 24.4% of the sales dollar on promotion, versus 13.4% for research and development, as a percentage of US domestic sales of US$235.4 billion.

In case you are wondering who made this study well the research is co-authored by PhD candidate Marc-André Gagnon, who led the study and Joel Lexchin, a long-time researcher of pharmaceutical promotion, Toronto physician, and Associate Chair of York’s School of Health Policy & Management in the Faculty of Health.

“In our paper, we make the case for the need for a new estimate of promotional expenditures by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry,” says Gagnon. “We then explain how we used proprietary databases to construct a revised estimate and finally, we compare our results with those from other data sources to argue in favor of changing the priorities of the industry.”

This study is very important as it shows the most accurate image yet of the promotional workings of the pharmaceutical industry, says Lexchin. But even this could be wrong a bit because there are other advertising campaigns which could not be taken into consideration such as ghost-writing and off-label promotion so in fact these companies are probably spending more than twice advertising rather then researching. As well, note the authors, the number of meetings for promotional purposes has dramatically increased in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, jumping from 120,000 in 1998 to 371,000 in 2004, further supporting their findings that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is marketing-driven.

Sacramento judge castigates psychiatrist who vouched for killer

A Report from the Sacramento Bee

Napa State Hospital's attempt to release a killer into community treatment in Sacramento was based on the "horrifying" testimony of a psychiatrist who "clearly committed perjury in this court," a judge said Monday.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Kevin J. McCormick made his comments about the Napa psychiatrist, Dr. Nathan Thuma, when he ruled from the bench that Ronald Benjamin Toppila is not fit for outpatient treatment and must remain in the mental hospital for killing his mother four years ago.

In a decision that will keep Toppila confined indefinitely on a jury's verdict that he was not guilty by reason of insanity, McCormick lashed Thuma for recommending in March that the defendant be released into community treatment even though at that time the psychiatrist had examined the client for barely a half hour.

McCormick said Thuma "could not have had enough information" to make the recommendation and that it was "beyond belief" the doctor could have reviewed Toppila's medical records in the short time he'd been on staff at Napa.

Thuma demonstrated "a total lack of independence and judgment" by concluding that Toppila did not present a danger because, in quoting the psychiatrist, "we all trust Mr. Toppila," McCormick said. The judge said Thuma's "demeanor and manner" in court "could only be described as horrifying."

"He clearly committed perjury in this court," McCormick said of Thuma. "He testified inconsistently at varying times. He showed a complete lack of any insight whatsoever into Mr. Toppila's history."

Thuma did not return a telephone call for comment Monday. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Mental Health said agency director Stephen Mayberg plans to review the judge's comments about Thuma.

"He would take it very seriously and look into it," the spokesman, Nancy Kincaid, said.

"If the judge expressed concern over someone's testimony or professional performance, that would be looked into both by the director of the department and by the executive director at the hospital."

McCormick did not specifically identify areas of Thuma's testimony where he thinks the psychiatrist lied under oath. In Thuma's testimony on Oct. 27, however, he wound up on both sides of a question on whether he thought Toppila had "malingered" to sway the therapists who were evaluating him. There were also inconsistencies in Thuma's testimony over whether he was aware of evaluations done on Toppila before the Oct. 7, 2004, beating death of his 86-year-old mother, Hilma Tone.

Deputy District Attorney Dawn Bladet hailed the judge's ruling, saying in an e-mail: "Toppila's continued confinement in Napa State Hospital is necessary to protect the public safety interest."

Toppila's lawyer, Robert J. Saria, said Toppila and his client's family were disappointed by the ruling. Saria said Toppila "is committed to returning to Napa and pursuing his treatment plan and engaging in all the treatment he is required to."

Toppila, 68, a long-time licensed clinical social worker, stabbed his mother 52 times and also bludgeoned her in the fatal attack in her South Land Park apartment.

Judge McCormick said he was also disturbed by the testimony of Antonio Alocer, an official from the Central Valley Conditional Release Program, which would have coordinated Toppila's community placement if he was released from Napa. McCormick said no treatment plan had been determined for Toppila in the event of his release. The judge said Alocer "could not tell me" where Toppila would be placed.

Alocer could not be reached for comment Monday.

"I cannot state with any degree of certainty based on the evidence that I heard in this courtroom that Mr. Toppila no longer poses a danger to the health and safety of others," McCormick said.

Psychiatrist guilty of misconduct after freeing dangerous patient

From a Report out of Plymouth, England

A Plymouth psychiatrist who released a dangerous schizophrenic from a mental health ward hours before he tried to kill his mother was today found guilty of 'recklessly' putting the public at risk.

Dr Andrea Tocca described the 39-year-old as 'no danger to himself or others' and discharged him from Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, Devon, a day after he assaulted a female patient.

Soon after arriving home, the man, referred to as GA, told his mother: 'I know what I have to do to you' and battered her repeatedly over the head with a spade.

Dr Tocca was found guilty of misconduct after the GMC panel decided that he had 'recklessly put the public at risk' in releasing GA from the ward.

Panel chair Ralph Bergmann said: 'This panel is particularly concerned by your decision to discharge GA on April 25, 2006.

'You had been responsible for the care and treatment of GA for some three months prior to discharging him.'

Mr Bergmann said during this time he had been informed by the patient's previous doctor in Torquay that 'if GA became acutely psychotic, his mother may be at risk.

'He (the doctor) had also informed you that GA had made two very serious suicide attempts.

'The panel accepts the proposition put forward by your counsel that your conduct in discharging GA amounted to a single episode of significant error.

'However, you had access to GA's medical history, you had become very familiar with his condition and you ought to have been very alert to the risks and potential consequences of discharging him.

'Your decision to do so leaves the panel in no doubt that this was serious misconduct on your part.

'As the consultant psychiatrist responsible foe the care and treatment of a vulnerable patient, you behaved irresponsibly and recklessly in allowing GA to be returned to the community.

'You thereby put at risk not only the patient but also his mother and the public.

'Taking all these matters into account, the panel has determined that your fitness to practise is impaired because of your misconduct.'

The GMC panel will now consider whether to kick Dr Tocca out of the medical profession.

The hearing was told that Dr Tocca did not read GA's medical notes and decided to 'make up his own mind' about the patient.

On April 24, GA assaulted a female patient on the unit by holding her in a headlock and punching her.

His medical records show that he had also threatened other patients and believed that the staff on the unit were trying to kill him.

Marios Lambis, for the GMC, said: 'At 9.55am on April 25, Dr Tocca made an entry in GA's notes stating that in his view, that assault on the female patient was not a product of his mental state but rather a result of the high level of stress he was experiencing on the unit.

'He recorded that once the police had completed their investigation into the assault, he would discharge GA, and twenty minutes later he recorded: ''In my clinical opinion, GA is not detainable under the Mental Health Act and he is not really a danger to himself or to others.'''

In a statement read to the panel GA's mother, referred to as Mrs A, told the hearing that Dr Tocca telephoned on April 25 to say her son had assaulted a patient but he was sending him home.

[...]

The GMC heard that GA had developed brain damage after falling from a tree swing at the age of 12 and became 'passive and apathetic.'

In 1991, at the age of 22, he was admitted to hospital in Manchester with paranoid psychotic symptoms, the hearing was told.

Mr Lambis said: 'He would not let anyone into his flat, his furniture was broken and he was talking in an incomprehensible manner.

'He had become suspicious and withdrawn.'

In 1993, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was admitted to acute mental health units nine times over the following three years.

Two years later he made threats to kill his grandmother.

GA took an overdose in 2003 and was later sectioned.

On August 8 2005, he set fire to his mattress five times before lying on it and burning himself in a suicide attempt.

He spent 11 weeks in the burns unit at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol.

Dr Tocca admitted being told by GA's doctor that he became acutely psychotic his mother may be at risk.

He also admitted that he ought to have known that GA had made threats to kill his grandmother and had shown previous incidents of violence, and he discharged GH when he ought to have known he should not have been discharged.

Psychiatrist pays for misconduct

A report from the Hamilton Spectator, near Toronto, Canada

A Hamilton psychiatrist has been handed an expensive penalty after a disciplinary panel accepted his admission of professional misconduct.

Dr. Brian Kirsh, medical director of the chronic pain management unit for Hamilton Health Sciences at Chedoke Hospital, appeared before the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario yesterday.

A friend of Kirsh's alleged in 2007 the doctor failed to indicate the friendly, rather than professional, nature of a meeting where the man and his wife sought marital advice.

The panellists said Kirsh had blurred professional boundaries and they expected he would not make the same mistake again.

He was told to pay the $3,650 hearing cost, to take a $1,200 professional boundaries course and to make results of the hearing public online.

Before coming to Hamilton in 2003, Kirsch ran a family medical practice in Thornhill. He was friends with the couple for 18 years. The wife asked if he would meet with her and her husband. All three were members of the same religious community, and Kirsh and the woman worked together in that community. They met at his Thornhill practice in March 2007.

Kirsh asked the woman for her OHIP card at the beginning of the meeting, during which he advised them to seek a professional marriage counsellor for the troubles in their relationship.

The woman later told the college she understood Kirsh met with them as a family friend. The man, however, thought it was as a professional.

The woman asked to meet with Kirsh again that year. The two met at his office, where Kirsh told her he had feelings for her. She told him she was ending her marriage for reasons unrelated to him. The couple separated soon after.

Before the husband filed his complaint, Kirsh e-mailed him to apologize for any confusion and said he had seen the couple in a "spirit of friendship."

An agreed statement of facts says Kirsh admits to professional misconduct by taking the woman's OHIP card before the first meeting, by seeing them in his former medical office and by failing to "communicate clearly (to the man) that he was not seeing the couple in his professional capacity."

Boston Legal: TV Drama Or Reality Show?

The Website PharmaLot has an item noting the intrusion of recent scandals involving Harvard Psychiatrist Joseph Biederman into primetime TV in the form the TV show Boston Legal

There is little time to watch TV on the Pharmalot corporate campus, but we were directed to a recent episode of ‘Boston Legal,’ that compelling drama about - what else? - a bunch of emotionally challenged lawyers, because there was mention of a recent pharma issue being investigated by the US Senate Finance Committee.

To wit, the committee is looking at alleged instances of undisclosed conflicts of interests involving academics who receive National Institutes of Health grants to research certain drugs and payments from drugmakers for consulting, research or speaking (back story). This is prominently noted by actress Candace Bergen, along with other matters such as pharma ties to the FDA, Congress and doctors, in a speech to a jury about a woman who suffered a heart attack after taking a drug…

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(To watch, please go to this link and click on season 5, episode 6, and skip to about 27 minutes into the program, although it can take awhile to load and you may need to install a plug-in).

Psychiatrist reprimanded unprofessional and unethical conduct

Report from the Charleston Gazette, out of West Virginia

A South Charleston psychiatrist has been publicly reprimanded by the state Board of Medicine and placed on probation for three years after he allegedly carried on an inappropriate personal relationship with a patient through telephone conversations, e-mail and text messages.

Dr. Russ Voltin, who also works as co-medical director of the forensic evaluation unit at South Central Regional Jail, denied any sexual contact with the patient.

Voltin said the former patient concealed her identity from him, according to a consent order filed last week by the medical board.

The patient, whose name was not disclosed, alleged the online relationship with Voltin lasted from 2004 to 2007. The Board of Medicine started investigating the complaint in March 2007.

The board concluded that Voltin took part in "unprofessional and unethical conduct." Medical board members voted to suspend Voltin's license for three years, but stayed the decision, allowing Voltin to continue to practice while on probation.

Voltin also was directed to see a board-approved psychotherapist who must submit reports on Voltin's mental health every four months.

In addition, the medical board ordered Voltin to attend medical ethics classes. The board vowed to revoke Voltin's license if he takes part in inappropriate contact with patients during the next three years.

Voltin, who became a state-licensed psychiatrist in 1989, works at PsyCare Inc. in South Charleston.

He serves as regional coordinator for forensic psychiatry and assistant professor at the West Virginia University School of Medicine.

Voltin, 45, also has been a guest lecturer at WVU's law school. He was director of Thomas Memorial Hospital's psychiatric unit from 1994 to 2001.

Voltin did not return phone messages left at his South Charleston office Wednesday.

Drug Companies – The New Sin Stocks

A column in the American Chronicle by John Carey

It is part of the American dream to put a dollar into a company stock today, and get lots of dollars back when you sell. The only modifier to this dream by some is an aversion towards "sin" stocks – avoiding companies that make alcohol, cigarettes, pornography, guns or provide gambling.

But when I suggest that you pitch drug-companies into this same sin-bucket you probably think I´m joking. But I´ll let you in on my reasoning, which includes numerous lawsuits against the companies, lying by the company executives to market their drugs under false pretenses for profit´s sake, and drugs pushed on the public which knowingly harm more people with the side-effects than they ever help.

Side Effects

All drugs have side-effects! Taken for a short time to cure something worse, it is a beneficial exchange. But drug companies can´t make the huge profit for an antibiotic you take for two weeks as they can for a "mental-health" pill you take every day for the rest of your life!

With the first group of antipsychotics marketed, drug companies freed many people from the state hospitals. But one debilitating side-effect of these drugs (like Thorazine, Haldol and Prolixin) was that they caused involuntary, repetitive, and purposeless movements. In the 1990s, newer drugs called atypical drugs (like Clozaril, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Geodon and Risperdal) largely replaced the older meds and were marketed (at eight to twenty times the cost of the prior drugs) as causing fewer involuntary movements, but they have their own side-effects such as weight gain, diabetes and early death.

Tens of thousands of people sued Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca, saying that their drugs, Zyprexa and Seroquel, gave them diabetes and elevated blood sugar levels. Eli Lilly reports having paid $1.2 billion to settle over 30,000 lawsuits.

In 2008, Alaska sued Eli Lilly for the medical costs of Medicaid patients who developed diabetes while taking Zyprexa. One of Eli Lilly´s top executives sent an email encouraging Lilly to promote Zyprexa for a use not approved by federal drug regulators (known as "off label") and while doctors can prescribe a drug "off label", it is against federal law for a drug company to encourage this practice. Alaska settled with Lilly for $15 million and now other states are going after this legalized drug pusher. (Global sales of Zyprexa approached $4.8 BILLION in 2007.) Lilly also faces 1,200 cases as well as a federal probe over its marketing tactics.

Janssen's Risperdal got FDA approval to expand the use of the drug to address adolescent schizophrenia, the irritability of autism in kids and for bipolar disorder. In 2006, it was the most heavily prescribed psychiatric drug in New York´s Medicaid kids program, given to 17,393 children. It is also blamed in lawsuits nationwide for side-effects including diabetes caused by weight gain, Parkinson's-like movement disorders and gynecomastia, in which males grow breasts which have to be surgically removed.

The pharmaceutical companies have made astronomical profits since promoting the atypicals to treat mental disorders. Since the drug companies couldn´t claim that the atypicals were better than the old drugs, they paid doctors to say so. This brought about a widespread false belief that the newer medications were safer and worth the additional billions of dollars in taxpayer money to make these the states´ preferred drugs of choice. Since then, the life expectancy of people treated in community mental health centers has plunged to a point twenty-five years LESS than the average due to a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease as a side-effect of these drugs. (For comparison sake, being homeless cuts ten years off your life expectancy.) Chuck Areford said in a 2008 article titled "Antipsychotic Drugs are Doing Harm" that this "… must be ranked as one of the worst public health disasters in U.S. history."

Drugs Marketed Under False Pretenses

If you are the CEO of a company, a large part of your multi-million dollar compensation is tied to how well the stock does during your tenure. This has led the companies to promote their drugs much like the rest of Madison Avenue promotes cars or the latest perfume. However, while the brand of car you drive doesn´t adversely affect your health, which psych drug you take to hide your problems does.

The entire basis for the use of psychotropic drugs is a THEORY, not a fact! The media presents it as a fact that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. However, even the psychiatric bible clearly states that the cause of depression and anxiety is unknown. Jeffrey Lacasse, a doctoral student co-authoring a study on this is quoted as saying, "… there are few scientists who will rise to its defense, and some prominent psychiatrists publicly acknowledge that the serotonin hypothesis is more metaphor than fact."

In 2006 4-year-old Rebecca Riley died of an overdose of psychiatric drugs that had never been approved or tested for children. She had been taking drugs for ADD and bipolar since she was two years old and died with four prescription drugs in her system. Her heart and lungs were damaged due to prolonged abuse of the prescription drugs.

Cheyenne Delp, a five year old, died in 2004 while on five prescription medications. One of the anti-depressants required that she undergo an EKG to determine if her heart was healthy enough for her to take it. The child psychiatrist, Dr. Saran Mudumbi, testified that Cheyenne was out of control and that she suffered from paranoia, depression and anxiety.

One of the main psychiatrists pushing treatment of children with psychatric drugs is Dr. Biederman who has financial ties with fifteen drug companies and serves as a paid speaker or adviser to half of them, including Eli Lilly & Co. (Zyprexa) and Janssen Pharmaceuticals (Risperdal).

A drug is approved by the FDA for narrow uses, but gets tried off-label on hard-to-treat conditions and the drug company´s sales force stokes up this usage until the research catches up years later that shows the initial enthusiasm was unfounded. With the limited schizophrenic and bipolar market for the atypicals, the drug companies marketed them as safer than their predecessors They came to be tried beyond the approved uses for nursing-home residents, prisoners, and children younger than six years old. Total U.S. sales for this class of drugs reached $13 billion in 2007, doubling the sales just five years earlier.

Research by three universities says long-term use of anti-psychotics offers "no long-term benefit for most patients." And while anti-psychotic medication is not licensed to treat dementia it is being given to 100,000 elderly patients in England to keep them manageable! Studies show that these drugs increase the risk of strokes and other harmful side effects. One study showed that after 3½ years, 60% of the Alzheimer´s patients given a placebo were still alive while only 28% of the group given the anti-psychotic medication were.

While an estimated 30-60% of U.S. nursing home patients are placed on antipsychotics, at the Bronx´s Providence Rest nursing home, the staff give massages to the patients. Utilizing this therapy, the nursing home has cut its use of antipsychotics to 2-3%, the lowest rate of any nursing home in New York!

The drug companies funded the committees which set up the state plans for defining which drugs to use for which treatments. Drug company profits then soared because the atypicals were listed as the first three choices over the older generic drugs. The states´ medical costs for patient care also soared! Now that the links to the drug company funding and the terrible side-effects have become known, nine states have sued Eli Lilly, four sued Janssen, and two sued AstraZeneca. Dozens of more states have teamed in a joint investigation, seeking billions of dollars in restitution for money they say they overpaid for atypicals through Medicaid.

In Minnesota alone, since 2002, drug companies have given $88 million in gifts, grants and fees to Minnesota doctors and caregivers. Several states, including Pennsylvania, are suing some drug makers for promoting their drugs beyond approved uses and commissioning "ghost-written" articles to increase sales

Drug companies fund and support front groups like NAMI and CHADD and programs such as TeenScreen, in order to create a demand for their products covertly. These groups may not promote drugs directly but rather they promote disorders, legitimizing mental illnesses that have never been validated as true medical diseases. Drug companies cannot make these claims directly but accomplish the same goal through these other groups and programs. TeenScreen, an invention of psychiatrist (with drug company connections) David Shaffer, is a screening program asking children as young as 9-years-old questions like, "Have you often felt very nervous when you´ve had to do things in front of people?" and "Are you Hispanic or Latino?" Based on their answers, TeenScreen refers them to mental health "professionals", who inevitably decide that these children have symptoms defined as "mental disorders", writing prescriptions for antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs for children with no objective medical testing. TeenScreen´s staff and advisory board are loaded with ties to Big Pharma.

(See: http://www.teenscreentruth.com/teenscreen_advisory_board.htm).

TeenScreen´s Director, Laurie Flynn was formerly at the helm of NAMI, which received over 11 million dollars in drug company funding from ´96 to ´99: Janssen ($2.08 million), Novartis ($1.87 million), Pfizer ($1.3 million), Abbott Laboratories ($1.24 million), Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals ($658,000), Bristol-Myers Squibb ($613,505) and Eli Lilly $2.87 million.

In 2008 researchers using the Freedom of Information Act, dug out information on Prozac that shows it is no more effective than a placebo! The study included clinical trials that Eli Lilly chose not to publish when they studied the drug. The data showed that patients had improved - but those on the placebo improved just as much! (The only exception was in the most severely depressed patients.) 40 million people take this drug, earning tens of billions of dollars for Eli Lilly.

Is it the same sin to give capital to Playboy as it is to molest a woman? That is a question that only you can decide (with perhaps help from your pastor), but it doesn´t take much of a leap to imagine someone viewing porn and then going out and committing rape. You aren´t on the corner selling crack but you are just as guilty if you gave the crack dealer $10,000 to finance his supply.

Who knows what potentials for bad hearts, mis-wired brains and early deaths these drug companies have caused our society in their profit-search for a daily-pill-solution to what ails us? If putting money ahead of people´s lives and preying on those needing real help doesn´t make you a sin company, I don´t know what does.

So whether you now agree that pharmaceutical company stocks belong in the sin-stock category, or you simply believe that there are just too many liabilities for these companies to be good investments, either reason is enough to remove them from your portfolio forever.

Neither the author of this article nor his family will profit financially in any manner from drug stocks losing value

A mental patient died after workers at a North Carolina hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom,

From the MSNBC Report

A mental patient died after workers at a North Carolina hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom, said federal officials who have threatened to cut off the facility's funding.

The state sent a team Tuesday to help Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro draft new procedures to ensure patients receive proper care.

An investigator's report released Monday found that 50-year-old Steven Sabock died in April after he at one point choked on medication and had been left sitting in a chair for close to a day at the facility about 50 miles southeast of Raleigh. Surveillance video showed hospital staff watching television and playing cards just a few feet away.

It was not clear from the report exactly how Sabock died. The report states that he was in a hospital bed and later found unresponsive. A phone call placed after business hours to the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner rang unanswered Tuesday.

Federal officials have threatened to cut off funding because of Sabock's death and a report that a physician punched a patient after the teen bit the doctor.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Tom Lawrence said the state team also may investigate what, if any, disciplinary action should be taken following Sabock's death.

Lawrence said the Sabock incident is isolated but that officials are concerned.

"It's not the kind of thing that we in our wildest dreams would expect to happen in our hospitals - in our wildest nightmares, I guess," Lawrence said.

Sabock's father, Nicholas, declined comment when reached by telephone Tuesday evening. A man who answered the phone listed for Susan Sabock, Steven's wife, hung up without commenting.

The investigation released Monday said Sabock died in April after Cherry Hospital nurses left him unattended in a chair and did not feed him or help him to the bathroom.

The report said Sabock sat, unattended, in the room for four work shifts. The report also found that Sabock, formerly of Roanoke Rapids, ate nothing the day he died and had little food in the three days preceding his death. The 47-page report also said workers were supposed to be closely monitoring Sabock's condition and may have forged documents that said they had.

The state has until Aug. 23 to file a report with the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services detailing what changes officials are making, Lawrence said.

If the center rejects the report, federal funds will be cut off beginning Sept. 1, Lawrence said.

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