Big Pharma Bribes Doctors to Hook Your Kids on Drugs

[ensho]

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141369/big_pharma_bribes_doctors_to_hook_your_kids_on_drugs/


Americans must start to question the legitimacy of the exploitative pharmaceutical-industrial complex and the predatory people atop them.
***


-snip-

The wave of evil washes not only the financial-industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, the energy-industrial complex, and predatory executives at AIG, Citibank, Halliburton, Blackwater/Xe, Enron, and Exxon. The pharmaceutical-industrial complex has virtually annexed the mental health profession, whose all-star opportunist team is captained by Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, the high-profile doctor most responsible for the explosion of kids on psychiatric drugs, first for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and then for bipolar disorder.


In 2008, Biederman was nailed by Congressional investigators for taking $1.6 million from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 and failing to report most of this loot to his university, a major conflict of interest in violation of the rules. In a February 26, 2009 deposition given by Biederman to several states attorneys (who were claiming that makers of antipsychotic drugs defrauded state Medicaid programs by improperly marketing their medicines), Biederman was asked what rank he held at Harvard.

"Full professor," Biederman answered.


"What’s after that?" asked one state attorney, Fletch Trammell.


"God," Biederman responded.


"Did you say God?" Trammell asked.


"Yeah," Biederman said.


As part of this legal proceeding, Biederman was forced to provide documents relating to his interactions with Johnson & Johnson, the giant pharmaceutical company. These documents included presentations he made over several years summarizing the work of his center financed by Johnson & Johnson. On March 20, 2009, the New York Times reported that Biederman pitched Johnson & Johnson that his proposed research studies on its antipsychotic drug Risperdal would turn out favorably for Johnson & Johnson -- and then Biederman delivered the goods. The Times also reported that in 2005 Biederman proposed a study on adolescents using the ADHD-drug Concerta, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, and he assured the company that his study would "extend to adolescents positive findings with Concerta." And in 2006, Biederman was co-author of a study showing that children given Concerta for a prolonged period did not have reduced growth, allaying a significant concern about the medicine -- but in contradiction to what has now been established.

-snip tells just what these drugs really do to kids who don't need them-

In my clinical experience, there are many children whose only problem in life is not doing their homework but who are medicated with ADHD drugs; and the majority of their parents had no idea that they were giving their children amphetamines or amphetamine-like substances. Unfortunately, too many Americans are willing to surrender their own authority to damn near every pompous authoritarian rather than question the legitimacy of exploitive industrial complexes and the predatory people at the top of them.
--------------------------

all true

[Gman]

1. Just another paranoia-inducing screed against ADD and ADHD

two disorders that are very real. Millions of children and, yes, adults depend on their Adderal or Ritalin to be able to function. That just bothers some people who would like to think these disorders do not exist.

By the way, no one stays "addicted" to Adderal or Ritalin. Yes, there are some withdrawal symptoms, but it's not heroin or nicotine.

[ensho]

2. if a medicine has withdrawal symptoms then it is an addiction

really

[Warpy]

4. You are dead wrong.

There are two separate phenomena, dependency and addiction.

People can become dependent on a wide variety of drugs from insulin through steroids and opiates without becoming addicted to them. Withdrawing these drugs will cause physical symptoms, even fatal symptoms, but there will be no craving for the drug, itself.

Addiction is characterized by cravings for the drug that are never quite satisfied. Withdrawal not only produces the physical symptoms, but will produce intense cravings that persist long after the physical symptoms are gone.

The drug war has people stupidly confusing the two separate phenomena. Treating dependency is simple if the drug is one that can be withdrawn. Treating addiction is extremely difficult and requires intense psychological work.

Please learn the difference.

[ensho]

6. taken long enough dependency turns into addiction

isn't dependency a nice word for addiction? some dependency/addiction is easy to overcome and some is pure hell to stop re: meth.

[Warpy]

7. You are dead wrong

Chronic pain patients can be managed for years without developing addiction. So can people with conditions that require daily steroids. They will have severe physical symptoms if the drugs are withdrawn. They will not crave those drugs.

Please learn this difference. It is an important one. The DEA has been lying to you.

[ensho]

8. I disagree

nt

[Warpy]

9. That's because you're dead wrong.

and you know it.

When prejudice comes up against evidence based medicine, I'm afraid the latter will always win.

You are wrong. Sorry about that.

[timeforpeace]

15. And you are correct to do so.

[TexasObserver]

16. Of course, you're correct.

[Gman]

19. You don't do crank for ADD or ADHD

a mixture of amphetamine salts is not bathtub crank.

[YOY]

5. Yeah and it bothers me that I was diagnosed with it as a kid.

And I don't have it. I am a fully functional professional.

[Gman]

18. Do you not have it or

do you just think you don't have it? In other words, a psychiatrist should be the doctor that makes the diagnosis. Did a doctor like a psychiatrist make the initial diagnosis and then another say that diagnosis was wrong? My daughter sometimes doesn't think she needs her Adderal but her mom and I know when she has taken it. The difference is amazing. She was diagnosed by a psychiatrist.

[Warpy]

3. Biederman might be an ass, but this article is rubbish

and more paranoia and conspiracy hogwash.

Kids who genuinely have ADHD will remind their parents to give them the drugs, that's how incredible the difference is when they're on them. Kids who have ADHD can't function without those drugs and thank goodness we have them.

That's what parents of normally rambunctious kids don't get, that kids with ADHD are different.

Parents who are alerted by the schools need to pay the bucks to get the kid a real evaluation by a neurologist or pediatric psychiatrist before the kid goes on drugs. However, if the evaluation comes back confirming ADHD, the drugs can create real miracles for those kids.

Sometimes it's not a conspiracy, kids. Sometimes it's legitimate medicine.

[Stargazer09]

11. Sometimes

I've seen teachers "recommend" evaluations for kids that they can't control. The kids aren't suffering from ADHD, they are just healthy and full of energy.

I do think the ADHD drugs are over-prescribed, but then again, I think anti-depressants are over-prescribed, too. I often feel like I'm the only woman in the country who isn't taking something for depression; my friends talk about their medications as if it's perfectly normal for everyone to take them.

I know that their are kids who genuinely need the medications. I'm not debating that. I am simply stating that the medications are likely over-prescribed, and the pharmaceutical companies are guilty of doing all that they can to increase sales.

[Warpy]

12. That's the reason for my caveat

that parents need to get the kid a real evaluation. Teachers might pick up on some problems but they're not qualified to diagnose.

[Avalux]

10. Beiderman is a bad apple. Can't condemn all clinical research due to his actions.

Just like anything else, there will be those individuals who exploit out of greed - who cut corners and don't follow the rules. Your subject line and the gist of the article are sensationalistic and unrealistic.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ensho]

14. you have bad manners too

nt

[TexasObserver]

17. There's no question that Big Pharm tells doctors what to do.

And no question they have used schools to mandate their drugs.

And no question that some of the drugs they push are addictive.

Only deniers would suggest otherwise.