1
1
1
The American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education (APIRE), is another philanthropic arm of the APA, established in 1998 "to establish the leadership role of the APA in contributing to the scientific base of psychiatric practice and policy," with a stated mission to "improve the quality of psychiatric care through research, education, health policy analysis, and dissemination."
For the March 6, 2010, paper, "Pharmaceutical Philanthropic Shell Games," in Psychiatric Times, Lisa Cosgrove, PhD and Harold J. Bursztajn, MD, investigated the financial relationships of the APIRE board members with pharmaceutical companies that manufacture psychiatric drugs and found 9 of the 16 board members have industry ties.
"The fact that over half of APIRE's board has financial ties to industry is problematic, and it is noteworthy that this percentage is a highly conservative estimate," they wrote.
"Current disclosure policies do not require reporting of pooled industry monies (eg, when companies give large sums of money to academic departments, units, hospitals, and medical schools)--even when direct benefit, such as salary, may be derived from pooled funds," they point out.
In addition, one board member who reported "no disclosure" in an APA publication "was found to be on the speakers' bureau of multiple pharmaceutical companies," they note.
The APA is currently revising psychiatry's billing bible, the DSM-V. "Approximately 68% of the members of the DSM-V task force reported having industry ties, which represents a relative increase of 20% over the proportion of DSM-IV task force members with such ties," Cosgrove and Bursztajn report.
"Also, of the 137 DSM-V panel members who have posted disclosure statements, 77 (56%) have reported having industry ties, such as holding stock in pharmaceutical companies, serving as consultants to industry, or serving on company boards--no improvement over the 56% of DSM-IV members who were found to have such industry relationships," they point out.
The APA also issues "Clinical Practice Guidelines," with recommendations for the use of specific drugs for mental disorders. "Ninety percent of the authors of 3 major clinical practice guidelines in psychiatry had financial ties to companies that manufacture drugs explicitly or implicitly identified in the guidelines as recommended therapies for the respective mental illnesses," according Cosgrove and Bursztain.
They also found the corporate advisory council of the Foundation "is made up of pharmaceutical companies that contribute significant funding to APF and that manufacture medications recommended in the APA's CPG."
On June 11, 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported that the APA "has seen a $7.5 million decrease in pharmaceutical industry dollars over the past year a more than 10% cut in revenue, which funds its research and education activities."
"The biggest changes at the APA have come at its money making annual meeting," the Journal said. "Over the past three years it has been phasing out industry sponsored symposia dinners and talks." This translated to a loss of $1.8 million to $1.9 million in industry funding between 2008 and 2009, an APA official told the Journal.
However, according to Martha Rosenberg's coverage of the group's annual meeting in a May 31, 2010, Scoop article, although 200 protestors were chanting "no drugging kids for money," and "no conflicts of interest," at the convention hall, "polarizing figures" were still present at this year's event.
For instance, she writes: "Sitting next to outgoing APA president Alan F. Schatzberg, MD, even as protestors chanted outside, was Charles Nemeroff, MD, former psychiatry chairman at Emory University who was investigated by Congress."
"And a paper presented about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was co-written by Harvard's Joseph Biederman, MD, also investigated by Congress for pharma financial links and considered the father of the pediatric bipolar disorder craze," she reports.
"Nemeroff was signing the Textbook of Psychopharmacology which he co-edited with Schatzberg, also investigated by Congress. Schatzberg, psychiatry chairman at Stanford, consults to seven drug companies, owns stock and patents with others and is on Sanofi-Aventis' Speakers Bureau according to the meeting's Daily Bulletin," she wrote.
National Alliance on Mental Illness
