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Last year, the National Alliance on Mental Illness became the first patient advocacy group to come under investigation by Grassley's Committee. In a letter to Michael Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of NAMI, in April 2009, Grassley asked for "an accounting of industry funding that pharmaceutical companies or foundations established by these companies have provided," to NAMI since January 2005.
"Based upon reporting in the New York Times," Grassley said, "I have come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical industry shapes the practices of non-profit organizations which purport to be independent in their viewpoints and actions."
"Specifically, it is alleged that pharmaceutical companies give money to non-profits in an attempt to garner favor in ways that increase sales of their products," he explained.
The disclosures provided to Grassley revealed that the National NAMI group receives nearly two-thirds of its funding from the pharmaceutical industry. Between 2006 and 2008, drug companies, and their foundations, gave the group almost $23 million.
After receiving Grassley's letter, NAMI's executive director sent out an email to many NAMI supporters and stated in part: "NAMI does not engage in product promotion, endorsement, licensure or certification of any product, service or program owned by a corporate sponsor."
However, Philip Dawdy pointed out the falsity of that claim on his Furious Seasons website. "Fitzpatrick has certainly engaged in product pimpery for J&J/Janssen," he wrote in his daily blog. To substantiate the "pimpery" charge, Dawdy provided a link to a blog he wrote on December 21, 2006, in response to a J&J press release put out to promote its Risperdal's me-too drug, Invega, with Fitzpatrick praising the drug using his official title of "Executive Director, National Alliance on Mental Illness."
"New and efficacious treatment options, like INVEGA, provide significant opportunities for more people with schizophrenia to manage their disease as they work with their treatment teams to live more fulfilling and productive lives," Fitzpatrick stated in the press release.
In her book, Side Effects, Alison Bass tells a story of how James McNulty, NAMI president from 2002 to 2004, failed to disclose that he was being paid thousands of dollars by drug companies to promote their products to NAMI members, and others, at speaking engagements. "In a particularly intriguing twist," she notes on her website, "McNulty laundered this drug company money through a state chapter of NAMI." Bass further explains how the scheme worked for funneling the cash to McNulty:
"He would be paid thousands of dollars to speak about the benefits of various antidepressants -- McNulty himself suffered from depression -- and rather than pay him directly, companies such as Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft, and GlaxoSmithKline, which made Paxil, would give his speaking fees to the Rhode Island chapter of NAMI, which would then cut McNulty a check."
On May 8, 2008, when the APA announced the members of the work groups who would develop the DSM5, James McNulty was listed as a task force member with an expert qualification of "President Emeritus," of NAMI.
Each year, NAMI gives awards to "Exemplary Psychiatrists," at its annual banquet. In 2008, a May 5, press release reported that "support for the awards" is provided by Eli Lilly and Janssen, Division of Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
NAMI was named as a defendant, right along with Pfizer, in a Medicaid fraud lawsuit filed by whistleblower, Mark Westlock, involving the illegal promotion of Geodon. Pfizer "conspired" with NAMI to act as a front organization in the off-label promotion of Geodon, the complaint says. Pfizer turned "NAMI into a Trojan Horse for the illegal marketing scheme to promote Geodon," for use with children on the NAMI website.
Laurie Flynn, the former executive director of NAMI, and current leader of Columbia University's TeenScreen, even went so far as to claim that with the advent of atypical antipsychotic medicines "the long-term disability of schizophrenia can come to an end," the complaint alleges.
In addition to Geodon, the drugs currently marketed by Pfizer, through NAMI and the pyramid of front groups, include the antidepressants Zoloft, Nardil, Sinequan, Effexor and Pristiq, Xanax for anxiety, the anticonvulsants, Neurontin and Lyrica, and the anti-smoking drug, Chantix, and the ED drug, Viagra.
In September 2009, the US Department of Justice announced that Pfizer would pay the largest single criminal fine, and largest combined federal and state health care fraud settlement in the history of the DOJ. The company agreed to pay $2.3 billion, with $1.3 billion in criminal fines, "to resolve criminal and civil health care liability relating to fraudulent marketing and the payment of kickbacks," according to the government's "Stop Medicare Fraud Website."
The charges included paying kickbacks to health care providers to "induce them to prescribe," or "in connection with marketing," for a list of thirteen drugs that included Geodon, Zoloft, Lyrica and Viagra. The six whistleblowers received a combined total of roughly $100 million for helping the government.
