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.
Brian Kenney and Tavy Deming of the Pennsylvania firm of Kenney Egan McCafferty & Young, represented the Geodon whistleblowers. The off-label marketing allegations were first made in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Harrisburg psychiatrist, Dr Stefan Kruszewski.
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