Biederman Denies Conflict Of Interest Charges
6 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 8th, 2008 // 4:20 pm
The Boston psychiatrist, who is being investigated by the US Senate Finance Committee for allegedly failing to fully disclose payments from drugmakers, defended himself against conflict-of-interest charges in a letter to The Boston Globe.
Biederman was responding to reports that newly disclosed court documents indicated he sought funds from Johnson & Johnson to create an institute at Massachusetts General Hospital would help promote the use of antipsychotic drugs for youngsters diagnosed with bipolar disorder, the paper writes (back story here and here).
In one internal 2002 e-mail, execs at J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceutica, which sells Risperdal, discuss Biederman’s repeated proposals for the drugmaker to help fund a center on pediatric bipolar disorder. “The rationale of this center is to generate and disseminate data supporting the use of risperidone in this patient population,” according to the e-mail.
In his letter, he wrote that the center was named the J&J Center “to be transparent about its funding…”The center’s goal was to advance science; as a business, J&J sought commercial applications for our work. But any implication that J&J’s interests interfered with the center’s work is wrong. Indeed, I have published research critical of J&J compounds. I never owned J&J stock, and whether the company succeeded financially had no importance to me. What does matter to me is the treatment of children and families experiencing great suffering.”
Biederman also denied engaging in “ghostwriting.” A court document suggests Janssen employees ghostwrote a summary of a study, to be presented at a 2002 meeting of child psychiatrists, on which Biederman was to be listed as presenting author. But Biederman wrote in his letter the “primary author of the relevant article, a J&J researcher and expert scientist, was appropriately listed as the lead author.”
Earlier this year, the committee accused Biederman this summer of failing to disclose $1.6 million in consulting payments from drugmakers (look here for details). By failing to report income, he may have violated federal and university research rules governing conflicts of interest. Harvard Medical School is investigating the discrepancies.
Salmon
new information out in Psychiatric Times in the last few minutes on the safety of Ziprasidone in adolescents 10 - 17. 5% of kids on Ziprasidone had symptoms of cardiac toxicity. However there was also a lot of sedation and dizziness which could also be symptoms.
This was a 26 week study but we don’t know if symptoms occurred early (i.e. in kids who were genetically predisposed) or later. Plus we don’t know what is the distribution of kids in the study and their dosages, i.e. was it mainly 16 and 17 year olds with only a one 10 year old who would have a proportionately higher dose (unless the 10 year old was 5′8″ and weighed 170 lbs.) and yes that does happen intentionally.
There was also a safety study of Zyprexa and lithium in kids but it was ONLY 12 kids. Personally I think there is likely an increased cardiac toxicity when certain antipsychotics are given with lithium, and this study will only provide a false sense of reassurance.
See the following link.
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/1357787
Notice the info on QTcF prolongation. This is being used as a biomarker for submission to FDA but it’s probably be misleading to a degree.
Salmon
Justice in Michigan
Based on what I’m reading here, Dr. B. does not respond at all to the failure to disclose $1.6 million issue.
Jane
Breiderman is nothing but a baby killer!
David M.
Well, Schatzberg at Stanford did nothing wrong. And Goodwin did nothing wrong. Are we surprised to hear that Biederman thinks that he did nothing wrong?
When do we hear Nemeroff explain that he “did nothing wrong?”
Texan
I’m with you on this, Justice — I smell a red herring.
truthman30
Psychiatrists are in denial about a lot of things..
Because psychiatrists are the most deluded human beings on the face of the planet,..