Close Ties Between Doctors and Pharmaceutical Industry Coming Under Scrutiny

In the April edition of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, a group of prominent physicians and researchers asked medical groups to "'wean' themselves from industry support, imposing a complete ban on using corporate money for souvenir pens, tote bags, committee sponsorships for developing clinically important guidelines and training programmes."

This is important because drug companies have an uncomfortably close relationship to doctors who develop their clinical trials, and who promote the use of their drugs in treatment.

One area that I am interested in is psychiatry. In 2007, the National Institute of Health reported that the number of children being diagnosed with bipolar disorder has increased forty-fold in the past decade.

This is partially due to the work of Dr. Joseph Biderman, a Harvard professor, who is one of the country's most prominent advocates of diagnosing bipolar disorder in children, even those under the age of six, and of using anti-psychotic drugs to treat them even when said drugs are not approved for use.

Currently Dr. Joseph Biderman, a Harvard professor, is a key witness in a multi-state lawsuit brought on behalf of more than two thousand patients claiming to have been injured by psychiatric drugs known as atypical anti-psychotics.

Recently it was disclosed that Dr. Biderman failed to report $1.6 million given to him by drug firms from 2000-2007.

I focus on the subject of psychiatry, partially because no other country medicates its youth as much as we do in America, something I experienced firsthand. In 1989, at the age of fifteen, I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed Lithium, which made me feel completely spaced out and numb. It made me really clumsy. It made me fat. And it made me think I had a disorder with which I was not afflicted, which led to years of bad reactions with medications that harmed my body and my mind.

Twenty years later I do not take any bipolar medication, and exhibit ZERO signs of bipolar disorder. I'm also happier than I have ever been, a gradual change made possible through diet modification (whole foods, vegan -though the latter is an ethical choice), regular exercise, and having a stable family, treatment options that were not offered when I was fifteen. My family wasn't even provided regular counseling, just a prescription and a transfer to a holding tank in the Dominican Republic.

Hopefully the increased scrutiny on the pharmaceutical industry will cause people to realize that pills won't provide panaceas for all ills. At the least, people might think twice before swallowing.