Psychiatry under the microscope (CBS News and Sen Grassley)

[Mort Zuckerman]

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Subject: CBS news tonight about BigPharma Corruption and vaccines

Date: Jul 25, 2008 6:57 PM

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/07/25/couricandco/entry4295088.shtml
(CBS)
Sharyl Attkisson is the Capitol Hill Correspondent for CBS News. For
years, members
of Congress have been investigating financial ties between
pharmaceutical companies
and the government, doctors and researchers, research hospitals,
colleges and universities.
Sen. Charles Grassley, who has most recently been digging into money
links between
drug companies and the American Psychiatric Association, puts it this
way: “I have
come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical industry can
shape the practices
of nonprofit organizations that purport to be independent in their
viewpoints and
actions.”

In a letter to its members, the APA says it supports complete
transparency and plans
to provide Grassley with the information he's requested: "a complete
accounting
of APA revenues, except from advertising in our journals, from
pharmaceutical companies,
starting in 2003." The APA notes: "We are not alone; recent public
focus
on relationships between medicine and the pharmaceutical industry is a
challenge
for the whole field of medicine."

Indeed, the APA is not alone in being the subject of public focus and
scrutiny for
its relationships with the pharmaceutical industry. Tonight, on the
CBS Evening
News, we dig into the allegations of financial conflicts of interest
among some
widely-quoted "independent" voices in the debates over vaccine safety.
We weren't as lucky as Grassley: The groups we approached refused to
provide
us with a full accounting of their financial relationships. Although
two of the
groups receive tax benefits for their non-profit status, they are not
required to
file such details with the IRS and would not provide them to us,
either.

In the case of a prominent vaccine specialist who is routinely offered
up as an
"independent" voice to speak on vaccine safety, he, too, was unwilling
to disclose to us how much remuneration he's received from the vaccine
industry.

And the vaccine companies we asked? They said they would not, or could
not give
such information as: financial support they give to educational
institutions, physicians
and research projects; a list of outside physicians who are on the
payroll as researchers,
speakers, advisors or consultants; and an accounting of funding
provided to non-profits,
medical organizations and government entities such as IOM, NIH, CDC
and FDA. With
all of those refusals, you might be surprised to find we had enough
information
to put together a story for tonight's CBS Evening News. But you might
be more
surprised at what we did find. And we'll show you tonight.