Wow... this really makes me think when I open up my medicine cabinet. Thanks for posting this.

I found you from depression introspection, Marissa's awesome blog. I have added you to my Google Reader, and I will say your investigative writing has opened up a lot of questions for me.

Thanks for "keepin' 'em honest". :-)

Warm regards,
Michelle aka The Beartwinsmom

I counted $705,000 total contributions for NAMI in the link. This was for one quarter of the year? Then that adds up to two million eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year to NAMI organizations 2,820,000. Wow.

you're right mark. i was ignoring the smaller amounts given to local and state level nami groups. my prejudice is that i am mostly interested in the national level group. nad yes it's a serious chunk of change. nami national gets about half of its 12 million annual budget from pharma cos. the local and state groups generally have their own separate budgets.

NAMI Virginia got $40,000 in the first quarter right during our legislative session and surprise, surprise, they succeeded in killing an amendment by our Governor to finally put psychiatric drugs in the Medicaid formulary along with all other drugs for all other conditions. What kills me is that our state Dept. of MH also gives NAMI-Virginia money out of its budget. Why support a group with tax dollars that is using pharma money to lobby? I can't think of the name for that kind of circle, but I'm sure there is one.

This 17 page (!) list is a doozy. It all looks so benign if you're coming to this as a neophyte. Makes Lilly look so caring and generous (yah, sure!). I hope it won't be long before all pharma companies have to disclose this stuff. Here are just a few of the workshop titles that caught my eye: "In Plain English Please - Translating the Results of Clinical Trials in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder to Clinically Relevant Results," "Atypical Antipsychotics: Therapeutics and Ethics," "Healing: Helping Soldiers and Their Families," and "Fine Line: Mental Health/Mental Illness." I see tremendous irony in those titles.

What a shock.
Why does this surprise anyone? I could link a boatload of Beiderman links here where he trialed olanzapine [Zyprexa,Lilly]on kids [he's from Harvard mafia]but people can research that easily on the net like I did.
I wonder how much fun the psychiatrists are all having at the APA convention today?
Bet Lilly bought the booze. Oh yes, that's right psychiatrists are not bought and paid for like whores.

You have to hand it to NAMI for how they've managed to gain cultural approval for the social engineering it does. That consumer page is a lesson in our Orwellian times, what to do to hide your agenda behind happy puppy hopeful loving weasel words. The materials are carefully groomed to include references to wellness practices -- exercise, diet, relaxation, friendship, etc., sprinkled with judicious use of the much more ominous injunctions of "acceptance" and "staying motivated." The materials are designed to make certain the average person reading them will have no idea of NAMI's actual agenda. The In Our Own Voice Consumer program doesn't get down to it until 4 pages in, when we meet Debbye, suffering from depression, Borderline PD and an eating disorder:

Debbye has been in recovery since 2000, when she was put on the correct medication. Her treatment plan is tri-fold. She goes to counseling, support groups and takes medication prescribed by her doctor. She stresses that the combination is so important because each deals with a different challenge.

So, they got the "doctor" in there, job done. And "depression" to support the chemical imbalance, because even NAMI knows medication is not and never has been indicated for personality and eating disorders. Slick.

$40,000 to NAMI Georgia for "Open Access to Medications for Those with Mental Illness." Based on Illinois experience I'd say this translates to "Keep Zyprexa Tops on the Medicaid Drug Formulary." NAMI's biggest campaign here in recent years was an all=out (and successful) fight against a measure that would let Medicaid pay for Zyprexa only when a physician wrote a letter stating an older drug had not worked for that patient. They coined the term "Fail-First" policy and spoke darkly of rationing, etc. As a result, Medicaid card holders who have trouble finding a doctor who will take public aid (because they're paid about 20% of market price at best) can get Zyprexa without end (which is paid for at 100% of market). And Eli Lilly has generously endowed a group home run by Thresholds for men who suffer both from schizophrenia and uncontrolled diabetes. Nice, huh?

Ovarian cancer and Fibromyalgia are just 2 reasons to beware of Lilly's quest for the top billing for pain killers. (Cymbalta).

On the Lilly Grant Website there is the report of the whole year 2007 too.

I saw a whopping amount of money for some university's "evidence-based fibromyalgia" research, and have noticed an increase in the number of fibromyalgia drug ads in the media lately. Dr. Alessio Fasano at the University of Maryland has published a number of studies on autoimmune diseases (such as fibromyalgia) and intestinal permeability caused by gluten/gliadin. Google zonulin +Fasano and see what you find - also check PubMed using those keywords for the studies. There are no side effects to eliminating gluten. "The MS Recovery Diet Book" (MS is another autoimmune disease) advocates a gluten-free diet for complete remission of Multiple Sclerosis. Too bad the doctors are too eager to reach for their prescription pads instead of recommending healthy dietary tweaks. Too bad they're not even reading the published research that has been out there since 2000. The reason "ADHD" children improve so much on the gluten-free/casein-free diet is because their leaky guts are finally healing - they have found that gluten/gliadin is able to get through the brain-blood barrier - if you put gliadin in a petri dish with human tissue, it will attack the tissue.

Zonulin
I second Zonulin. Diet/what the patient eats should be a primary focus with the "mentally ill".

I wouldn't jump to conclusions. "Mental Health Day At The Capitol" may be money to help closeted homosexual Republican politicians.

Yes, it would be nice to see all pharma disclose. Make the playing field level for all. Either way, let's keep in mind two things though. One, reputable medical education companies have very high barriers to pharma dollars influencing actual content. Not all are reputable of course...but let's not paint them all the same color. And two, physicians do find value in industry-supported CME that is free of bias. Many studies have shown this.

Lemme ask this. If you had a choice between a CME course that costs physicians $500 to attend yet is free of pharma support, and an industry supported event that is free registration, which one would you choose if the content was developed in the exact same bias-free way? If industry funding made the education more accessible (via lower costs) to a much wider audience of physicians, isn't that improving clinical practice and outcomes? Many MDs can't even afford CME in this economy, never mind RNs, LSWs, etc.

Astrazeneca throws money at DBSA.

I got an invitation from DBSA last year to join a living with Bipolar video campaign and submit a story about bipolar recovery.

It was part of a contest actually with a prize money.

The contest stated that an impartial judging process would select the winner.

It turned out the prize money was donated by Astra Zeneca. DBSA's *generous sponsor*.

My video was a personal talk about recovering from Bipolar without meds.

My video did not win.

The video that ended up being the *Face of Bipolar* for DBSA was a video submitted by a woman who walks you through to her medicine cabinet to show you the 8 different meds she has to take every day or else!

Still I knew in advance. I dug through the fine print of the contest rules and was aware that AZ was backing the money and hence had final say on what video was appropriate to represent bipolar recovery.

It would have been satisfying to have separated them from some of their cash by winning the contest with a video that blatantly dismisses the need for pharma drugs in recovery.