Slate Responds To "The Infinite Mind"'s Criticism

Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee--co-authors of the recent Slate piece criticizing "The Infinite Mind" radio show for, among other things, not revealing its ties to the pharma industry and for not revealing the pharma ties of its host and guests on a recent program defending anti-depressants--has now posted a response to Bill Lichtenstein, the show's producer, in response to Lichtenstein's response to the initial article. That's a whole lot of responding and there's a whole new set of accusations floating around.

A snippet of Lenzer's response:

"Bill Lichtenstein fails to contradict the key points we made in our article; namely that The Infinite Mind series was funded in part by drug company money; that each of the four experts on the show, “Prozac Nation: Revisited” has received drug company funding; that despite enormous controversy about the safety and efficacy of antidepressants, the experts all expressed a singular viewpoint; and finally, listeners were not told about the experts’ financial conflicts of interest."

The rest, which is fairly detailed, can be read here. The original Slate article is here. My thoughts on the article are right here and my take on the show, which aired in March, is here.

Lenzer does offer a completely different account of what Lichtenstein cast as the Slate authors' payback motivation--if that's the right term--for the article. Short story: Lichtenstein claims that Lenzer tried to pitch him a second show on anti-depressants and their problems and that somehow his not going ahead with the program and the subsequent Slate article are connected. That is of course a huge jab at the Slate authors' credibility and journalistic ethics.

Lenzer and Brownlee state:

"Mr Lichtenstein claims that one of us (Lenzer) pitched him a radio show. Quite the opposite. When Lenzer called Mr. Lichtenstein for an interview, after he realized our interest was in the funding of his guests and the absence of those with contrary views from the show, it was he who suggested that we do a show, telling Lenzer that sometimes differing viewpoints are better heard with separate shows (which he used as a defense for why only those experts with pro-antidepressant viewpoints were present on Prozac Nation: Revisited)."

I do think that "The Infinite Mind" should do a second program on anti-depressants and their problems. The sad thing is that this whole dust-up could've been avoided if the show had revealed its various conflicts upfront. The show gets some funding from Eli Lilly and ran a program actively and questionably defending Prozac and other anti-depressants yet didn't reveal that it took money from Lilly nor that the show's host, Fred Goodwin, has also taken money from Lilly.

For what my peon-on-the-Left-Coast's opinion is worth, it seems to me that since Goodwin and his guests, two of them well-published academics, regularly reveal their conflicts of interest in their academic writing for the smallish audience of doctors who read their journal articles, then they should've done the same for the 500,000 or so listeners to the program. The public deserves just as much full disclosure as doctors do. In fact, we deserve more.

We also deserve a public radio show that is willing to take on these matters is a more thorough fashion than the one-sided manner in which "The Infinite Mind" defended anti-depressants.