Dr. Joe Biederman is also backing "researches" in Brazil making claims like this:

"In children the cure can be seen because the brain is developing." :o)

"A research made by professor Joseph Biederman and his colleagues of Harvard University concluded that ADHD cost US$ 77 billion annually in US."

www.saudelazer.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=2712
It's in Portuguese you will not understand.

It's based on a research made by Dr. Biederman and his gang on 2005 but this Brazilian panic-mongering article was put online on May 30, 2008.

There are others.

Here
http://www.comportamentoinfantil.com/noticias/noticias.htm

You can see Dr. Biederman who "understands Portuguese because he was born in Argentina"

In Argentina they speak Spanish.

So Dr.Gustavo Teixeira who is on the photography smiling beside Dr. Biederman while in Boston during a workshop promoted by Dr. Biederman on march, 2008, must be following his steps.

No way!
You will not poison Brazilians children!

What if the story had been that a cancer researcher had failed to report millions from pharma companies? The story or at least the subtext would have been, those scientists are so weird, maybe he's bipolar and doesn't know right from wrong. But since it's psychiatrist, we're getting this "those reporting laws are so complex" bs. Again, has Biederman ever cut a "patient" or "research subject" such slack?

How will we save our children?
We have to save our children!
Benefits of the doubt?
Get the hand away of Brazilian children!
Dr. Biederman, you belong to jail white collar psychopath.

I am in agreement with you. Whether or not Carlat is right about an "accounting error", guilt is on their heads for what they have done to countless children in this country. Manic depression is bad enough - I know as both my children got it at age twenty - but to think of Pharma colluding with Biederman to disease monger on little children is enough to make me want to personally duke it out with Bied and his colleagues.

I personally hope the "accounting error" is a false idea, and hope that the "Harvard 3" pay a price for their deeds. Though nothing I can think of would be penalty enough for what they have done to children.

I found Dr. C's explanation a bit lacking. We're talking about big money here and it's not as if the doc's an Harvard didn't know where it was coming from.

Although I have disagreed with you on other topics, I absolutely agree that the growth of the bipolar disorder diagnosis in children is very troubling and unsupported by scientific evidence. I think there's much to be said between this fact and the money being accepted bu the Harvard docs.

Franky, shame on Dr. C. I'm glad I didn't renew my subscription to his magazine.

I almost posted yesterday abt my couple of guesses regarding how they would explain that all of this was normal, much ado about nothing. My guesses were based on how these things were handled for the promotion of HRT. Sponsorships, educational grants, etc. that don't simply appear as finder-fee or paid-endorsement arrangements.

So, now, my prediction is that the statements from the apologists will reveal the various mechanisms through which the financial support travels from Pharma to Doc, as they use the cover of these innocuous-seeming mechanisms to present the view that the Docs are impartial.

If the financial issue advances far enough, tax returns may need to be submitted to congress.

Oh well. They deserve to be fired. This isn't something little, and how difficult would it be to hire a number of younger researchers for that department to replace them, who aren't dripping with drug company money, and have a set of values that includes ~honesty~ ???

At any rate, this massive conflict of interest doesn't make his research any less valid than it was before -- because it's absolutely invalid to begin with. I love to hear psychiatrists talk about how this group has done so much to help troubled "youngsters" and that their ideas represent cutting-edge advancements in the treatment of these kids. Bullshit. Psychiatry is a soft, clinical-science backed by a paucity of basic science research -- as if that needed to be said. And randomized, controlled, trials of medication effects in psychiatry aren't very sciencey either. They tend to be ridden with bogus assumptions and methodolgies that highlight a hallmark of bad science -- an inability to predict things. It'd be nice to continue to pretend that psychiatrists' conceptions of the troubled "youngsters" that walk into their offices allows them to predict appropriate treatments and ascribe some kind of prognosis -- but it just doesn't. These medicines -- antipsychotics, mood stabilizers etc. -- are not the right ones to be treating fragile young bodies and minds. We like to pretend the "sales" part of drug companies is a necessary evil, and that if we didn't have these drug companies we'd be in the dark fumbling around to fund necessary research and develop new drugs. But the truth is so much more money is spent on marketing them --science ends up coming last on the list of things to do for these compmanies. That's why we're always going to have the same shitty drugs and compounds repackaged, or re-fiddled with, and no better, novel, drugs.

This aside, psychiatrist have a lot more to deal with in terms of helping their patients than mitigating the enormous conflicts of interest that ravage the field's credibility -- especially so in, "child and adolecent psychiatry".

What's most striking to me is how basic psychological theories of attachment, trauma, and character development account for, describe, and most importantly -explain- the behavior of many or all of these troubled "youngsters". Granted, I don't "see them in my office", I'm not a psychiatrist and have no advanced degree in anything, but I was one of those troubled "youngsters", for a psychiatrist who works in Biederman's clinic, and in that department, and who has a faculty appointnment at Harvard Medical School.
He diagnosed me with bipolar disorder, (without mania of course) and although I don't have it now and never did my diagnosis is just as valid as everyone else's those men are condemning to a career as a psychiatric patient. The point is though, that psychiatrists are generally, very aloof people, who have little to no understanding of human behavior. They don't need to know those things because all they're supposed to do is diagnose and prescribe.

Another point I would like to mention is Biederman and other's assertion that when their detractors criticize them, they are somehow advocating that these children "pull themselves up by the bootstraps". That just isn't so. None of their critics have said that -- they're ascribing an imaginary argument to their critics, which is a sure sign someone feels like their back is up against a wall. Good.

And, traditionally, women and sensitive others have been the pillar of child-care across the world. (I think that's fair to say.) So why is a psychiatry department full of brutish, middle-aged men, physicians, most of them fathers, the beacon of direction for helping our most vulnerable and distressed children?

Biederman and the rest should not be given the benefit of a doubt. They should be replaced. Not because I think they're despicable people, I certainly do, but because their massive conflicts--of-interest and flagrant dishonesty are denigrating the reasearch process and every little mis-step in research is going to get passed on to their patients.

Medicine can be a useful, albeit, blunt and dangerous tool. Medicines are even critical for some people with psychosis and things -- but come on -- this is just awful; what Biederman and others are treating as "Child Bipolar" in their clinic today, is, some years later, going to be treated in a trauma clinic down the street, as something completely different -- assuming the kid makes it out alive.

I commented there three times yesterday and I'm done. I'd advise all who read here to read there as well; not for me but for some of the insightful comments from others.

For what it is worth, Dr Carlat has a good heart, but he is a bit mislead of late. His optimism is worthy, but I think a misguided by being around the ivory tower folks too long.

Knowledge is strength, but omnipotence is failure. Boy, did I learn that lesson the hard way in my residency!!!

I have a graduate degree and I also took "bonehead" statistics, or "statistics for dummies."

If I remember anything from this class, I remember learning that whomever you obtain your funds for your study is ALWAYS pertinent to the neutrality of the outcome.... ALWAYS.

What's going on in the colleges these days? This is simple bonehead statistics... are you telling me these Harvard guys don't get this concept?

Aren't they smart or curious enough to find out who is behind the vague names?

(.....vague and uninformative names such as 'Phase 5,' 'MedLearning,' 'Strategic Implications,' and 'Primedia.'")

Come-on, that is either not the truth....or shoddy research.

Rule one in scientific research: You cannot get away from the social aspect of research: Who is funding you?

The point is though, that psychiatrists are generally, very aloof people, who have little to no understanding of human behavior. They don't need to know those things because all they're supposed to do is diagnose and prescribe.

JC,
Your whole comment is very good.

If Carlat has a new post with the APA and is being "guarded" as to what his true thoughts are; then I say he is missing the opportunity to clean up this very system consumers, pscyhiatrists and therapists alike know and understand is corrupt in many ways. Most focus on pharma itself. To have the main KOL's of one of the most dominate psychiatric medical paradigm in place pocket cash and not disclose it, in my opinion gives every reason to fire them, and revoke their licenses. Period.

WHY this is being tolerated, is beyond belief. I feel Carlat is making a grave error by not speaking out more strongly about this, and frankly I would hope, that (you too TF)any doctor, nurse, patient, psychiatrist, consumer write a letter of outrage, because ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

What's next?!

JC, yeah. Methinks you should be blogging.

Furious wrote:
They are responsible for doping up tons of American kiddos and should be held accountable, especially if they've violated NIH rules.

---------
And that is at the core of this irrational witch-hunt: neuroscientific luddism and projecting your own fears/ideas about medication onto Biederman, these children, and the horse they rode in on.

People like you apparently can't seem to understand that some babies are born with damaged brains. A heart defect, you understand. Deformed limbs, sure., But the brain? The most delicate and vulnerable organ? You just don't get it.

These children are lucky that someone like Biederman gives a damn about them, because his research and these medications have given them a chance in life.

Do you know any of these children? Do you have any empathy for a five-year-old so miserable he wants to kill himself? Who tries to throw himself out of a moving car? Despite loving parents.

I'm so sick of oppositional psych patients who won't take their own meds ranting about the poor children being forced to.

If those children had a voice, they'd tell you to keep your misfiring neurons off their meds and mind your own damn business.

Are there any critical thinkers left?

Is it possible that maybe there ARE legitimately more cases of bi-polar and many other brain disorders now?

Is anyone asking why that might be instead of castigating the people who recognize reality and try to help these children?

Examine all the environmental changes that have happened in this country over the last half-century.

Agricultural practices that decrease nutrients in our food -- nutrients that are key to developing fetuses' nervous systems.

In vitro fertilizations. Caesarean births. Chemical exposure.

And, guys, damaged sperm--from lousy diets, drug usage, smoking cigarettes, chemical exposure.

Think, people! Stop knee-jerking and killing the messenger.

We don't even have the facts about Biederman. I guess that's not important to you, is it?

What if Grassley's taxpayer-fed hit job proves out to be misguided?

Why on earth would you trust a politician whose second-biggest funder is Blue Cross Blue Shield (insurance companies are big lobbies, and they DON'T want to pay for these medications) over Biederman.

This is NUTS.

Oh brother Gina! Biederman gives damn about babies born with damaged brains?!

There is NO scientific data anywhere, that proves childhood bipolar is caused by a damaged brain, chemical imbalance or any other physical problem/neuro problem.

The facts about Biederman? He is one of the most published psychiatrists in the childhood bipolar paradigm; he is highly influential and is part of the 4000% increase in childhood bipolar disorder dx of late; he promotes PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATIONS that are NOT studied in children for long term use, and in fact those very medications his paradigm is based on CAUSES BRAIN DAMAGE.

I'm not quite sure who's doing the knee jerking here, Gina. I don't think anyone is saying that these kids might not be truly disturbed, and possibly even for the reasons that you cite, but that is still a far cry from saying psych meds do these kids (or anyone else) any long term good. I don't know why on earth anyone would literally have blind faith in any good these drugs do when there are so many devastating stories out there of the harm that people who stay on them for any length of time come to. All the evidence base for any benefit is based on ridiculously short term trials and are not confirmed by evidence from clinical practice as it is actually done, leaving people on drugs for years on end. So maybe Biederman is not a deliberately malicious and unethical guy. Maybe we don't really know, but he still strikes me as unbelievably arrogant and obtuse about the implications of what he is actually doing. His judgment has got to be clouded by all the support he is getting from pharma. What neuroscientific evidence there is about the mechanisms by which these drugs "work" is actually quite damning if you care to look at it. Axons damaged and shrunk; holes in the brain; etc. etc. Not something I'd like to be doing to someone, especially a child, no matter how disturbed he or she might be. There is no doubt in my mind that antipsychotics, antidepressants etc. perform chemical lobotomy on the brain. If that's what you want to support, then fine, but just be clear that that is what it is -- nothing else. Does Biederman ever acknowledge this aspect of the issue? No, and that's why there is so much bitterness against him.

And for those of you who feel you have had benefit even for years on end, it's true that I find it difficult to accept. (Maybe killing or damaging neurons does do some good for some people.) It can be easy to be beguiled by the chemical dependency that's created and NOT to understand the withdrawal that sets in, even between doses in some cases, that makes you think you are still ill and that your life is being saved when you take the pill (or pills). The alternative of actually breaking free can be unattractive and not seem worth it -- it's a sad state of affairs.