October 04, 2008

Nemeroff Resigns

A few of you have probably already caught the news elsewhere: yesterday, Charles Nemeroff resigned as chair of the psychiatry department at Emory University. The move came on the heels of revelations that he'd taken in $2.8 million in pharma consulting monies since 2000, but had only reported less than half of that--all while taking NIH research grants on the other hand and assuring his university that he was taking in less than $10,000 a year in pharma dough.

For those of you who don't know, Nemeroff is one of the biggest depression researchers in the world and his work is hugely influential in the field. But as CL Psych has repeatedly detailed, Nemeroff's work is often scientifically compromised.

Emory University has issued a statement:

"Dr. Nemeroff is recognized internationally as a leader in psychiatric research, education and practice. He has made fundamental contributions to the field over many years. The length and complexity of the history outlined by Senator Grassley will require careful review of underlying payment records from the pharmaceutical companies, which we have requested from Senator Grassley’s office. We have also requested that Dr. Nemeroff provide us with relevant information and documentation so that we will have all the facts before us.

"Dr. Nemeroff has assured us that: 'To the best of my knowledge, I have followed the appropriate University regulations concerning financial disclosures. I have dedicated my career to translating research findings into improvements in clinical practice in patients with severe mental illness. I will cooperate fully and work with Emory to respond to the alleged conflicts of interest issues raised by Senator Grassley and his staff.'"

Whatever, dude.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at October 4, 2008 01:45 PM
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Comments

Dear Philip:

Nemeroff of the most horrific kind, I call you on your defence, and retort with one word "BULLSHIT".

Yours Truly,
Stan

Posted by: stan at October 4, 2008 02:29 PM

When is the realization that all of this research that has been touted as supporting current practice is suspect going to strike, I wonder? How much of it is tainted by bias?

Posted by: Cheryl Fuller. PhD at October 4, 2008 02:51 PM

This is unbelievable news!!!!

Posted by: Stephany at October 4, 2008 02:55 PM

Perhaps the scum sucking leech will learn the errors of his ways when spending some of the half a million he never declared on some expensive holiday!


Emory Uni make me laugh. Like they never knew about it after all these years of finger pointing?


Fid

Posted by: BOB FIDDAMAN at October 4, 2008 03:00 PM

I hope this brings an end to Pharma "stipends" for psychiatric "consultants." I'm not that delusional, tho.

Posted by: mhf at October 4, 2008 03:56 PM

Gee, is it any wonder why so many of the psych meds suck?

Posted by: Lisa at October 4, 2008 05:28 PM

A spokesperson for Emory was quoted as reading very slowly from a prepared statement "Dr Nemotode has resigned, owing to the fact that he is a man of extraordinary compassion and honour. He felt it inappropriate that he should continue in his position, given the ongoing investigation of his alleged taking of massive backhanders. Dr Nemotode has contributed signficantly to the understanding of human nature [and I don't lie, here]."

Rael Pointlessly (for it was she), went on (and on, and on): "Obviously, this a massively complex business, and it's just not possible to reduce it to something simple that the public can understand such as "Dr Nemotode took cash when he shouldn't have, and didn't tell anybody that he took the cash, against the rules. As such, we're going to claim that a long drawn-out investigation is going to take place, which may, or may not, come to some kind of conclusion in about 10 years, or so, which will exonerate Dr Nemotode of all wrongdoing, when it is discovered that the necessary paperwork was prepared by him, but that his dog ate it."

Matt

Posted by: Matthew Holford at October 4, 2008 06:02 PM

I wonder how much money he made on the back of pushing dangerous , toxic and lethal meds like the SSRI class...

Columbian drug dealers don't make as much as he has...

But at least they don't do it under the guise of "mental health"..

He may be resigning, but he has made millions..

I'm sure he won't be too uncomfortable in his retirement...

Posted by: truthman30 at October 4, 2008 08:08 PM

It is worth the hypocrisy of commenting here as I had a nice evening and decided to check if there was a weekend comment by Phillip, and you made my weekend:

the fucker is gone!

enough is said!!!

You who are not psychiatrists do not appreciate how much people like me who despise these bastards who compromise my field finally get nailed for their totally evil deeds.

Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(exclamations too extreme?)

Posted by: therapyfirst at October 4, 2008 08:27 PM

TF wrote:
"...the fucker is gone!.."

Fair play to you, mate.

Matt

Posted by: Matthew Holford at October 5, 2008 06:26 AM

Exclamations too extreme? Alas, no. In fact, you could probably add a few more.

Posted by: Sherry at October 5, 2008 08:58 AM

Therapyfirst,

I don't think you have to be a psychiatrist to appreciate what has happened. All you have to be is a person who has worked in a field where corrupt people have damaged the reputations of many for personal gain.

That said, I can understand why this would be especially significant to you.

Posted by: mhf at October 5, 2008 09:54 AM

lol @ "whatever, dude".

Posted by: nvam at October 5, 2008 10:05 AM

Charles Nemeroff is the editor of a non-pharma funded psychopharmcological news bulletin, I wonder how his conflict reflects the integrity of the publication? Just thinking out loud to how far we can tolerate these Nemeroff types.

His resignation in my opinion reflects the greedy holier than thou attitude, I mean the guy has no worries financially, ethics are questionable, he owns the Lithium patch patent, he is the depiction of the million dollar pharma box seats at the Democratic Natl Convention (Obama)paid by Pfizer, watching down on the very heart of this country, with us in it's grasp of evil.

Grassley needs to hear from all of us, encourage him to keep the light on this snake pit.

Remember when Nemeroff met with the Dali Lama? at Emory? that was funded by pharma too.

Google scholar the guy.

Posted by: Stephany at October 5, 2008 10:13 AM

The Dalai Lama? That must have been weird. I'd love to know what the Dalai thought, because he's signficantly brighter than Nemotode, from what I've seen...

Matt

Posted by: Matthew Holford at October 5, 2008 06:45 PM

Can Nemiroff be prosecuted? Can Keller, Schatzman, Biederman et al be held to a higher punishment other than the walk of shame???

Posted by: Tom at October 5, 2008 07:33 PM

Tom, I wondered that too. It's govt money & they're lying in order to receive this money. Sounds like fraud to me.

Posted by: Lisa at October 5, 2008 09:47 PM

Yeppers NVAM!

Philip's the only journalist I know who could say that! It was kewl!

Glad to see you again Mom!

Posted by: susan at October 6, 2008 01:59 AM

Look at this article, all Nemeroff, all misleading innuendos, all essentially Pharmaceutical Company PR, and yet I bet there will never be a retraction published:

http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/2008/winter/darkness.html

It's because of these fraudulent dudes that the mainstream believes there is research indicating depression is a biological disease when there's not. If only they could be criminally prosecuted but unfortunately the general public like so many folks reading this, loves the idea of depression being a medical illness. One must wonder, what should the normal response to tragic events be, if being emotional hurt by such events is now considered pathological.

Posted by: Sally at October 6, 2008 06:40 AM

Yeah Nemeroff was talking depression (he's funded by antidepressant makers)with the Dalai Lama at a major Emory event.

Posted by: Stephany at October 6, 2008 09:36 AM

Tom wrote:
"Can Nemiroff be prosecuted?.."

Tax evasion? If it's good enough for Al Capone, it's good enough for Nemotode. Fraud's harder to prove - you'd have to demonstrate genuine deception, and while we may be happy to infer that, it's a lot harder to demonstrate it conclusively.

Stephany: The Dalai Lama and Nemotode... I don't get it. If my guess is right, Nemotode would be incapable of holding a conversation with the guy for more than a couple of exchanges. At any rate, Nemotode probably got more out of it than the Dalai Lama.

Matt

Posted by: Matthew Holford at October 6, 2008 03:27 PM

I'm wondering how many people on this site know that Charles Nemeroff is the one suspected of undermining the offer David Healy received from the University of Toronto after Healy made a speech in which he presented the possible dangers of SSRIs and antipsychotics especially with respect to suicide. Apparently Nemeroff met with him afterwards. Here is a description of the conversation:
MACINTYRE: Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Atlanta's prestigious Emery University, Dr. Charles Nemeroff is a highly respected and influential scientist. And a paid consultant to a dozen drug companies. A leading psychiatric magazine recently profiled him under the headline Boss of Bosses. Is the brash and controversial Charles Nemeroff, the most powerful man in psychiatry. Inside the authors wrote, Nemeroff is among the most coveted advisors to the pharmaceutical industry. And he fully expects to lead the corporate strategies of those he advises. Those who do not heed his advice are often the recipients of his wrath. Last summer at Cambridge University in England, Healy had a brush with the boss of bosses.

HEALY: Dr. Nemeroff came up to me in the course of the meeting in what was a very scary meeting between him and me and told me that my career would be destroyed if I kept on showing results like the ones that I'd just shown, that I had no right to bring out hazards of the pills like these.

MACINTYRE: In a written statement, a doctor who witnessed the confrontation told us, when it became clear that David Healy would not back down from his points of view, Nemeroff said that what Healy was publishing might harm the drug industry, specifically Eli Lilly. He, Charles Nemeroff, said that these people were ruthless and would go to great lengths to make life hard for academics who published articles associating suicide with Prozac.

HEALY: It was a fairly short encounter. It lasted about two or three minutes but a very scary one.

Healy's offer from the University of Toronto was rescinded shortly thereafter. Pretty despicable isn't it? The full interview is available at http://www.pharmapolitics.com/cbcnational.html

This guy's head can't roll fast enough for me. It should have happened long ago.

Posted by: Sara at October 6, 2008 03:36 PM

This comes on the heels of the OJ verdict- yeppers, Karma is a bitch. Nemeroff will get his!

It's enough to make me believe in G-d again.

Posted by: anon on this one at October 6, 2008 03:54 PM

Emory held a seminar that hosted the Dalai Lama and Nemeroff and him gave 2 viewpoints of treating depression.

Posted by: Stephany at October 6, 2008 04:17 PM

Another interesting tidbit -- Nemeroff gave a speech at the same time as Healy. The audience was asked to give feedback. Healy's speech was rated most popular; Nemeroff's the least -- that's on that same website I mentioned in my previous comment on this thread. Just like a malignant narcissist to seek revenge for such an insult to his pride. On these personal issues the welfare of scores (if not thousands) of children and patients ended up resting including my own daughter's. Nemeroff really represents the worst of psychiatry in action and I don't consider myself a hardcore anti-psychiatrist. There are good ones out there; they just don't get (huge) consulting fees from pharma and they're not afraid of the truth about drugs.

Posted by: Sara at October 6, 2008 05:09 PM

Alison Bass on her blog also has this bit of history about Nemeroff:
"In my book, Side Effects, I tell the story of how Nemeroff played a key role in quashing debate over the emerging suicidal side effects of Prozac and other SSRI antidepressants back as far as 1991. Indeed, some say it was his elegant presentation on behalf of Eli Lilly at the FDA's hearing that year that helped convince the FDA advisory panel to sweep concerns about the suicidal side effects of these antidepressants under the rug for another 13 years. At the 1991 FDA hearing, Nemeroff failed to disclose that he was earning lucrative consulting fees from Eli Lilly and even owned stock in the Indianapolis-based drug company." In 2000 Nemeroff received nearly $191K from GSK almost certainly for pushing Paxil in speeches around the country; in 2001 $135K. The truth is I consider Nemeroff a key player in my daughter's murder (because that's how I view her death), which occurred in January 2002, and I believe was due to Paxil. I can almost guarantee that my daughter's doctors probably heard at least one of Nemeroff's speeches and if the FDA advisory committee in 1991 had really had all the facts they should have, they would have issued a much stronger warning and it wouldn't have taken 13 more years and thousands of lives finally to get at the truth. Nemeroff singlehandedly and significantly slowed down the process of understanding the truth about antidepressants. I hope he gets all that he deserves.

Posted by: Sara at October 9, 2008 10:43 AM
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