Quite remarkable. A fully tenured professor now has to answer to a witch hunt. Perhaps people don't understand the value of tenure. It allows an academic to be a lone voice of reason. And I would applaud Harvard's support of this valued researcher and his work.

"The essence of empirical science is its verifiability."

That childhood bipolar disorder exists has been established beyond doubt. If anyone has any evidence proving otherwise then publish it, and let us all see the evidence for what it is. Posted by: David B. at April 21, 2009 03:44 AM

Does that B stand for Biederman Fan?

The science is bad, the studies are flawed, protocols broken without explanation, the corruption and greed are well documented, and real kids lives are being or have been destroyed.

You can place all the evidence in the world in front of the blind followers of the psychiatric Biederman cult; and they will never see the truth!

I believe Biederman uses this next part pretty well with his Harvard/NAMI Fan Club!

See no evil
Speak no evil
Hear no evil

I guess when you consider yourself second in line to God; as this cult leader stated in testimony.

Biederman is just a plain old greedy egocentric evil person in fact and truth. questions?

Posted by: stan at April 21, 2009 10:52 AM

David B: the main issues are: whether childhood bipolar disorder is overdiagnosed; whether psychiatric medictions are appropriate treatments for bipolar disorder; whether biederman's lone voice, and research, has been tainted by financial ties to a company that reaps millions of dollars from biederman's scholarship; and whether biederman deliberately sought to hide these ties by improperly filing conlict-of-interest statements as part of his contract with Harvard.

If there is one kid out there with childhood bipolar disorder, then it exists. If there is one Bigfoot, then Bigfoot exists. That is not the central issue.

Posted by: MedsVsTherapy at April 21, 2009 11:18 AM

Joseph Biederman does not have to answer to a "witch hunt"; he must answer to a sitting senator, Senator Grassley. When a KOL such as Biederman pockets pharma money and does not report it, that is conflict of interest and he has now been instructed to refrain from any research with pharma funding until further notice.

Grassley has asked, in a letter addressed to Harvard, these questions regarding Joseph Biederman:

1) Why did Harvard/MGH not inform the NIH about Dr. Biederman’s collaboration with J&J when it applied for the NIH bipolar disorder grant?

2) Several documents that Dr. Biederman supplied to the court make note of a “JB rent fund.” What is the “JB rent fund” and to whom did the money go?

3) Why did MGH not inform OHRP about the IRB protocol violations in Dr. Biederman’s study?

4) For that particular study, please explain each IRB protocol violation and how those violations were resolved.

5) Did representatives of MGH discuss collaborating on the Center with marketing people from J&J, as Attachment H states?

6) Were the slides detailed in the attachments to this letter created by Dr. Biederman? If not, who created them?

7) Please explain if these slides were ever presented to an audience. If so, who saw these presentations?

It's interesting how the psychiatric world defenders hold onto this phrase "witch hunt" as firmly as they call people like Grassley or myself "Scientologists" just because we have questions based on integrity, and truth.

"The United States Senate Committee on Finance (Committee) has jurisdiction over the Medicare and Medicaid programs and, accordingly, a responsibility to the more than 80 million Americans who receive health care coverage under these programs. As Ranking Member of the Committee, I have a duty to protect the health of Medicare andMedicaid beneficiaries and safeguard taxpayer dollars appropriated for these programs.The actions taken by thought leaders, like those at Harvard Medical School, often have a profound impact upon taxpayer funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid and theway that patients are treated and funds expended.I have also taken an interest in the almost $24 billion annually appropriated to theNational Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund grants at various institutions such as yours.As you know, institutions are required to manage a grantee’s conflicts of interest."--Grassley

http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/550/9

Being fully tenured or massively published, or sited, or pharma-funded-lined-bank account KOL's makes no difference, and anyone remotely wanting truth in the pharamceutical industry will applaud Grassley, and anyone else who asks questions and demands answers.

Joseph Biederman, in his recent Johnson and Johnson drug trial deposition highlighted the questions Grassley is asking; Biederman, though not on trial himself, said so much, that he may as well have been, and he doesn't come out smelling like a rose after reading the transcripts, which can be found on Silverman's Invivo blog for the link, or mine.

Posted by: Stephany at April 21, 2009 12:41 PM

BTW David B.

Where are your stats for "been established beyond any doubt", when you talk about childhood bipolar?Because, if you were smart, you would see that you;ve been influenced by Biederman and have fallen for the same horse and pony show that other have in the last decade with the 4000% increase of pediatric bipolar disorder diagnoses.

You will also notice in the transcripts, that Biederman acknowledges that influence, which is dangerous, considering there is no bio-markers to prove it exists, and the protocol for treatment is a cocktail of highly toxic medications, only recently 2 have been approved by the FDA, and the FDA's answer (per articles in this blog)states that because they approved the drugs for use for pediatric bp, therefore they must believe it is a real "illness".

That same FDA is tainted and the recent advisory panel that sent off an approval for Seroquel XR held esteemed members such as Barbara Geller, a paid speaker, and professional advisory member of CABF alongside Biederman, Wozniak and others with pharma-funding and connections.

Conspiracy? personal agendas paid off by pharma? ego strokes? or watching out for children's safety?

Rebecca Riley always seem to stir controversy when the name is brought up on various blogs, because she died with Clonodine, Depakote and Seroquel in her body (and cause of death)at age 4; and it never ceases to amaze me how many ppl still come to the support of the Harvard Mafia.

If people want their children on these drugs then I can show them a decade long drug trial, my 21 year old who is now disabled from the drug rx'ing by overzealous doctors.

Anyone with children on these meds needs to look no futher than their child's brain and how it is growing on these drugs, their bodies that gain upward to 100 lbs on antipsychotics and the cocktail russian roulette doctors play as they "tweak" the meds until permanent damage is done.

PBS-online viewing of "The Medicated Child" is in order here, and you'll see Biederman, Kiki Chang, and Dr. Carlat all there. You'll also see children damaged from drugs, lives ruined, it's often uncomfortable to watch. That's why Biederman needs to be independently investigated and so do his collegues, every single one who published a paper with him.

Wilens, Spencer and Biederman have already been taken to task by Grassley, and it's time DeBello and Wozniak and Geller went along for the ride, and toss in Thomas Laughren, too.

Posted by: Stephany at April 21, 2009 12:54 PM

Didn't I just read that the "thought and opinion leaders" were having a Retreat at a Fancy Resort this Fall $$$$$$$ to discuss the very topic of "witch hunts" in psychiatry, pharma, and all its tenacles?

I perceive pediatric bipolar as the Emperor's new clothes, iatragenically cooked up by a witches' brew of psychotropics,on a base of pharma and government money, topped off with atypical antipsychotics, leaving ruined lives and labelled children and families in its wake. How about you, David B????

Thanking lucky stars,a strong and powerful public servant, this blog, AHRP, walking wounded, an unwavering activist community, honest science, broken families and individuals who find the courage nonetheless to speak out, and our matyrs to lethal pharmaceuticals now gone from us, for bringing this entire brew to a head. And hopefully dumping it out on the ground and starting over.

Posted by: sorrowful at April 21, 2009 02:18 PM

yes, sorrowful, ivory towers never looked so good as when they are in monaco

Posted by: Stephany at April 21, 2009 06:58 PM

Emperor's new clothes. Spot on.

And here is a fitting quote, concerning the value of extensive scholarship, from another Hans Christian Anderson story, The Galoshes of Fortune:

"All that botanists can say in many lectures was explained in a moment by this little flower."

Poor Rebecca Riley.

Posted by: MedsVsTherapy at April 22, 2009 06:11 AM

Here is a simple thought experiment. Answer this simple question. How did all the adults with bipolar disorder (and there is no doubt adult bipolar exists and is a treatable condition) begin their lives?? That is what were they before they were adults with bipolar?? Say between the ages of 0 to 18??

Posted by: anon at April 22, 2009 09:05 AM

Many kids have had adverse side effects to psych meds and have been wrongfully diagnosed with pediatric bipolar disorder, a label that is carried for the rest of their lives with often irreversible bodily damage done as a result of constant medication cocktail tweaking by psychiatrists who feed parents BS lines such as "a child's body is growing so the doses need tweaking as they grow" or "if the child goes off meds they will kill themselves" or "that muscle stiffness is growing pains not Risperdal side effects". just to name a few i was told.

But due to off-label prescribing of psych meds no to worry those 0-18 year olds will be medicated properly!

Posted by: Stephany at April 22, 2009 10:25 AM

A basic paradigm of science is that researchers are expected to defend their conclusions and that their data be open to review. If Beiderman and his supporters oppose transparency and accountability in research, then the good doctor, aka successor to God, should find some other line of work.

Posted by: Whistleblower at November 3, 2009 11:14 AM

Many of the adult bi-polars out there started as hyper-active, over-medicated children who went to the nurse every day at lunch to take speed. Doctors have been prescribing speed to kids since the 70's and parents have chosen to medicate their children rather than raise them. Both doctors and parents have been indicted on murder charges for giving amphetamines to children. Some people know more than doctors by relying on the same instincts as that flower. If you know where to look in the case of necessity, you can find an old "drug" which is really just a simple protein found naturally in the human body to restore balance. We would not have had to resort to such strange, foreign substances if not for the patent/generic process and the corporate need for profit. There are many cures and preventives that have decades of proven results and no patent.

Posted by: Justin at November 9, 2009 09:16 PM

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