Furious Seasons

May 06, 2009

In Senate Probe, NAMI Admits To Over Half Its Budget Being Pharma Dollars

Most of you are aware that Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to the National Alliance on Mental Illness last month, asking for the organization, which lobbies Congress, to reveal how much it gets from what pharma companies. NAMI has long been known,a s I've pointed out for three years, to be receiving about 50 percent of its annual budget (around $12 million to $13 million total) from pharma companies, which is kind of interesting for a group that styles itself as "the nation's voice on mental illness." Of course, many of the group's initiatives, nationally and locally, involve getting people to understand that mental illness comes from bad brains and that bad brains require medications made by the companies supporting NAMI. It's the bio-pharma marketing model run amok. (Much past coverage of NAMI here.)

Anyway, NAMI replied to the Senator and its reply was obtained by MindFreedom, a fairly anti-meds group, and posted to its website. In it, Michael Fitzpatrick, NAMI's executive director, states that the group has received on average 56 percent of its annual budget from pharma companies from 2005 to 2009. Fitzpatrick, who defends the group's pharma dough, claims that NAMI's strategic plan is to reduce that percentage dramatically in coming years. He told me the same thing when I met with him in 2005 (back when I was still at a newspaper). Four years later, NAMI is still pulling in many millions from pharma.

In fact, NAMI is now breaking out its pharma contributions each quarter, a practice it apparently began this year. For the first quarter of 2009, NAMI took in $1,249,340 from pharma companies and foundations. You can read the list here, including $25,000 from AstraZeneca for "Exemplary Psychiatrist Awards," presumably to be presented at NAMI's annual convention. In fact, you'll be amazed at how much of that $1.2 million is aimed at NAMI's annual convention--$147,500.

Bristol-Myers Squibb, for example, gave $262,500 in the first quarter. Some $37,500 of that is for something called "NAMI Depression Initiative." BMS doesn't make an anti-depressant and NAMI, according to Fitzpatrick's letter, hasn't been bought by Big Pharma. Oh, wait, but there's that new add-on for depression indication for BMS' Abilify antipsychotic. I bet that whatever program this is at least includes a mention of using antipsychotics to treat depression.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at May 6, 2009 12:05 AM

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Comments

This begs the question, "When NAMI accepts funds (often characterized as unrestricted educational grants) for initiatives, educational materials and programs, do pharmaceutical donors or their agents have any role in the development, drafting, editing, or approval of the final product?" In the case of the "NAMI Depression Initiative" did BMS simply mail NAMI a check which ended its involvement in yet another NAMI initiative?

Posted by: Joe at May 6, 2009 06:11 AM

Way to go Senator Grassley. Keep it up!

Posted by: jim at May 6, 2009 06:22 AM

absolutely sick. I really hate NAMI... there's something so terrible about the enemy who pretends to be your friend.

Any ideas for slogans for signs for the SF APA conference protest next week? I'm thinking:

Pills Don't Fix Problems
YOU are the sick ones
Pschyiatry = Pseudoscience
My mood is not a disorder

Or I'm thinking I could just dress up as a black box warning... any other ideas?

Posted by: kimbriel at May 6, 2009 08:03 AM

Hey, I like the dress-up idea.

I've always wondered about the dx of Thought Disorder. At what point do one's thoughts cross over the line from merely untidy into downright disorderly?

Posted by: Sherry at May 6, 2009 12:23 PM

Their figures for the first quarter give a pretty dismal view of their "progress." Only $95,000, or less than 8%, is from non-Pharma sources! That's 92% (of major gifts at least) coming from Pharma. A full 25% of their first-quarter funding comes from the makers of Abilify alone -- $265,000 from BMS and $50,000 from Takeda.

I think NAMI's quarterly disclosures, if they keep posting them, will soon serve as a handy index of which drugs are being most aggressively promoted on a month-to-month basis. This is truly depressing.

Posted by: Johanna at May 6, 2009 12:29 PM

What now?
NAMI will break out it's pharma contributions and will continue the same?
Some psychiatrists are doing it. They claim to receive for, X, y, z, r, s, t, u, p and v. They usually ends like this: "Don't think that because I receive I'm unethical."
Same will happen with institutions, I guess.
They will put all the Pharmas Logos at their homepage.
It will look beautiful... and ethical.
I hate this era!

Posted by: Ana at May 6, 2009 01:35 PM

Tasty justice, piping hot.

Posted by: Lilly NC at May 6, 2009 06:38 PM

Hmmm. 56% from The Worshipful Company? It doesn't look good, does it? Especially if one begins to understand what does alleviate the symptoms of mental illness. I dunno, to me it feels like a big, powerful company that makes horse carriages somehow managing to gain political support for perpetuating the idea, through virulent propoganda, that horse drawn transport is the thing of now and the future, when the internal combustion engine has already been in production for 100 years!

The more I look at it, the more the whole fucking thing looks like a scam that relies entirely, or almost entirely, on the placebo effect in order to sell the product. If that's true, then people have been repairing themselves, and paying handsomely for the privilege of doing so. And if that's true, then there are some truly grotesque people in this world.

Matt

Posted by: Matthew Holford at May 7, 2009 06:58 AM

Philip,

This is all good stuff - to know that Grassley has revealed over half of NAMI's money comes from Pharma....

What about the larger issues - ie, breaking the law?

NAMI has been the front-group behind what can only be described as Mediciad fraud, and the "screening" of youth - to get more and more adolescents on antidepressants....

These are clinically no better than placebo, and often lead to "manic episodes".....

The drugging of women after they deliver - to make sure they have plenty of drugs in their body - so they can't breast-feed their newborn children.....forced to take a subjective test, before they can legally take their own baby home!

It's criminal.
It's all criminal.

Literally, "criminal."

We need to get past the money trail....and move these investigations into criminal ones - and, some heads need to roll....and, Michael Fitzpatrick needs to be placed under oath, and given a fair trial....

And, if he's guilty in having taken part in Medicaid fraud against the states by helping marke these drugs to states, if he's guilty of causing injury and death by failing to make the dangers of these drugs known to the public....

He needs to be fitted into an orange jumpsuit.....shackles placed on his ankles and wrists, and have his butt stuffed in federal prison.

He helped drug-addict a nation in my opinion....all for $200,000 per year in salary, and a few million a year into a non-profit by Pharma....

Chump-change.
This man sold his soul for cheap.

A fair trial. And then, stuff him in federal prison. This man is not above the law.

Duane

Posted by: Duane Sherry at May 12, 2009 03:28 PM