Psych Researcher Who Claimed 3-Year-Olds Get Depression May Have Undisclosed Industry Ties

A few of you will recall that earlier this month I wrote of a new study in the Archives of General Psychiatry asserting that 3-year-olds can and do suffer from chronic depression, a controversial notion to many people. The published study specifically stated that the lead author, Joan Luby of the Washington University School of Medicine, had no financial conflicts to report. To whit:

"Financial Disclosure: None reported.

"Funding/Support: Funding for this study was provided
by grant MH64769-01 from the National Institute of
Mental Health (Dr Luby)."

The journal's instructions for authors specifically state:

"Authors are expected to provide detailed information about all relevant financial interests and relationships or financial conflicts within the past 5 years."

As reported by Jim Edwards at Bnet.com's Pharma Blog, Luby was receiving money from AstraZeneca in 2003 and 2004. Edwards reporting came in connection with a separate Luby paper published earlier this year on "pre-school bipolar disorder" wherein Luby revealed no conflicts. Luby's depression article was submitted to the AGP in August 2008 and was published last month, so it would appear that she failed to properly disclose her relationship with AstraZeneca. What's more, Edwards also reported that Luby had previously disclosed in another publication that she had also received monies from Shire, makers of Adderall and Vyvanase, and Janssen/J&J, makers of Risperdal.

Shire told Edwards that the company and Luby had no relationship in 2008 and 2009. J&J didn't respond to Edwards' request for comment about the nature of its relationship with Luby.

The upshot is that AGP likely needs to issue a correction for Luby's August 2009 article to account for her relationship with AZ and may well have to add Shire and J&J as well. At a minimum, journal personnel need to look into whether or not Luby made an appropriate disclosure. I'll try to get some kind of comment from the journal and/or its publisher, the American Medical Association. The AMA's flagship journal JAMA was embroiled in a controversy around undisclosed financial conflicts of interest earlier this year.

While I'm sure many readers have wearied of these kinds of stories--much less the underlying conflicts themselves--I want to point out that it is important for researchers to appropriately reveal conflicts with pharma companies so that readers know how many grains of salt with which to interpret particular research conclusions. I would say that it's doubly important in child psychiatry where researchers are making profoundly controversial conclusions about the psychological make-up of small children.

In the context of Luby's assertion that tiny tots experience chronic depression as well as her assertion elsewhere that antipsychotics are an awesome treatment for kids, it would seem imperative that she be 100 percent upfront on any possible conflicts of interest.