I’ve been trying to get the time to write a longer entry on a recent Washington Post article on potential drug company influence in the writing of DSM-IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, produced by the American Psychiatric Association. [Experts Defining Mental Disorders Are Linked to Drug Firms] It seems that many of the experts on the various panels that wrote it received money from drug companies. On some of the workgroups 100% of the members received drug money. This raises questions of potential bias. In fairness, it is important to note that some of the writers only received drug company money after their work on DSM-IV.
Of the 170 experts in all who contributed to the manual that defines disorders from personality problems to drug addiction, more than half had such ties, including 100 percent of the experts who served on work groups on mood disorders and psychotic disorders. The analysis did not reveal the extent of their relationships with industry or whether those ties preceded or followed their work on the manual.
“I don’t think the public is aware of how egregious the financial ties are in the field of psychiatry,” said Lisa Cosgrove, a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, who is publishing her analysis today in the peer-reviewed journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics….
Cosgrove said she began her research after discovering that five of six panel members studying whether certain premenstrual problems are a psychiatric disorder had ties to Eli Lilly & Co., which was seeking to market its drug Prozac to treat those symptoms.
I personally think direct bias in the form of drug company influence is less of a problem than is the narrow range of perspectives represented on these committees. Evidently those sectors of the mental health professions skeptical of the extent of drug treatment in our profession were not likely to be invited to the table when it came time to write the most influential work in our field, resulting in a narrowing of viewpoints regarding legitimate diagnoses and the nature of the criterion used to determine whether a particular diagnosis is present in a given patient.
If the larger problem is this form of indirect bias, then the proposed solution of financial disclosure is not likely to be of much help. We will discover that many of these experts receive drug company support, but what then? As long as this manual is central to our mental health system, helping determine which treatments will be reimbursed by insurance companies, or even allowed to be provided in many institutions, financial disclosure will do little to remediate the problem.
This finding provides yet another argument against our insane system of drug development by private drug companies. These companies are tasked to generate profits for their shareholders, not to further the public good. Is it therefore surprising that they do what they exist for and don’t do what isn’t in their mission?
April 23rd, 2006
As Iraq moves in a puritanical direction, the other expression of sexual repression is increasing. Time reports that there are an increasing number of Iraqi girls and women for sale to brothels, foreign and domestic. [The Missing Girls of Iraq]
The Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq, based in Baghdad, estimates from anecdotal evidence that more than 2,000 Iraqi women have gone missing in that period. A Western official in Baghdad who monitors the status of women in Iraq thinks that figure may be inflated but admits that sex trafficking, virtually nonexistent under Saddam, has become a serious issue.
The new Iraqi government is obstructing efforts to help these women:
“We have no one to protect us.” Women’s advocates are trying to set up halfway houses for kidnap survivors. The locations are secret to keep the women safe from both trafficking gangs trying to cover their tracks and outraged relatives who may try to kill the women to restore their clans’ reputation. But the new Iraqi government has set up several bureaucratic roadblocks. Even organizations that do not receive government money have to secure permission from four ministries and the Baghdad city council for every shelter they hope to operate. Wringing her hands in exasperation, activist Yanar Mohammed says, “They want to close our women’s shelter and deny our ability to open more.”
In the early stages of the occupation, a few CPA officials tried to help these girls, but these efforts were apparently abandoned. Now, as Iraq becomes an Islamic state, there is little hope in the short run.
April 23rd, 2006
Crooks and Liars has posted a video of Pink singing Dear Mr. President from her latest album. I’m Not Dead. “One of the most important songs I’ve ever written.”
Lyrics:
“Dear Mr. President”
(feat. Indigo Girls)
Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let’s pretend we’re just two people and
You’re not better than me
I’d like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly
What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why
Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We’re not dumb and we’re not blind
They’re all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell
What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You’ve come a long way from whiskey and cocaine
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don’t know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh
How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You’d never take a walk with me
Would you
[From: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pink/dearmrpresident.html]
Wonderful!
April 23rd, 2006
The right wing is totally obsessed about sex. The latest target is sex toys. A proposed South Carolina bill would make it a felony to sell devices for sexual stimulation. [Bill would make sale of sex toys illegal in South Carolina] Next will it be execution for watching Desperate Housewives?
Of course, sexual freedom, at least for married couples, has long been mainstream in this country.:
At Sugar ‘N Spice, sex toys are displayed in a separate room. Buyers include men and women who “need a little help” because surgery or medical problems are affecting their marriage, Ms. Irons said.
“We’ve been selling these sex toys for 27 years,” she said Friday. “Even pastors shop in here. They send couples in here they counsel for marriage problems. It’s probably going to hit people like that harder than people realize.”
It would be fascinating to figure out what’s going on in the minds of the folks who propose this nonsense, other than rank political opportunism, of course. They obviously are totally obsessed with sex. Likely, they are trying to control their own sexual urges by controlling those of others.
Like the anti-pornography campaigners of a not-so-long-gone era, those behind bills like this get to immerse themselves in a world of sexuality while simultaneously claiming to be on the side of the antisexual angels. We know now quite a bit about the sexual underworld created during the Victorian era. We need studies of the psychosexual underworld being created today in South Carolina and other states trying to bring back that bye-gone time. Similarly, I wonder what is going on in Iraq as a repressive sexual morality is ruthlessly imposed upon the populace
April 23rd, 2006