Mental Health Blogs

I think readers of this site are fairly well aware of the respect I have for Tufts University psychiatrist Danny Carlat, who’s led the fight in psychiatry to clean up the APA and pharma-sponsored CMEs. My respect for him now goes up by $170,000, the amount Schering-Plough reportedly (scroll down to the bottom of the linked page) offered him to go shill for its recently-approved atypical antipsychotic Saphris and the amount which Carlat turned down.

“In a letter to doctors, Schering-Plough says ‘you must present the Schering-Plough approved materials provided to you.’ The company offered one psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Carlat, a Tufts University Medical School professor, up to $170,000 over two years to give 125 45-minute talks in restaurants, in his office, and by telephone and the Internet. A well-known critic of the drug industry, Carlat declined.”

First, that’s a ton of money for anyone to promote anything, especially a drug with pretty much no track record. Second, didn’t S-P know who they were dealing with and that he’d very likely shoot them down and that their offer would become public? Lame.

For the uninitiated, Carlat’s blog is here.

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2. Here Comes Another New Antipsychotic
3. CVS Company Helped Lilly Promote Zyprexa
4. Antipsychotic Use Up 1,000 Percent In Canadian Kids
5. Glaxo Had Ghostwriting Program To Promote Paxil