Tarnished Image? Psychiatrists Square Off Over A Nemeroff Lecture

For the second time in little more than a year, Charles Nemeroff is the subject of protest by other psychiatrists. The latest instance involves an invitation by the Institute of Psychiatry, the leading center in the UK for psychiatric research, to the University of Miami psychiatry professor to lecture next week at its new Centre for Affective Disorders. A group of UK psychiatrists, however, object to the invitation and point to his tenure as a sort of poster boy for undisclosed conflicts of interest. In the view of the Critical Psychiatry Network, which his planned appearance will reflect badly on all psychiatrists and they want the IoP to withdraw its invitation. In fact, one IoP senior lecturer also wrote BMJ to protest the move (read here). Why? As we have noted previously, Nemeroff was an Emory University professor who was sanctioned for failing to disclose that he had accepted about $500,000 in payments from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) while he was also the primary investigator for a National Institutes of Health study of the Paxil antidepressant, which is sold by the drugmaker (see here). The details emerged thanks to a US Senate Finance committee probe into undisclosed conflicts of interest. At issue was the extent to which such relationships may unduly influence medical research and practice. The Senate probe reached out like an octopus and ensnared various drugmakers, universities, medical journals and the NIH itself, specifically the National Institutes of Mental Health ...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs