Roger Collier
Canadian Medical Association Journal
November 17, 2009

Former editors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) have publicly declared their concerns that the ongoing revision process of the influential publication has been cloaked in secrecy. In recent months, debate about the confidentiality agreement that contributors must now sign has been playing out in the pages of the Psychiatric Times. Dr. Allen Frances, editor of DSM-IV, has written several editorials slamming the DSM-V task force for their lack of transparency.

The “real problem now is the almost complete lack of openness about [DSM-V] methods, progress, timelines, and products,” Frances writes in an email.

Dr. Robert Spitzer, editor of DSM-III, has expressed a similar opinion. In 2008, he wrote an open letter criticizing the confidentiality agreement (Psychiatr News 2008; 43:26). In the letter, Spitzer says that he requested the minutes of a DSM-V meeting but was refused. The confidentiality mandate, he wrote, would prohibit the free exchange of information between the DSM task force and outside experts that is essential to effectively revising the manual.

Read entire article: http://www.cmaj.ca/earlyreleases/17nov09-dsm-revision-surrounded-by-controversy.shtml