EmaxHealth
By Tyler Woods Ph.D.
February 11, 2010

Critics such say there’s a damaging conflict of interest with the financial ties between drug companies and experts who are revising the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), as well as guidelines on the best treatments.

This question has been a big topic of debate not just in scientific and academic journals it also concerns the public welfare. This is because the experts are making it possible for financial profit to affect decisions about who needs treatment, whether they are prescribed medicine and which ones, says Lisa Cosgrove, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

The DSM appears to be more a political document than a scientific one. Each diagnostic criteria in the DSM is not based on medical science. “No blood tests exist for the disorders in the DSM. It relies on judgments from practitioners who rely on the manual,” says Lisa Cosgrove of the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Approximately 160 experts are appointed by the American Psychiatric Association are updating the manual, expected in 2011-2012. For the first time the psychiatry association is now required to publicly disclose all industry ties. Sixty-eight percent of task-force members report economic ties with drug companies, Cosgrove says. These links include the experts being on corporate boards, hold stock or collect money as advisers for pharmaceutical companies.

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