Feds Say Dr. Drew Was Paid By Glaxo To Talk Up Antidepressant

Part of the case made by U.S. prosecutors that led to GlaxoSmithKline‘s $3 billion settlement today is that the company used a network of paid experts, speaking to doctors and to the press, to promote uses of its drugs that had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. According to the Department of Justice’s complaint, one of those paid experts was celebrity physician Dr. Drew Pinsky, then the host of the radio show Loveline, which was also being broadcast on MTV. Pinsky has gone on to host Celebrity Rehab, Dr. Drew on HLN, and Dr. Drew’s Lifechangers on the CW.

GlaxoSmithKline settles healthcare fraud case for $3 billion

GlaxoSmithKline Plc has agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor criminal charges and pay $3 billion to settle the largest case of healthcare fraud in U.S. history.

The settlement includes $1 billion in criminal fines and $2 billion in civil fines in connection with the sale of the drug company’s Paxil, Wellbutrin and Avandia products, according to filings in federal court on Monday.

Psychiatric Drugging of Foster Kids—Government Needs to Take Urgent Action

“This is an urgent issue, and child-centered organizations and individuals need to let state and federal administrators, Congress and state legislators know that it needs immediate action,” says Edward Opton, a psychologist and lawyer involved in child welfare issues. “The medical literature shows no studies of the long-term effects of antipsychotic drugs on children, including drugs for so-called conduct disorder, the condition for which they are most frequently prescribed to children. There are no data on drugged vs. undrugged children with respect to completion of school, employment, early pregnancy, imprisonment, or subjective quality of life as evaluated by the children or by anyone else.”

Taking a Stand: The Only University To Formally Challenge the American Psychiatric Association

This is a crucial issue. As the Saybrook psychology faculty note in their remarkable blog “The New Existentialists:” “the DSM-5 inflates diagnostic criteria to such an extent that it pathologizes normal behavior and natural human functioning.”

Under this new “Bible of Psychiatry” every aspect of human life, every thought and feeling, can be considered a form of “mental illness” and treated with drugs. An egregious example is a proposed change that would make any depression about the death of a loved one that lasts longer than two months a mental illness treatable by anti-depressants.

This is madness. Millions of people who are perfectly healthy, who are not sick but are looking for help, will be forcibly turned into customers for the pharmaceutical industry. Psychologists are being encouraged to spend less and less time actually talking with those they are seeking to help, getting to know them as human beings, and taking their search for meaning in life seriously.

U.N. investigating Judge Rotenberg Center’s Use of Electroshock of Kids as Torture

Powerful video of a Judge Rotenberg Center student shocked and restrained for hours continues to reverberate on Beacon Hill and beyond, with opponents of the treatment stepping up efforts to ban the shocks as the United Nations expert on torture says he’s investigating the school. The video has helped fuel a renewed lobbying effort to ban the long-controversial shocks. Several opponents of the shocks, including the mother of the student in that video, visited lawmakers’ offices today to press for the ban.

“We’re going to continue to let our children be tortured? I just hope that they come to their senses are realize this is wrong and it’s been wrong for the last 27 years,” said Cheryl McCollins, mother of former Rotenberg Center student Andre McCollins.

SHARE YOUR STORY/COMMENT: