The American Psychiatric Assocation’s PR Crisis—The Truth is Out There

As the news tumbled out last week that the American Psychiatric Association had hired GYMR, an expensive PR company, to help the organization “execute strategies that include image and alliance building, public education campaigns or media relations to harness the formidable forces of Washington and produce successful results for clients” (services that GYMR brags about in its mission statement), it became clearer than ever that the APA has more than an image-problem with DSM-5.

With The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, 51 professional organizations, a sizable blogging community, and the manual’s former editor, Allen Frances, all voicing strenuous concern about the manual’s planned revisions and likely content, the hiring of a PR firm to “execute … image-building”—that is, to gloss over serious diagnostic issues and controversies in psychiatry—amounts to a fig leaf, a frantic effort to whitewash the manual’s many flaws and questionable content.

US Senator asks why Govt would award $2 mil “PTSD Research” grant to Psychiatrist known for back-door Pharma funding

Grassley is questioning the award of a five-year grant worth almost $402,000 annually to investigate “psycho-biological” risk factors for post-traumatic stress disorder to Dr. Charles Nemeroff at the University of Miami (Fla.) School of Medicine.

Nemeroff was the chairman of the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at Emory University in Atlanta and leading a $9.3 million NIH-funded study on depression when it was uncovered that he had received more than $800,000 from drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline for 250 speaking engagements between January 2000 and January 2006 and other income that he had not disclosed.

Study: Massive bias toward pharmaceuticals at American Psychiatric Association conferences

The vast majority of research presented at conferences was funded by pharmaceutical companies. Of the industry-supported studies, 97.4 percent reported results that were positive toward the medicine that the study was designed to test, and 2.6 percent reported mixed results. No industry-sponsored studies with negative results were found!

Maryanne Godboldo Case Prompts Congressman to Request Feds Investigate Child Protective Services

“I knew the system was broken, but I didn’t know it was this broken, where anyone, literally anyone could come and take your child,” said Maryanne Godboldo, who’s 13-year-old daughter was taken temporarily by CPS last year.

Testimony under oath in the Godboldo case revealed that probation officers inside the court would routinely stamp Presiding Juvenile Court Judge Leslie Kim Smith’s name onto the removal orders. By law, a judge must review the CPS workers allegations of abuse, and then sign the order.

After we reported on the rubber stamping that legal experts say is against the law – the court stopped doing it. But we still asked the court and DHS to tell us how long it had been going on, and how many children were taken from their parents illegally. Judge Smith was not interested in answering our questions.

U.S. Senators File Amendment to Combat Widespread Antipsychotic Drugging of Elderly in Nursing Homes

U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., today filed an amendment seeking to combat the costly, widespread and inappropriate use of antipsychotics in nursing homes. “This amendment responds to alarming reports about the use of antipsychotic drugs with nursing home residents,” Grassley said. “It’s intended to empower these residents and their loved ones in the decisions about the drugs prescribed for them.”

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