Strike Three! You’re out Duncan.

Sometimes you find fresh baloney in the most revered places. Case in point: The Psychotherapy Networker. In the same issue that our "Supershrink" articles appeared, more drug company propaganda disguised as research made its way in the "Clinician’ s Digest." Barry has a track record of pointing out the conflicts of interest that have infested the Networker pages, starting way back in 1999 before the "Exposing the Mythmakers" article was published. A Networker feature by a psychiatrist bemoaned the sexual side effects of SSRIs and mentioned a competing drug by name. It smelled fishy but the editorial staff insisted it wasn’t. But it was. The author was on the pharmaceutical payroll of the highlighted drug. To their credit the Networker printed their mistake and vowed to check for conflicts of interest in pharmaceutical related articles.

Unfortunately, that promise has not extended to the regular column called "Clinician’s Digest" and the Networker did not take the high road this time. Barry sent the following letter after the second noted instance of the "Digest" using drug company stooges to provide information without apparent critical examination or other viewpoints. The "Digest" piece looked like a pharmaceutical company press release—pure baloney that didn’t remotely approximate the data. The Networker chose not to publish this letter, the first ever written by an ISTC member that was rejected in total.

I write again in response to the Clinitian's Digestreport of psychotropics with children, in this case the MTA and stimulants—and I am asking the Networker to set a higher standard of journalism. The expert cited, Peter Jensen, is extensively linked to Novartis, the makers of Ritalin, the drug investigated in the MTA, perhaps explaining his decided pro-drug spin and glaring lack of mention of adverse effects. Contrast Jensen’s comments with another MTA investigator, William Pelham, who said on a recent BBC documentary, "There's no indication that medication's better than nothing in the long run." Pelham also added that the impact (of Ritalin) was seemingly negative.

The original MTA study found that 64% of children had adverse drug reactions. The 36 month follow-up reported that decreases in growth in medicated children averaged 2.0 cm and 2.7 kg less than not medicated groups, without evidence of growth rebound at 3 years. The lack of differences in effectiveness among the groups in the MTA (and other studies) combined with notable as well as largely unknown long-term side effects led the American Psychological Association Working Group on Children and Psychotropics to conclude: "With regard to use over a period of 2 to 3 years, the risk–benefit analysis of stimulant medication does not appear to be favorable because beneficial effects appear to dissipate while side effects (e.g., growth) do not."

I respectfully request that articles addressing medication rely on primary sources or include experts without ties to drug companies to provide counterbalance to pharmaceutical spins.

For more Baloney click here.