Illegal Psychiatric Drug Marketing System Charted/Exposed

by Kevin Hall | April 6, 2009 at 09:26 am
1201 views | 42 Recommendations | 21 comments

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Illegal Psychiatric Drug Marketing System Charted/Exposed

Illegal Psychiatric Drug Marketing System Charted/Exposed

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It is illegal to market drugs that are not FDA-approved for a specific condition. This criminal offense is called off-label marketing. Yet, 2 million children are currently being prescribed psychiatry's most powerful drugs, the newer antipsychotics (heavy tranquilizers), off-label.

It is also common knowledge that you cannot heavily sell a product without marketing it so it can also be assumed that these drugs are being marketed illegally -- off-label. State attorney general's offices and several branches of the US Department of Justice are winning major law suits against large pharmaceutical companies for this off-label marketing. Other suits are being won by theses same government agencies against drug companies for covering up harmful, and even lethal, psychiatric drug side effects. Still, government agencies are missing out on the prosecutions of many layers of individuals and groups that are involved in a complicated maze of off-label marketing which has allowed these crimes to sneak by, under the radar, for many years.

Now, for the first time, this illegal psychiatric drug off-label marketing scheme has been charted out for the public and prosecutors to see and it is all in the attached chart. This chart reveals how drug companies have been able to pull in several billions of dollars per year while selling drugs wherein the risks for outweigh any benefit. Hopefully, it can help protect millions of children who are being betrayed and used as a commodity.

The flow of this chart starts with money coming out of Big Pharma and ending up with huge profits for these same psychiatric drug manufacturers.

The chart runs both top down and left to right. It starts with Big Pharma funding the American Psychiatric Association (APA) which creates a committee to vote mental disorders into their Diagnostic Manual. In medicine, diseases are generally found through scientific tests while psychiatry votes in your Attention Deficit Disorders, Mathematics and Reading Disorders, etc. Of all the 374 mental disorders listed, there is not a single one that has a medical test to perform a diagnosis. They are all based upon a mental health practitioner's opinion of behavior and that's what allows a massive amount of fraud. This is because you can label any person and there also isn't any test to disprove a mental disorder. Again, it's just opinion.

Now, let's get back to the chart. A person has to be labeled with a mental disorder or "illness" in order to be prescribed any drugs. This part of the marketing procedure is done by the APA as they dream up and vote in disorders as a huge percentage of their funding comes from drug companies.

Step 2 is drug approval so see column two. Drug companies pay psychiatrists, and often their major universities and university-connected teaching hospitals, millions of dollars to research their drugs. These studies are submitted by the drug companies to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in order to get drug approval for a certain condition and age group. The FDA doesn't study these drugs themselves so rely on the data of the drug companies and the psychiatrists who the drug companies pay. Do you think that drug companies are generally going to hire psychiatrists who would give poor drug results that could cost them billions of dollars in future sales? Of course not. This system pretty much ensures that the FDA does not protect our safety. To get FDA-approval, the data submitted to the FDA only needs to show that the drug is slightly more effective that a placebo (sugar pill) and that the benefits slightly outweigh the risk. That's a very low standard, especially considering that the results come directly from the drug companies that stand to make profit only when the drug is approved.

Further down column 2, you will see that once a psychiatric drug (or any drug) is approved for any condition or age-group, the drug company merely has to get a positive study on the drug in one of three private drug references in order for Medicaid to pay for it. Psychiatrists and doctors can then get paid to use these drugs for other purposes. For examply, if an antipsychotic is FDA-approved only for schizophrenia in adults, one study in the DrugDex manual that's published by Thompson Reuters, can allow them to get paid for prescribing the schizophrenia drug for kids labeled with attention deficit disorder. That's frightening and is also what's happening.

Column 3 is about marketing. Please review the chart as I don't want to cover every little detail when it's already laid out for you. In this column, drug companies hire public relations and marketing firms to reach legislators, judges, doctors, psychiatrists, government agencies, patient and family groups, etc. which all work to push the drugs. There's also a tremendous amount of pharmaceutical funding to front groups to lobby for psychiatric drugging and to promote how many, many people have certain mental disorders that require drugging. There's also millions in pharmaceutical funding of mental health screening tests in schools, doctors offices and online that get people thinking that they need to be drugged.

The chart and what's written above is part of the practice of  marketing drugs, especially illegal, off-label drug-marketing for conditions and age groups not FDA-approved. Now that prosecutors have this graph, they should use it to research and prosecute not just the drug companies and their executives, but the entire gamut. All the tenticles of the illegal psychiatric drug marketing octupus need to be exposed and prosecuted; from the APA, to politicians, judges and other goverment agents, to members of the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill and other "family" groups, to psychiatrists and their universities and more. Only in this way will we protect children and the general public from being betrayed as Big Pharma commodities. You can visit www.cchrnewengland.org for more data.

[Disclaimer -- This article is a description of how, in my view and experience, psychiatric drugs get marketed off-label which means marketed for conditions and/or age groups that aren't approved by the FDA. This practice is illegal. This article doesn't say that all drug companies and psychiatrists are involved in these acts as such evidence only exists in a few cases that have been brought forward or have been prosecuted or settled. This article also does not say that all psychiatrists, colleges or hospitals, etc. are involved in such illegalities and it certainly is not meant to infer so.

This article and chart are meant to explain why so many children are being put on psychiatric drugs that are not approved for them. Again, this article is my personal view. For an in depth look at the situation, you may also visit www.cchr.org and view their documentary video, "Making a Killing, the Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging." -- Thank you, Kevin Hall ]

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4
duo

Thanks for this news.  I will post at our group:  ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL - http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI.

Please drop by sometimes.  Join and you could post yourself with follow-ups to this or other psychiatry news.  I also posted to Care2 News Network.  Check later today for comments from readers.

Care2 News link:
http://www.care2.com/news/member/513396753/1108965

Blessings!

Mary Neal

2
Fred Hall

Thank you Kevin for researching and posting this clear flow chart of the illegal and evil drug-pushing by those who are entrusted to help, but label and poison children for profit!

These criminals (psychiatrists and Big Pharma) should be discredited and jailed!

Fred Hall

 

1
Gloria Gervais

This chart is wonderful. I'll pass it on.

1
jazzyzazzy

THE GOVERMENTS ARE THE BIGGEST DRUG DEALERS IN THE WORLD. As for doing this to innocent kids well it just goes to show us how brutal these creepy men in suits can be.

1
ex pharma rep

WOW!!!!!  I cannot believe it.  It is like looking at a sales meeting slide show!!!!!  You nailed it!  And, it is about time someone gives the public the BIG PICTURE!

1
Mary Collins

Thanks Kevin for putting out the truth and real facts concerning the illegal marketing psychiatric drugs, since in doing this more people can become aware and can be helped. Since these drugs have lethal side effects and are taking away the lives of many this is really needed.

Mary Collins

1
Roderick Camelia

Nice job Kevin,

The chart makes it really easy to understand all the corruptions involved.

Thanks for taking the time to go thru this trouble.

R. Camelia.

1
Mary Parker

This is great article and one I will pass on to friends & family.  It exposes the truth about the REAL Drug Pushers in the world and the chart make it so simple to understand. 

Thanks.

1
Mitra Ghobadi

This is raw data . It shows the absolute truth and the basic solution to slow and eventually stop the fraud and the legal drug pushing perpetuated by different participants mentioned in the article. If not exposed and stopped we will have a ruined future generation and a ruined country.

1
Robert Loree

Good story, very informative and timely.

1
Suz Sanborn

Wow! What lengths these guys will go to, to make money! Thanks for the emlightening.

suz


1
Kevin Candon

Excellent article.  Thanks for making this information known.  It's good to know that something is being done about this and perhaps this article will inspire others to do more and more about it.

1
Guy Grant

A wonderful article!  I hope it will lead to curtailing of off-label drug marketing.  How about a law showing the percentage of off label prescriptions.

0
Jane Grondin

Great article.  Seeing the whole chart really illustrates just how far drug pushers will go to make a buck.  It's incredibly important to get this information out there, so that more people can have their eyes wide open about what is going on and will take more personal responsibility to question "authority". 

0
duo

Congratulations!  Your article made it to Care2 News Network's Front Page. This means it will go out via email to all of the members who elected to receive the news that way.  I appreciate you sharing this information about the plight of these children.  Below is the announcement from Care2.

Congratulations! The Care2 Community has promoted your submission to
the Care2 News Network Front Page.

News: Illegal Psychiatric Drugs Marketed to Children - Multi-State Scheme Charted/Exposed

In recognition for this outstanding achievement, you've
also been awarded a "Golden Note".



Thank you for contributing to the Care2 Community!

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

0
Eric Conover

It's High Time these betrayal-artists came to light!

0
Boston

"illegal psychiatric drug off-label marketing scheme" Thanks for getting this information out to the public.


Keep up the good work.

0
info4us

Title:  Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies  posted to the "National Academies Press" web site.

Authors:
Committee on Military and Intelligence Methodology for Emergent Neruophysiological and Cognitive/Neural Research in the Next Two Decades, National Research Council  Authoring Organizations

An brief excerpt about off-label drug use:  (A search of “off-label drug use” yields 12 hits in the book, which is availableo on line.)

 

“Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies research that will lead to new technologies and drugs, particularly in areas of cognition and performance, that will include off-label uses. Off-label drug use can alert intelligence analysts to compounds, methods of administration, or risk factors that may be unknown in civilian or military medicine and can help identify profiles of unanticipated effects.” 

 

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12177               

 

Please take a look at the NowPublic article that follows:

 

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/declaring-war-your-brain

 

Perhaps someone will have the time to go through the 12 references to off-label drug use in the previously mentioned book which is available online.

 

 

0
Mark Elstner

Thanks Kevin,

     This show it like it is.  Where are ou legislators?

0
Marc Clinton

Wow.  Kevin, thank you for the research.  I will pass the data along to some that I know who work with children and need to know about this massive abuse of trust.

0
Kevin Brady

Hey, Kev.  Long time no see!

Glad you're still fighting for what you believe.  Off label marketing is a crime, and the direct marketing of drugs to children, or to anyone, really, who doesn't have the background to understand drug effects/side-effects/combinations is extremely unwise, and if it isn't criminal, it should be.

Thanks for the article.

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