Come on now, the rich rarely punish their own, particularly when it's in the field of making even more money.

And this is precisely why corruption is a human trait not a party trait. I fiond it distasteful that a Doctor such as this who is teaching and advising on such a unique area of adolescent issues could mistake 1.6 million over 7 years as merely some sort of accounting or disclosing slip up. The reason that such a qualified person is given the opportunity to work in so many important areas and be paid nicley is because they are someone that is in a situation to be trusted. When issues like this creep up, it makes people who believe in our leaders doubt the accountability at the top of the chain. This person who should continue to do work in his field because his knowledge is something for which our society can use needs to accept responsability for his actions and set a precedent for others to follow. This is the leadership we expect!

This is heartbreaking but not surprising.

It's one of the most important reasons for independent child advocacy orgs. Because even kids whose parents are persistent and well-educated advocates bump up against questionable diagnosis and bs recommendations. Even from doctors at Yale (speaking from personal experience).

And the most heartbreaking thing is that there are tens of thousands of LD kids who have no real advocates. They're basically thrown to the wolves.

You gotta give props to GOP Sen. Grassley for getting on this. This gives me hope that Pres. Obama will have bipartisan support in improving health care in our country.

While the failure of the scientists in question to disclose industry funding is stupid, I think the leap towards actual medical corruption is a big one, and despite the Times best efforts at loading language with insinuations of conspiracy ("fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children") the paper failed to prove medical malfeasance or even provide any hard scientific data. I guess that's why, buried in the piece, the Times noted that "The Grassley investigation did not address research quality."

Inadvertently, that hit one of the real problems with Congressional oversight: Farmer Grassley has hitherto displayed a less-than-stellar grasp of science, statistics and medicine, and it has led to some extraordinary and presumably inadvertent statements in recent months (to the effect that most AIDS drugs and statins shouldn't be on the market as they are merely validated by surrogate endpoints instead of outcomes trials). It would be wise, not to mention just, therefore, to examine the scientific grounds for the scientists' work before demonizing them. That may be too much when political grandstanding is at stake, but is that too much to ask the paper of record?

It's worth pointing out that the Times obsession with motive and industry corruption over scientific rigor has produced a lot of unhelpful journalism: For instance, there was the Times investigation into the reckless marketing of OxyContin (deliberate misquotation of one expert source, ignorance of peer-reviewed data, reliance on DEA source and material that had been debunked by the GAO), and Avandia (even after biostatisticans had demolished the statistical reliability of Steven Nissen's study claiming an increase in heart attacks due to the diabetes drug, the Times continued to report his findings as fact, and characterize Nissen's critics as "Republicans"). Meanwhile the DEA went off on its own campaign to prosecute doctors providing pain meds, a scandal that was redressed by the Times magazine years later, and thousands of diabetics went off a last-line of defense medication.

So, mark me a skeptic of the Times reporting and Grassley's investigation, indeed, a skeptic of any reporting or investigations that don't delve into the science in a scientific manner. (And a skeptic, I hasten to add, who hasn't received any money from Pharma, directly or indirectly through his work.)

Make no mistake--there are many children and adults who are in desperate need of effective, safe psychiatric medicine to have even a reasonable semblance of a normal, functioning, productive life. The sad thing is, after all the money big pharma spends on advertising Strattera or Cymbalta or whatever the drug du jour may be, far too many of them STILL suffer side effects and only partially relieved symptoms from those drugs they can get, or can't afford access to the most effective ones. As a mental health therapist for over 15 years I have met far too many kids who just needed good nutrition, lots of exercise, behavioral modification, parents who were not exhausted from trying to make a living and teachers who were informed and had smaller classrooms to manage--not drugs. But the stuff I mentioned above is more difficult, more expensive and quite frankly, also not researched enough to be widely available. So here come the scrips.

This kind of thing is exactly why all health care, pharmaceuticals, insurance and medical research needs, at the very least, to become completely "not-for-profit" in it's focus, and heavily regulated/overseen by a science-oriented government agency (eg, NIH, once we reform the Bushification issues)

Seems Like most of the problems would go away
If Voters of the US would vote for a real change.
Nader
- or the wild one-
Ron Paul

But most will just follow,
Let me see what are choices,
1. Dem
2. Rep
3. Keep paying taxes even after reading "Free Lunch How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense "

How can you trust a Government.
That has leaders that can't even think for themselves "need/allow" lobbies

Can we get a IQ test requirement for the people who control the Government.

Maybe politicians are the smart ones?

Could it be that we are the stupid ones
thinking we need or are going to have to choose from the above.