Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14582

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Publication type: news

Nussbaum A.
Johnson & Johnson Psychiatric Gifts Probed by Senat
Bloomberg.com 2008 Nov 4
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ad5S7xv5LKrk

Full text: Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest health-care company, said a U.S. Senate committee probing payments to doctors by drug and medical-device makers has asked about company support of psychiatric professional groups.

J&J, of New Brunswick, New Jersey, is responding to the request, received Oct. 23 from the Senate Committee on Finance, the company said today in a regulatory filing. The letter asks about ``any payments or benefits to a number of specified psychiatrists associated with psychiatric professional associations or otherwise authorities in their field.’‘

Committee members Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, sent a similar request Oct. 16 to J&J, Medtronic Inc. and Abbott Laboratories about support for a medical-device conference. Grassley has also said he is probing payments by AstraZeneca Plc and Eli Lilly & Co. to psychiatrists and disclosures by Stanford University professor Alan Schatzberg, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association.

The new J&J inquiry ``would be part of Senator Grassley’s work to determine more about the accuracy of disclosures of financial relationships between industry and doctors and to build a case for his sunshine legislation,’‘ said Jill Kozeny, a spokeswoman for the senator, in an e-mail today.

Influence of Payments

The letter to J&J requests information on financial ties to 24 doctors, including current APA president Nada Stotland.

Studies have shown company payments and gifts to doctors can influence decisions about medical treatment, prescriptions and research. Grassley and Kohl have sponsored legislation that would force drug and medical device companies to disclose their spending on doctors.

Grassley criticized Stanford’s disclosure rules in a June 23 statement in the U.S. Congressional Record, in which he said Schatzberg failed to report a $6 million stake in a company whose depression drug he was studying on a government grant. The committee has raised similar criticisms about doctors at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, Grassley said in the statement.

``These physicians are some of the top psychiatrists in the country, and their research is some of the most important in the field,’‘ he said. ``They have also taken millions of dollars from the drug companies and failed to report those payments accurately.’‘

Antipsychotics such as Risperdal, Risperdal Consta and Invega were J&J’s single-largest-selling category of drugs last year, generating $4.7 billion in revenue.

Association Statement

The 38,000-member psychiatric association received a request from Grassley Sept. 2 for information on drug-industry funding it has received since January 2003, the group’s spokeswoman, Rhondalee Dean-Royce, said in an e-mailed statement.

``Relationships between medical professionals and societies and industry must be carefully scrutinized to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest,’‘ Stotland, the association president, said in the statement. ``The APA is also working with other medical societies to develop broader standards for reporting and limiting relationships with industry.’‘