The families of many children injured or sickened by the antipsychotic drugs they’d been prescribed are calling for the testimony of a prominent child psychiatrist whose endorsement of such drugs led to a 40-fold (4,000%) increase in diagnoses of pediatric bipolar disorder between 1994 and 2003.  A recent Congressional investigation revealed a very lucrative association between the doctor and the pharmaceutical giant that manufactures one of the most-prescribed drugs for treating the disorder.

Harvard University’s Dr. Joseph Biederman reported no 2001 income from Johnson & Johnson (J&J) but when prodded by Iowa Senator Charles E. Grassley (R), Biederman reluctantly acknowledged payment of $3,500.  A spokesman for the drug company testified the company actually paid him $58,169 that year.  One of the most popular antipsychotic medications is Risperdal (risperidone), a J&J product.

Although required by the university to report all outside income, the Congressional investigation revealed Biederman failed to acknowledge as much as $1.4 million he’d received from J&J and other manufacturers of the antipsychotic drugs he touts so strongly.

Documents from J&J, AstraZeneca (maker of Seroquel), and Eli Lilly (Zyprexa) are part of the lawsuit against the drug makers and Biederman’s name is mentioned in enough of them that attorneys for the families want him to testify and have asked for an order from the case’s presiding judge to force him to do so.

In one document, John Bruins, marketing executive for J&J, begged in a 1999 email for his supervisors to approve a $3,000 payment to Biederman for a lecture he presented at the University of Connecticut.  The email describes Biederman as a man of “very short fuse” and “not someone to jerk around.”  Bruins writes that Biederman had become angered earlier when his request of a $280,000 research grant was denied.

In 2002, J&J awarded $700,000 to a pet project of Biederman’s, a research center for pediatric psychopathology at Massachusetts General Hospital that is not affiliated with Harvard University.  The center’s 2002 annual report describes a three-point focus for its research:  high standards, improved pediatric psychiatric care, and the mission to “move forward the commercial goals of J&J.”  Biederman is chief of the center’s operations.

The annual report further states, “We strongly believe that the center’s systematic scientific inquiry will enhance the clinical and research foundation of child psychiatry and lead to the safer, more appropriate and more widespread use of medications in children.”  It further states, “Without such data, many clinicians question the wisdom of aggressively treating children with medications, especially those like neuroleptics (antipsychotics), which expose children to potentially serious adverse events.”

Additional court records indicate Biederman approached the drug maker many times in regard to the center, even offering the rationale that the center’s goal is to “generate and disseminate data supporting the use of risperidone” for pediatric patients.

Another executive-level memo from J&J to Biederman reveals he is listed as the author of a study intended for presentation at the 2002 annual meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry although he was not a participant in either the research itself or the writing of the report.  Dr. Gahan Pandina wrote to Biederman that the study proved children getting just a placebo showed the same degree of improvement as children taking Risperdal.  Pandina’s email asked Biederman to “please give some thought to how to handle this issue.”