Barry Blackwell: Corporate Corruption in the Psychopharmaceutical Industry

Barry Blackwell’s reply to Jay D. Amsterdam, Leemon B. McHenry and Jon N. Jureidini’s comment

I must thank these authors for their detailed account of 3 industry corrupted clinical trials hidden behind claims of industry immunity and privilege conferred by patent protections. So the authors’ detailed documentation is based mainly on court documents obtained during litigation which reveals an astonishingly broad spectrum of fraud and deception in the management of trial data by industry officials from two major drug companies (Glaxo Smith Kline and Forest Laboratory), the for-profit companies that conduct their clinical trials along with complicit involvement by academic psychiatrists. It is a tale of mismanagement and manipulation of data, statistics and outcomes. The behavior of journals, including some of the best, in accepting and publishing flawed studies and then failing to retract them is also implicated.

       One can sense the author’s justifiable frustration that there has been no calling to account of the individuals involved. But this is only one small part of a massive orchestrated chain of corruption to which all layers involved have turned a blind eye. Change is unlikely unless the political stars are aligned such that lobbying is outlawed, Congress feels empowered to adopt its constitutional responsibility of protecting the people it serves and the FDA is encouraged to assert its legislative authority to ensure that occurs.

Barry Blackwell

September 22, 2016