Jay D. Amsterdam and Leemon B. McHenry : The Paroxetine 352 Bipolar Study Revisited : Desconstruction of Corporate and Academic  Misconduct 

Barry Blackwell’s comment on Jay Amsterdam and Leemon McHenry’s reply to Edward Tobe’s  comment

       Jay Amsterdam and Leeman McHenry’s reply to Edward Tobe’s prescient comment on the motivational basis for complicit academic fraud and malfeasance in corporate-sponsored ghostwriting appropriately analyzes the moral underpinnings of this behavior on the part of both the individuals and organizations allegedly involved in oversight.

       Not mentioned but highly significant is the pecuniary motive driving this behavior - exorbitant sums of money far exceeding customary salary levels and sufficient to stifle guilt of any dimension.

       Beginning in the 1980s and escalating rapidly throughout the economy has been income disparity producing executives and administrators in the allegedly “not for profit” health care industry who draw down million dollar salaries.

       Meanwhile, federal support for ethical drug research dwindled and the NIMH ECDEU program was eliminated.   At the same time industry shifted from scientific innovation to creative marketing of “me too” drugs.  Some academic faculty on moderate salaries were enticed to follow the money and a few fell victim to greed and addiction. Unlike all the other addictions to which humans are susceptible lucre is the only one that suffers no adverse consequences and proceeds unchecked because the institutions taxed with oversight are afflicted with the same disorder.

       The magnitude of the emoluments derived, the lure of the lucre and the anodyne that “everyone is doing it” are powerful constraints that stifle whatever individual slender moral or ethical impulses might still exist.

February 18, 2021