Due to the recent 4000 injury claim settlement by AstraZeneca today, I thought it might be a good time to review COI(Conflict of Interest).
Charles Nemeroff, removed from Chair of Psychiatry at Emory University, due to pocketing and not disclosing GSK income (and investigated by Senator Charles Grassley) (to the tune of fine dining in restaurants and country clubs all in the name of "teaching about Paxil" and other oddities), taught the CME course (Continuing Medical Education) funded by AstraZeneca, for Major Depressive Disorder.
Seroquel, the wonder-drug antipsychotic on its last leg of patent life before going generic is becoming the most popular drug for scandal headlines in the pharmaceutical industry, not taking light away from Paxil, Avandia, Vioxx or Zyprexa, --Seroquel just seems to beam with scandal.
Atypical Antipsychotics in Major Depressive Disorder: When Current Treatments Are Not Enough: CME Outfitters
December 2008
The Sales Pitch
"Despite the high prevalence of MDD and the availability of effective treatments, only one-third of patients experience remission.(1) While many patients show improvement with initial therapy, the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) Trial demonstrated that it is not to the level of remission or recovery.(2) Augmentation is particularly helpful in managing patients who have had a partial response to their initial treatment. There has been an increased use of atypical antipsychotics as augmentation agents for patients that do not achieve full remission with traditional antidepressants. For those patients requiring augmentation, is the dose of the atypical antipsychotic different, what is the risk-benefit profile for the use of these agents?
In this evidence-based neuroscienceCME TV activity, experts will explore augmentation strategies to aid clinicians in choosing an individualized treatment plan for patients with difficult to treat depression."
Target Audience
Physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses, psychologists, social workers, certified case managers, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals with an interest in mental health.
Financial Support
CME Outfitters, LLC, gratefully acknowledges an educational grant from AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in support of this CE activity.
Conflict of Interest
Happens when a pharmaceutical company pays for the course that promotes antipsychotics for depression, and that company has (Seroquel) an antipsychotic drug being promoted for MDD.
Charles Nemeroff is so conflicted, he is toxic and glows in the dark, as Bernard Carroll likes to say.Conflict of Interest also happens when the speaker (doctor)Charles Nemeroff has the disclosure list below, which includes AstraZeneca. Nemeroff is currently at U of Miami.
The income from GSK and the research grants from NIH got him into hot water and booted out the door to Miami, hope they like him there.
CME Outfitters Disclosure Declaration
"Dr. Nemeroff has disclosed that he receives research grants from NIH. He is on the scientific advisory boards of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Forest Laboratories, Inc., Janssen/Ortho-McNeil, Mt. Cook Pharma, Inc., NARSAD, PharmaNeuroboost, and Quintiles Transnational Corp. He is a stockholder of or has equity in CeNeRx BioPharma, Corcept Therapeutics, NovaDel Pharma Inc., PharmaNeuroboost, and Reevax. Dr. Nemeroff serves on the Board of Directors of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, George West Mental Health Foundation, Mt. Cook Pharma, Inc., and NovaDel Pharma, Inc. He holds patents for a method and devices for transdermal delivery of lithium (US 6,375,990 B1), method to estimate serotonin and norepinephrine transporter occupancy after drug treatment using patient or animal serum (provisional filing April, 2001)".
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