Psychiatrists may cut some ties to drug firms

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Dr. Daniel Carlat knows all too well how easy it is for doctors to be seduced by drug industry money.

In 2002, he earned $30,000 in speaking fees to promote Wyeth's antidepressant Effexor XR to fellow doctors.

"I quit doing it because I felt I was beginning to push some ethical boundaries in terms of what I was saying and what I was not saying," said Carlat, a psychiatry professor at Tufts University in Boston who believes doctors need to cut their financial ties with drug companies.

"My own story was really nothing special," he said in a telephone interview. "I made $30,000 for the year, which is less than some of these doctors make in a weekend."

Carlat and other psychiatrists have been studying the issue and have proposed that the American Psychiatric Association cut back on medical education seminars funded by drug companies.

Dr. Nada Stotland, president of the group that represents 38,000 doctors, said the proposal is one of several the association's board will take up next month to address concerns that psychiatrists have become too cozy with drugmakers.

The APA and some prominent psychiatrists have been targeted in a probe by Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley. He has faulted several noted child psychiatrists, including Dr. Joseph Biederman of Harvard University in Boston, for failing to disclose hefty payments from drug companies.

Psychiatric drugs represent billions of dollars in global sales, with Wyeth's Effexor alone generating sales of $4 billion last year.