BLOGSCAN - Conflicts of Interest and Atypical Anti-Psychotic Drugs for Children

Another day, another report about how physicians are paid by drug, device, or biotechnology firms as consultants or to serve on speakers' bureaus, raising questions of whether such payments might influence the physicians' decision making, or whether their lectures and articles might end up furthering the companies' marketing purposes. Of course, there is evidence that even accepting small gifts may influence how people think about the gift-giver. And if one works part time for company x, common sense suggests one would be less likely to criticize company x's products, and perhaps more likely to criticize the alternatives. (See our relevant post here).

The Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry blog has lengthy comments about these issues in child psychiatry, especially as they relate to the use of atypical anti-psychotic drugs. See also the post on PharmaGossip.