Attacking "Side Effects" with Logical Fallacies, Version 2

Side Effects by Alison Bass continues to generate controversy. As described by a reviewer in the New England Journal of Medicine,(1) the book

used the case of Paxil to expose the unsavory and self-serving relationships among members of the pharmaceutical industry, psychiatrists, and members of the FDA.

The reviewer concluded,

Bass's riveting and well-researched account of these disturbing ties should be widely read by members of the medical profession, many of whom continue to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they are immune to the influence of drug companies.

We previously posted about how the book inspired one reviewer to unleash a series of logical fallacies in an apparent attempt to discredit Bass and Side Effects. Now a review by AJ Gelenberg has appeared in Health Affairs, the respected scholarly journal of health care and health policy research, which also employed its share of logical fallacies.(2)

Ad Hominem

One of Galenberg's main arguments was that Side Effects treated as black and white a story that is really about shades of gray. Furthermore, he alleged that "its hyperbole and 'villains-versus-heroes' style do no justice to a pressing public health issue." From there, he tried to discredit two of its "heroes."

One hero, a psychiatrist, admitted to a series of boundary violations with a patient that caused me to blanch. But no matter; he’s a good guy, and the author declares his intent to be pure. Another of her bigger-than-life heroes is Eliot Spitzer. The prepublication version of Bass’s book I read was written before Spitzer’s resignation as New York’s governor. I wonder if her heroes get redacted when their feet turn out to be made of clay.

Bass actually used a number of pages to address the allegations of malpractice made against the "hero" psychiatrist. But the psychiatrist's role in the book was the early raising of the hypothesis that selective serotonin uptake inhibitor (SSRI) anti-depressants may lead to suicidal ideation. Whether that hypothesis is true, and whether or not other people sought to manipulate or suppress evidence relevant to it were the real questions Side Effects addressed. The psychiatrist's conduct with a particular patient are irrelevant to their answers.

Similarly, although Elliot Spitzer did oversee the lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of Paxil, his conduct years later that lead to his resignation as Governor of New York had nothing to do with this lawsuit or the issues it raised. Furthermore, Side Effects focused on how his staff investigated the relevant facts and pursued the lawsuit. Spitzer's role on the ground was minimal.

Thus, a single paragraph in Galentberg's Health Affairs review employed the ad hominem fallacy twice. This fallacy may be defined one "in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting)."

Guilt By Association

Later, Galenberg wrote,

I worry that Bass’s book can do harm with its broad-brush smear.

So,

Scientologists could find support for their cruel and misinformed agenda of laying waste an area of medical care that is tragically stigmatized.

Of course, anything written by anyone could be misinterpreted by someone else, or used in conjunction with yet more logical fallacies to provide erroneous support of an unrelated position. I submit that implying that Scientologists, not a group discussed or addressed in Side Effects, would be so involved was an attempt at asserting guilt by assocation. This may be defined as one "in which a person rejects a claim simply because it is pointed out that people she dislikes accept the claim."

Slippery Slope

Galenberg's worry noted above lead to a dire warning,

Worst of all, patients and their families could turn away from needed attention and further compound the neglect of psychiatric disorders.

Galenberg did not explain how Bass' book, devoted as it was to the case of the marketing and research of single drug, could undermine all of psychiatric care. Thus, this appears to be a slippery slope, defined as a fallacy "in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question."

Conclusion

What Galenberg's review did not do is meaningfully address the facts presented in the book, and Bass' main interpretation of them. Side Effects argued that clinical research evidence specifically about the safety of SSRIs for children and adolescents, not adults was suppressed and manipulated. In fact, there is now considerable evidence that SSRIs may have risks for children and adolescents that were not appreciated until recently, and may not be very efficacious for younger patients. For example, the systematic review by Whittington et al included published and unpublished data from randomized controlled trials of SSRIs in children and adolescents.(3) Its abstact concluded "published data suggest a favourable risk-benefit profile for some SSRIs; however addition of unpublished data indicates that risks could outweigh benefits of these drugs (except fluoxetine) to treat depression in children and young people. The systematic review of published trials by Fergusson et al concluded there was "an association between suicide attempts and the use of SSRIs."(4)

Galenberg concluded on the regretful note,

I wish that Alison Bass had been more credible and responsible in presenting this dilemma and the underlying facts.

However, Galenberg never provided evidence or clear arguments that disputed the "underlying facts." Rather, this review, like the one by Herrmann, seemed at best to show the reviewer's distaste for Side Effects, rather than the source of that emotion.

Galenberg did allude in his review to his background,

I have consulted to the pharmaceutical industry, given lectures they have funded, and taken educational and research funds from them through my university.

He did not specify the companies for which he worked, the topic or purpose of the consultations, the nature of the lectures he gave, or the research he pursued. However, a quick search revealed that one of his colleagues in such research pursuits was Dr Martin Keller, one of the "villains," to use Galenberg's term, in Bass' book. (For example, see this article by Keller et al from 2007.[5]) The disclosures in that study included,

Dr. Gelenberg is a consultant to Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Best Practice, AstraZeneca, Wyeth, Cyberonics, Novartis, Forest, and GlaxoSmithKline; has stock options with Vela Pharmaceuticals; and has received research grants (to the University of Arizona) from Novartis.

Thus, this seems to be yet another in our series of cases of confused defenses of financial entanglements among industry and academics. Such confusion seems likely to appear in arguments made by people who themselves may have relevant conflicts of interest. As Joe Collier said, " people who have conflicts of interest often find giving clear advice (or opinions) particularly difficult."(6)

I would submit that Dr Gelenberg's review perhaps unintentionally supports the argument that physicians' and academics' financial entanglements with organizations with vested interests in promoting products, services, or ideologies should not merely be disclosed and managed, but should be materially reduced, if not eliminated.


References

1. Friedman RA. Side effects: a prosecutor, a whistleblower, and a bestselling antidepressant on trial. N Engl J Med 2008; 358: 2852. Link here.

2. Gelenberg AJ. Warning: Side Effects may include distorted vision. Health Aff 2008; 27: 1193-4. Link here.

3. Whittington CJ, Kendall T, Fonagy P, Cottrell D, Cotgrove A, Boddington E. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in childhood depression: systematic review of published version unpublished data. Lancet 2004; 363: 1341-1345.

4. Kirsch I, Deacon BJ, Medina-Huedo TB, Scoboria A, Moore TJ, Johnson BT. Initial severity and antidepressant benefits: meta-analysis of data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. PLoS Med 5(2): e45 . Link here.

5. Keller MB, Trivedi MH, Thase ME, Shelton RC, Kornstein SG, Nemeroff CB, Friedman ES, Gelenberg AJ et al. The prevention of recurrent episodes of depression with venlafaxine for two years (PREVENT) study: outcomes from the 2-year and combined maintenance phase. J Clin Psychiatr 2007; 68: 1246-1256. Link here.

6. Collier J. The price of independence. Br Med J 2006; 332: 1447-9. Link here.