Physician Payments From Drug Manufacturers

Another prominent psychiatrist has been exposed for taking payments from drug manufacturers. According to the New York Times, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin who served as the host of public radio’s popular “The Infinite Mind” program earned at least $1.3 million between 2000 and 2007 giving marketing lectures for drug makers.
Dr. Goodwin is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drug makers have been exposed by Senator Charles Grassley a Republican from Iowa. Senator Grassley has been asking some of the nation’s leading researchers and doctors to provide their conflict-of-interest disclosures. He is comparing those documents with records of actual payments from drug companies.
In October of this year, Senator Grassley revealed that Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University Medical School here in Artlanta, earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drug makers from 2000 to 2007. Dr. Nemeroff failed to report at least $1.2 million of that income to his university and violated federal research rules. After trhese revelations, the National Institutes of Health suspended a $9.3 million research grant to Emory and placed restrictions on other grants. Dr. Nemeroff has resigned his chairmanship of Emory’s department of psychiatry.
According to the article, Dr. Goodwin’s radio programs often concerned subjects important to the commercial interests of the companies for which he consults. In a program broadcast on Sept. 20, 2005, Dr. Goodwin warned that children with who are left untreated could suffer brain damage, a controversial view. “But as we’ll be hearing today,” Dr. Goodwin reassured his audience, “modern treatments — mood stabilizers in particular — have been proven both safe and effective in bipolar children.” That very day, drug manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, reportedly paid Dr. Goodwin $2,500 to give a promotional lecture for its mood stabilizer drug, Lamictal, at the Ritz Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Fla. GlaxoSmithKline, paid Dr. Goodwin more than $329,000 that year for promoting Lamictal, according to records uncovered by Congressional investigators.
The Times reports that Dr. Goodwin said that Bill Lichtenstein, the program’s producer, knew of his consulting activities. But Mr. Lichtenstein said that he was unaware of Dr. Goodwin’s financial ties to drug makers and that Dr. Goodwin had denied earlier this year that he was receiving funds from drug manufacturers.
National Public Radio announced that it will remove Dr. Goodwin’s show from its lineup at the earliest possible date.