A Headache For Novartis

[Guest guest]

What a pity Mandolin is no longer with us to see this, not least because

of the store he put on legal judgements. Still those who like to cite

Breggin and refer to his website might find it of interest.

P.

> A Headache For Novartis

> Freedman, Forbes Magazine, 07.23.01

> http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/0723/060.html

>

> letters@...

>

> Crusades | Psychiatrist Breggin is masterfully leading a campaign

> against Ritalin. Could he be overstating the case?

> Breggin has beenrailing against psychiatrists since he became one 35

> years ago. In more than a dozen books he has warned against the dangers of

> electroshock therapy, Prozac and involuntary admission into psychiatric

> hospitals. Today the 65-year-old Breggin is the nation's most vocal critic

> of Novartis' Ritalin and its generic spinoffs, claiming the medication used

> to treat attention deficit disorder is vastly over-prescribed.

>

> It's not a new claim. Yet you can credit Breggin for almost single-handedly

> reenergizing the anti-Ritalin contingent, leading to a flurry of lawsuits

> and news stories in the past 12 months proclaiming the drug's ostensible

> dangers. His crusade is so visible that lawyers, legislators and journalists

> routinely turn to Breggin--and often Breggin only--when they're looking for

> anti-Ritalin rhetoric.

>

> So who is he? A Wisconsin judge, ruling in 1997 on Breggin's credentials as

> an expert witness, described him this way: " He's a fraud, or at least

> approaching that. " In a 1995 medical malpractice case a land judge said

> Breggin showed " blinding bias " and called his testimony a " house of cards. "

> His conclusion: " I find that there is no rational basis for his opinions. "

>

> In the scientific community the consensus is that Breggin is not just wrong

> about Ritalin, but dramatically so. The surgeon general, the American

> Medical Association and the National Institute of Mental Health have all

> recognized attention deficit as a mental disorder for years. " He takes the

> scientific literature and sort of twists it to make it sound very scary and

> very dangerous, " says Swanson, a professor of pediatrics at the

> University of California at Irvine.

>

> Breggin dismisses this. He says federal agencies and legislators seek out

> his expert opinion on Ritalin's risks and notes that he is the coeditor of

> one peer-reviewed journal and on the editorial board of several others. He

> says he has been an expert witness in more than 50 lawsuits. " Naturally, " he

> says, " critics will say anything they damn well please. "

>

> But Breggin acknowledges that he does no controlled clinical research of his

> own. Instead he bases his opinions on scientific journals, patients in his

> private practice and media accounts. He has made some wild assertions in the

> past that don't help his credibility. In his books he has claimed it can be

> okay for children to have sexual relationships (a view he says he no longer

> holds) and that the vast majority of women have been sexually abused in

> childhood.

>

> Today Breggin is the director of the International Center for the Study of

> Psychiatry & Psychology, a nonprofit he founded in 1972, ten years after

> graduating from Case Western Reserve University's medical school. Grandiose

> as the title is, the center consists of himself plus a couple of part-time

> employees, working from his modest Bethesda, Md. home. It had annual income

> of less than $25,000 in 1999, the most recent year in which tax documents

> are available. Breggin makes a living from his private psychiatry practice,

> seeing patients 25 hours a week. He also testifies as an expert witness

> against certain psychiatric treatments for an average $350 an hour, plus

> $3,500 a day for trials or depositions.

>

> Breggin has found receptive ears. Bills to regulate Ritalin have been

> introduced or enacted in 21 states. Lawyers have filed five class suits

> against Novartis Pharmaceuticals, using Breggin as a medical expert in one

> of those cases. (Last year Breggin told Congress he was a medical expert in

> three of those cases.) Two of the suits, in California and Texas, were

> dismissed. Plaintiffs plan to appeal. The main charge: Novartis conspired

> with the psychiatric establishment to create the disorder by underwriting

> research that transformed symptoms like an inability to finish schoolwork

> into a sickness requiring medication.

>

> Ritalin is a powerful drug that is no doubt wrongly prescribed on occasion.

> But Breggin's shrill views could harm kids with real problems. He tells a

> story of a cab driver in St. Louis who after hearing him on the radio took

> his son off Ritalin. Most doctors would cringe at basing a medical decision

> on a radio program. But Breggin is gratified: " I'm beginning to be heard in

> the culture. " He's much too modest.