Frederick Goodwin: What the NY Times Left Out

So is Dr. Goodwin an industry patsy? The NY Times quoted Dr. Goodwin from one broadcast, saying:

“As you will hear today, there is no credible scientific evidence linking antidepressants to violence or to suicide.”

According to the article: "That same week, Dr. Goodwin earned around $20,000 from Glaxo, which for years suppressed studies showing that its antidepressant, Paxil, increased suicidal behaviors."

To put this particular issue in context, the matter involved a controversy in psychiatry that pitted expert against expert. This involved a 2004 FDA investigation into the safety of antidepressants for children, which I reported on extensively in my email newsletter throughout the year. The FDA came down on the side of issuing a black label warning, but this is not the same as saying that Dr. Goodwin was wrong or had been influenced by the drug companies.

I first heard Dr Goodwin speak at a DBSA conference in 2000. Over the years, I have heard him address patients and fellow psychiatrists at least a dozen times, including talks where he was paid to speak by drug companies. In not one talk did I ever hear Dr. Goodwin give a plug for a drug manufactured by the company paying him to speak (in stark contrast to Dr. Nemeroff, I might add). To the contrary, Dr Goodwin has been highly critical of drug companies and their marketing.

Dr Goodwin receives a considerable income from GSK, manufacturers of the mood stabilizer Lamictal and the antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin. Much of his speaking is underwritten by this company. So do his talks come across as a GSK infomercial? One GSK drug rep confided to me that in a talk she helped set up, Dr Goodwin did not refer to a GSK drug even once.

When I have heard Dr. Goodwin mention a particular med, it is always in the context of other meds in that class. And the med that Dr Goodwin champions? Lithium, a common salt that no drug company promotes, a drug in direct competition to the mood stabilizers that the NY Times thinks that Dr. Goodwin is shilling for.

As to antidepressants, Dr. Goodwin has been a vocal opponent of prescribing these meds to bipolar patients and to large populations of those with clinical depression, as well. If doctors actually listened to Dr. Goodwin, prescriptions for antidepressants would be way down.

You can view Dr. Goodwin waxing cautious on antidepressants and waxing critical on drug companies in three videos in this site:

Depression and Bipolar Disorder
The Best and Worst Times
Understanding Genes and the Future of Pharma

I have no doubt that Dr Goodwin speaks his own mind and is not influenced by the drug companies who pay him. But there still remains the disturbing issue of the corrupting influence of drug industry largesse on psychiatry. I first reported on prominent academic psychiatrists who fronted industry-written articles for psychiatric journals back in 1999, when I began writing about mental health. Over 2002 and 2003, I was one of the few journalists reporting on findings coming to light on the diabetic risks of atypical antipsychotics. Late last year, in a Newsletter, I made the following points, first in a "letter" to psychiatrists: