On the front page, and over several pages inside, the Times newspaper reported on prescribing rates of antidepressants:
The Times considered the prescribing of antidepressants to both young and old:
And confirmed that:
Dr James Davies was quoted:
This was the view of the Times Editor:
One of the drivers of over-medicalisation is the involvement of industry in both research and marketing. In the UK, the pharmaceutical industry spends over £40 million a year on doctors and academics who market their products to appear somewhere as part of “approved Continuing Medical Education”.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists, in a response to a formal complaint, offered this statement of 8th June 2018:
However it is the case that the Royal College of Psychiatrists has no single, searchable register that records all payments to its Members. It is therefore impossible to determine the scale of any potential payments that have been made to “educators” on prescribing of psychiatric medications.
I advocated that it was necessary to formally place in the public domain all details of such payments when the previous President, Sir Professor Simon Wessely, was in office but it seems that the evidence that I provided to support this action was not considered sufficient by my College.
Declaration of interest: I was one of those who signed the formal complaint.
Reblogged this on Chrys Muirhead .