Conflict of interest and psychiatry - what's missing?

A new article looking at conflict of interest in psychiatry was presented on another blog to suggest that new rules are required to improve transparency. The article takes a look at six cases and the process used by Sen. Charles Grassley to publicize these cases. The article suggests that the reason for publicizing these cases was in order to support Grassley legislation (Physician Payment Sunshine Provision).  According to the article it was attached to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and was never voted on alone. 

These cases were repeatedly publicized in the popular media and some of the problems with these cases and Grassley's analysis were never adequately discussed.  The clearest example is the case of Alan F. Schatzberg, MD of Stanford University. He was the chairman of the Department of psychiatry and when Grassley investigated the matter at the level of Stanford University and several pharmaceutical companies. You can read the exact details in this paper but the bottom line is that Stanford University has always maintained that it handled potential conflicts of interest in an appropriate manner consistent with their policies. They actually published a statement on their web page at the time.  He remained the department head and although he was apparently temporarily removed as the principal investigator on a federal grant but he was later reinstated. The authors of the article in this case suggest that exposing the conflict of interest had negligible effect on the outcomes in this case, but the fact is the case was handled according to university policy.

There are really two key elements in this paper that are critical. The first is why Grassley went after psychiatry in the first place. The article suggests this occurs because his aide Paul Thacker "Combed  the media for stories of influential physicians with industry ties. He then requested the physicians conflict of interest disclosures from their AMCs and compared them to payment schedules obtained from companies."  I had always wondered why physicians from other specialties were never mentioned or consultants from other departments. It is fairly well known that scientists and engineers can make substantial incomes to supplement their university salaries based on their expertise. So why was the "media combing" restricted to psychiatry?

If I had to speculate, I would suggest that media bias against psychiatry is a well known fact. It has actually been investigated and the frequency of negative press that psychiatry receives relative to other specialties is well known. (see paragraph 4)  The popular press has an automatic media bias against psychiatry and it should come as no surprise that prominent psychiatrists are investigated and reported more frequently than other specialists. This is why “combing the media” is really not a legitimate research method. It should be fairly obvious that prominent university affiliated physicians of all specialties have similar conflicts of interest and that the business stake in other specialties is probably significantly higher.

The second element that should be obvious to anyone skeptical of Congress is Grassley's quote in the article "The whole field of medicine is connected by a tangled web of drug company money. For the sake of transparency and accountability should the American public know who their doctor is taking money from?"  That sounds like there is an obvious answer in there somewhere but the U.S. Congress is the best case in point that transparency is essentially meaningless. There is probably no better example than Sen. Grassley himself.  You don't have to look too far to find campaign donations that align with the votes and the Senator's denial (see paragraph 8) that there is any connection.

These simple facts are left out of the Journal article and that represents a serious flaw to me. Is the U.S. Congress is a shining example of disclosure becoming a license to do whatever you want to do? If that is the case you really don't have the basis to suggest that transparency will allow the "power of sunlight to disinfect". It clearly does not have that effect in Congress.  That is at the minimum an appearance of a conflict of interest on par with any scenario described in this article.  When I point this out - the usual rebuttal is that doctors should have a higher standard when it comes to the appearance of conflict of interest.  Is that really true?  Should a doctor who already has a fiduciary responsibility to a patient and the patient's well being have a higher conflict of interest standard than one of the 100 most important law makers in the country?

The other issue here of course is that psychiatrists are conveniently thrown under the bus. Despite the qualifier in this paper is that "Nor did Grassley ever assert that psychiatry was more problematic than other specialties." (p 5).  You really don't have to make an assertion when psychiatry is apparently the only field you are investigating. That bias is totally consistent with one of the themes of this blog. 

When all else fails you can more easily scapegoat psychiatrists.  So why look for anybody else?

George Dawson, MD. DFAPA

Chimonas S, Stahl F, Rothman DJ. Exposing conflict of interest in psychiatry:
Does transparency matter? Int J Law Psychiatry.
2012 Oct 1. pii: S0160-2527(12)00072-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2012.09.009.

[Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23036364.