Speed Up and Sit Still by Martin Whitely

Author:Martin Whitely
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781742582498
Publisher: UWA Publishing
Published: 2010-05-14T21:00:00+00:00

company bias. Predictably the committee came up with draft

recommendations that, if implemented, will swell both the

numbers of children on ADHD drugs and pharmaceutical

company profi ts.

Perhaps the most revealing element of the draft guidelines

was that two thirds of the recommendations were made without

any supporting scientifi c evidence. They were based entirely

on reference group consensus and justifi ed as ‘best practice

based on clinical experience and expert opinion’. Like the 2002

International Consensus Statement (see chapter 1), these recom-

mendations were made by a group of fervent believers in the

validity of ADHD, most of whom had commercial ties to the

pharmaceutical industry.

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TH E POLITICS OF A DH D

Roxon’s Missed Opportunity

Throughout 2009 Roxon came under pressure from both sides of

the ADHD debate. I, and others concerned about the potential

of the new guidelines to further accelerate the growth in child

prescribing rates, lobbied Roxon to abandon the compromised

draft guidelines and seek advice from psychiatrists without ties

to the pharmaceutical industry. ADHD proponents, includ-

ing members of the RACP guidelines committee, wanted the

guidelines to be released.

In November 2009 the NHMRC effectively offered Roxon

an ideal circuit breaker. They announced that because of an

investigation involving undisclosed drug company payments

to US researcher Dr Joseph Biederman, the guidelines had

not been approved and that ‘If the US investigation remains

unresolved by mid-2010, NHMRC will move to redevelop

the draft guidelines.’23 To my surprise and dismay Roxon

rejected this opportunity to defuse the issue and pressured

the NHMRC to release the guidelines. The public and the

medical profession were left with the mixed message that

according to the NHMRC the guidelines were draft and subject

to withdrawal, but that Roxon was pleased they fi nally offered

‘more up-to-date information on ways to identify and care for

those in our community who may be suffering from ADHD’.24

This was not the only inconsistency in the Commonwealth

government’s response. Roxon, the RACP and the NHMRC

claimed in a joint press release that there were over 350,00025

Australian children and adolescents with ADHD (over seven

times the number medicated in 2007).26 Yet the RACP guide-

lines chair Dr Forbes stated ‘What’s important is that it is likely

fewer children will be prescribed medication.’ 27

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SPEED U P A N D SIT STILL

The incompetence of the RACP guidelines panel was fully

revealed when a spokesperson asserted that ‘the College was not

aware of the US investigation (into Biederman) when drafting

the guidelines’.28 As was revealed in the Australian the day after

the RACP made this claim I ‘wrote to the panel in July last year,

[sixteen months earlier] warning that its work had been tainted

by Dr Biederman’s research’ and ‘raised similar concerns with

Ms Roxon’s advisers in August last year’.29 My submission to the

RACP guidelines committee stated:

on June 8 2008 the New York Times exposed how Dr

Biederman was paid US$1.6 million in consulting

fees from drug makers between 2000 and 2007 but

did not disclose this income to his employer Harvard

University.30 Biederman received research funds from

15 pharmaceutical companies and serves as a paid

speaker or adviser to at least seven drug companies.31

My submission was obviously ignored. Regardless of their

inattention to my submissions, if the RACP committee or

Roxon’s offi

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