Sixty percent of US physicians serving as panel and task force members for the American Psychiatric Association’s official manual of psychiatric disorders received payments from industry totalling $14.24m, finds a study published by The BMJ.
Because of the enormous influence of diagnostic and treatment guidelines, the researchers say their findings “raise questions about the editorial independence of this diagnostic manual.”
Often referred to as the ‘bible’ of psychiatric disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, text revision (DSM-5-TR) is the latest edition of the guide that doctors use to diagnose and treat patients. It is thus critical that authors of this psychiatric taxonomy should be free of industry ties.
But until the development of Open Payments (a database of financial relationships between companies and physicians), it wasn’t possible to determine the amount of monies received by authors of diagnostic and clinical practice guidelines.
Poster Comment:
These are the people who declared a desire to eat healthy food a mental illness called Orthorexia Nervosa!