Australia's draft ADHD Guidelines have been scrapped in the wake of a US Congressional Investigation. A new Committee has been established by the National Health and Medical Research Council with child and adolescent psychiatrist Professor Bruce Tonge as chair. Tonge is currently the Chief Investigator of a $534,782 Melbourne clinical trial which includes giving antidepressants to children who refuse to go to school!
While there are well meaning experts on the new Committee, The Citizens Committee on Human Rights (CCHR) is concerned as Professor Tonge could already be biased as he is giving drugs to children aged between 11 and 15 for not going to school. Antidepressants have warnings for the increased risk of suicide and self harm. Truancy is not a mental illness.
Given his position CCHR doubts Professor Tonge will have impartiality when it comes to looking at alternatives to Ritalin, dexamphetamine and Concerta during the re-write of the ADHD Guidelines. These ADHD drugs are classed as Schedule 8 drugs in the same category as cocaine, morphine and opium in Australia.
Australia's draft ADHD Guidelines wasting the tax payer $135,000 so far have now been scrapped due to controversy over conflicts of interest of those whose studies were used in the guidelines. A US Congressional Investigation saw Joseph Biederman, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens sanctioned earlier this month for allegedly failing to report millions they received from drug companies. Biederman alone was alleged to have failed to report $1.6 million. Their studies were used 160 times as a basis for recommendations in the scrapped draft ADHD Guidelines.
Freedom of Information Requests by CCHR revealed the conflicts of interest of the previous Committee of the scrapped ADHD Guidelines. A majority were shown to have had financial connections to the very drug companies who make ADHD drugs.
After the names of the new Committee were announced and in spite of the fact that two of the new Committee have links to drug companies, the Minister for Mental Health, Mark Butler astoundingly said that he was committed to ensuring that the new ADHD Guidelines were not developed by a group with undeclared or inappropriate conflicts of interest.
New Committee member Professor Michael Khon, in 2010 said he was a member of the ADHD drug Strattera (atomoxetine) Advisory Board for Eli Lilly and has been part of an Eli Lilly study on atomoxetine. Strattera has the strongest Australian government warning to warn of the risk of suicidality in children. In addition he has received financial support from Jansen-Cilag (makers of Concerta the most commonly prescribed ADHD drug in Australia) to attend a conference and paid by them to prepare teaching and training material.
New Committee member Ms Margaret Vikingur, is the president of Learning and Attentional Disorders Society who have received unrestricted grants from Eli Lilly, Novartis and Janssen-Cilag, the makers of Straterra, Ritalin and Concerta respectively.
"With 2,406 Australian kids under 6 already on ADHD drugs against government recommendations and 653 adverse reactions reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration including 4 deaths linked to ADHD drugs, there should be no-one on the committee with any present or past connections to drug companies. The public want complete transparency or will have no faith in the Guidelines. CCHR calls on Mr Butler to look further into issues of conflicts of interest, potential bias and impartiality says Ms Wilkins, Executive Director of the CCHR Australian National Office."
CCHR was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Professor of Psychiatry, Thomas Szasz to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.
Contact: Shelley Wilkins (02)99649844