One way for a pharmaceutical company to confirm the safety and effectiveness of a drug that it markets for use on small children is to subject the medicine to extensive, unbiased testing.
Another way, perhaps, is to have a prominent Harvard University child psychiatrist on the payroll.
The New York Times, in its latest look at the case of Joseph Biederman, describes court documents in which the Harvard professor is shown to have promised executives of Johnson & Johnson in 2004 that his forthcoming trial of the company’s drug Risperdal would go well.
Dr. Biederman, then director of the Johnson & Johnson Center for Pediatric Psychopathology Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, told the company his tests would compare Risperdal, also known as risperidone, with other drugs used to manage pediatric bipolar disorder, the Times reported.
The planned drug trial “will clarify the competitive advantages of risperidone vs. other neuroleptics,” a written presentation by Dr. Biederman promised Johnson & Johnson in advance of the actual work, the Times said. A subsequent study by Dr. Biederman found that Risperdal was effective in treating depressive symptoms in children and that a competitor, Zyprexa, made by Eli Lilly, was not, the newspaper said.
Such work by Dr. Biederman, the Times said, “helped fuel a rapid rise in the use of these medicines in children.” It also has Dr. Biederman caught up in a series of legal investigations. A Congressional inquiry last year found he collected at least $1.6-million in consulting fees from Johnson & Johnson and other drug makers from 2000 to 2007 while reporting only about $200,000 to university officials.
The Times quoted from a February 26 court deposition in which Dr. Biederman, questioned by lawyers representing states alleging fraud by the drug companies, gives his rank as “full professor” at Harvard. Asked by the lawyer, “What’s after that?” Dr. Biederman answers, simply, “God.” —Paul Basken