Biederman and his Harvard colleagues failed to report most of their drug company income to university officials, according to an ongoing congressional investigation led by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Biederman "suddenly admitted to over $1.6 million from the drug companies," Grassley said during a June 4 hearing, but only after Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital began to investigate how much money Biederman and his colleagues were getting from those companies.

The Harvard psychiatrists may also be facing another problem: The National Institutes of Health prohibits anyone receiving NIH research grants from accepting more than $20,000 from any company making drugs that are being studied by the NIH recipient. Grassley told his committee: "If a researcher is taking money from a drug company while also receiving federal dollars to research that company's product, then there is a conflict of interest."

Tranquilizing drugs do calm children down. But "youngsters appear to be especially susceptible to the weight gain and metabolic problems caused by drugs," a June 8 New York Times report stated. "And it is far from clear that the medications improve children's lives over time." Vera Sharav, founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, said Dr. Biederman and his colleagues "have given the Harvard imprimatur to this commercial experimentation on children." University and congressional investigations have already raised major questions about violations of federal regulations and academic research standards. The biggest victims, however, are hundreds of thousands of children who have taken drugs based on questionable academic research and questionable psychiatric diagnoses.

This disclosure about doctor payola adds a spotlight to West Virginia's ongoing problem with the state Pharmaceutical Cost Management Council, which voted to conceal the names of Mountain State physicians who take more than $10,000 each per year from drug firms.