Psychiatric agenda 'set by drug firms'
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Monday July 9, 2001
The Guardian
A group of psychiatrists has made a formal protest to the president of the
profession's royal college against a drug company's sponsorship of a
conference
opening today.
They complain that the industry's marketing distorts the mental health
agenda
to the point where pills are seen as the answer to all ills.
In a letter to John Cox, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists,
the
group says that money widely available for sponsorship of meetings and of
doctors is an attempt to persuade psychiatry to go down the biomedical route
and to ignoresocial circumstances that might be the true cause of an
illness.
The group plans a symbolic protest outside the Queen Elizabeth II conference
centre in London, where the annual meeting of the college is taking place
today
in conjunction with the World Psychiatric Association.
Full text:
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,518685,00.html
