How Lilly Gilded Prozac's Profile

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Healy points to Charles Nemeroff, a psychiatrist with numerous industry ties, as an especially fierce foe. Others have found reason to single out Nemeroff as well. Nemeroff himself failed to return a phone call from TheStreet.com.

"Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff may hold some sort of record among academic clinicians for the most conflicts of interest," the Washington Monthly wrote last year. "A psychiatrist, a prominent researcher and chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral science at Emory University in Atlanta, Nemeroff receives funding for his academic research from Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca (AZN Quote), Pfizer, Wyeth (WYE Quote) -- indeed from virtually every pharmaceutical house that manufacturers a drug to treat mental illness. He also serves as a consultant to drug and biotech companies, owns their stocks and is a member of several speakers' bureaus delivering talks -- for a fee -- to other physicians on behalf of the companies' products."

A recent U.K. investigation, reported by TheStreet.com Monday, raised serious concerns about so-called key opinion leaders with financial ties to the drug industry. The study suggested that drugmakers exercise far too much influence over those who go on to promote their products.

Among those being tainted, it included organizations that portray themselves as consumer groups but are financed by the drug industry. Healy personally warned about the groups in his conference presentation years ago.

"Part of the market development plans for many drugs these days includes the creation of patient groups to lobby on behalf of a new treatment," he said back then. "The most vigorous and hostile patient groups of the anti-psychiatry period have been penetrated by the pharmaceutical industry. (And) other patient groups have been set up de novo by companies."

Others have highlighted major industry problems as well. In 1999, for example, the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association called for "fair conduct and fair reporting of clinical trials." By then, the New England Journal of Medicine -- yet another influential publication -- had already laid out the need for protecting those who do come forth with negative study results. More recently, American Psychologist has specifically suggested "building a firewall between marketing and science" in the mental health field where SSRIs are so used.

David Antonuccio, a medical researcher who penned the third article, is hoping that psychologists -- faced with prescribing powers in the future -- will do a decent job of policing themselves. After studying past actions by federal regulators, he seems to have little faith in the FDA at all.

"At 55% of the meetings, half or more of the FDA advisers had financial conflicts of interest," he wrote. "Although federal law generally prohibits the use of experts with financial conflicts of interest, the FDA waived this restriction more than 800 times" in less than three years.