November 25th, 2008

Reports the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“Johnson & Johnson gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to a research center run by an influential child psychiatrist explicitly to generate data to help expand sales of the company’s antipsychotic drug Risperdal in children, according to court documents.

The documents shed new light on Johnson & Johnson’s close relationship with Joseph Biederman, a Harvard University psychiatrist at the center of a controversy involving the dramatic increase in antipsychotic drugs, including Risperdal, prescribed for children, often for unapproved uses.

Johnson & Johnson spent at least $700,000 to fund the Johnson & Johnson Center for Pediatric Psychopathology at Massachusetts General Hospital. The purpose of the center, according to an internal company e-mail contained in the court documents, was to “generate and disseminate data supporting the use” of Risperdal in children and adolescents.

Risperdal is used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.”

Visit the Inquirer for more details on this disturbing revelation.