Seth’s blog

The case of Charles “Disgraced” Nemeroff, the Emory University professor of psychiatry, is a touchstone in the sense that it reveals something about the morals (or lack thereof) of those who brush against it. That GlaxoSmithKline (which called Nemeroff “a recognized world leader in the field of psychiatry”) is amoral we already knew — a kind of positive control. The responses of Emory dean Claudia Adkison (”grateful” that a reporter didn’t know enough to fully expose Nemeroff) and the Emory administration (which called him “a leader in psychiatric research, education, and practice”) are more interesting.

But Nemeroff is also a touchstone in reverse. Not only can we learn about X and Y by seeing how they react to Nemeroff, we can also learn about X and Y by seeing how Nemeroff reacts to them. In a 2006 New Scientist series called Brilliant Minds Forecast the Next 50 Years, Nemeroff wrote this:

In the next 50 years, we can expect several breakthroughs. Identifying gene variants that confer vulnerability [to major psychiatric disorders] will result in the emergence of a new field, preventative psychiatry. Elucidating the causes of mental illness will lead to novel treatments. We will also see breakthroughs in understanding the biology of resilience, now poorly understood. And in contrast with our largely trial-and-error-based system, treatments will be individualised, based on genomics and brain imaging.

That Nemeroff likes these ideas suggests they are wrong. Supporting what I’ve said earlier.

It isn’t just GlaxoSmithKline (who called Emory professor Charles “Disgraced” Nemeroff “a recognized world leader in the field of psychiatry”). It’s also the Emory University administration. According to a presumably well-thought-out statement:

Dr. Nemeroff is recognized internationally as a leader in psychiatric research, education and practice. He has made fundamental contributions to the field over many years.

What this says about the moral compass of the Emory administration is clear — that they are unable to grasp the awfulness of what Nemeroff did. (As Emory dean Claudia Adkinson revealed in spades.) If they did, they wouldn’t spend a millisecond defending him. The harder question is: What does this say about psychiatry?

Jacob Nelik, the friend of a friend, is a businessman/engineer in Los Angeles whose business, ISS Corporation, makes  high-tech solutions from off-the-shelf components. Their projects include video camera systems for luxury yachts and retail stores, and technical and marketing support to Israel Aerospace Industries for their wiring design software. His mom, who is 85, lives in Israel in an old-age home. She has short-term memory problems. Jacob wrote me:

I try to visit her 3-4 times a year but at this age the feeling of loneliness and emptiness, compounded with the feeling (and fact) that because of distance, I can’t come and visit her whenever she (or I) would like to, brought her to a stage where she felt she didn’t have a reason to live (“living for what?” as she said). I felt that with my knowledge, experience and the internet, I can make it easier for her. So I utilized a TV set she already owned to create a live picture of me in my office. Whenever I am in the office, she can see me (live). It is on 24 hours a day just like a picture but with live image. I felt that this would bring her closer to me and she would feel (on a daily basis) that I am there with her.
I utilized video parts that my company uses. I took an old home camcorder and connected it to one of the parts we use for our video projects, called a video server or video encoder. It takes the Analog video/picture that the camcorder provides, digitizes it, compresses it, and converts it to IP (Internet Protocol). There are many like this in the market; the one I used allows me to control many parameters including picture compression algorithm, so I can maintain a large physical picture (to fill up the TV screen on my mom’s end without being grainy or fuzzy) with high quality, high frame rate, very short delay (under 2 seconds) and very low bandwidth so I can use the cheapest internet service available. On my mom’s end, I used the same type of circuit to perform the reverse function (Taking the IP video stream, decompress it and convert it back to an Analog video to be fed into the TV set to the same connector where a VCR is connected). I am skipping some technical details but the net result is high quality video from end to end (when each end can be located at different place in the world).

What happened?

From the moment the system started operating (about a year ago) I could see tremendous positive effects on my mom. She no longer says “why do I need to live, what for?” I can detect a smile in her face just by listening to her. Just yesterday she told me that she saw me eating ice cream at my desk. She mentioned a new shirt I was wearing. It gives her many new conversational topics. She tells me that she enters the room and starts talking to me as if I am there with her.  She became much more relaxed and as a result, even her blood pressure is better controlled. It fills a void in her life. It affected me positively as well, because I see how much better she is.

From the latest BMJ:

Findings that a leading Harvard professor of psychiatry failed to report substantial payments that he received from drug companies has caused Harvard Medical School, one of its affiliated hospitals, and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to come under fire.

An investigation by the US senator Charles Grassley showed that the psychiatrist, Joseph Biederman, and two of his colleagues, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens, had altogether received more than $4.2m (£2.1m; 2.7m) from drug companies since 2000.

The financial disclosure forms filed by the three doctors, according to Mr Grassley, “were a mess” and made it seem that they had received only “a couple of hundred thousand dollars” in the past seven years. . .Professor Biederman, at the centre of the scandal, has been widely recognised as one of the most influential psychiatrists in the world. He is a leading proponent of the diagnosis of paediatric bipolar disorder and he is currently conducting a study of the antipsychotic, quetiapine (Seroquel) in children aged 4 to 6 years with bipolar disorder.

Details.