Tara Parker-Pope of the NY Times has an article on how more than half of the writers of the DSM-IV–the Diagnostic and Statisical Manual of Mental Disorders–have financial links to the drug industry.
The DSM is the most commonly used handbook of psychiatric disorders. Clearly these financial links suggest a conflict of interest.
From the article:
It’s not the first time the D.S.M. has been linked to the drug industry. Tufts University researchers in 2006 reported that 95 – or 56 percent – of 170 experts who worked on the 1994 edition of the manual had at least one monetary relationship with a drug maker in the years from 1989 to 2004. The percentage was higher – 100 percent in some cases – for experts who worked on sections of the manual devoted to severe mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, the study found.