There’s an interesting article on MINNPOST, Many mental-illness websites show drug-company bias, study finds, dated May 16. The article is by Susan Perry, and presents the results of a Web survey of mental health websites conducted by John Read and A. Cain from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The original study was published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. You can see the abstract here. The full article is behind a paywall. (Thanks to Leonie Fennell for the link.)
RESULTS
“Mental health websites, in general, overemphasize biogenetic causal explanations and medication. Many mental health websites (42%) are either drug company owned (6%) or receive funding from drug companies (36%). A meta-analysis found that DCF [Drug company funded] sites are significantly more biased toward biogenetic causes (P < 0.01) and toward medication (P < 0.0001) than sites that are financially independent of the industry.”
COMMENT
Business as usual. The drug companies have their tentacles everywhere.
At the risk of stating the obvious, this website receives no drug company funding.