Grassley's investigators initially found that pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline paid the psychiatrist more than $160,000 between 2000 and 2005 while she was the director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
Wagner herself however, never reported more than $600. (yes, she reported no more than six hundred dollars).
Well, we said in our original report that this story was not going to go away Â- and it hasn't!
As you know, Grassley has been digging into financial ties between doctors, researchers and the drug companies, with an unprecedented volume of investigative success within the psychiatric community. Coincidently, Wagner had been a consultant and speaker for GlaxoSmithKline at a time when she was also studying the company's antidepressant Paxil as a potential treatment for psych problems in children and then later promoting the drug for the new "children's market."
The University of Texas System "informed me that they were never aware of any discrepancies regarding Dr. Wagner's reporting of income from GlaxoSmithKline," Grassley wrote in his latest missive. "The Texas System also informed me that they would undertake an investigation of any discrepancies in Dr. Wagner's reports." As you know, UT officials say they've been investigating Wagner for about two weeks, and that she's staying on the job during the probe. Not much action there Â- up until now at least.
If Wagner's drug company pay offs weren't reported to the National Institutes of Health Â- which funded her Paxil research Â- the university could be out of the running for further National Institute of Health funding for quite some time. The University of Texas is a big-time research institution. It received no less than $5 billion from NIH since 2000.
We expect the University of Texas to quickly rethink their loyalties.....
And to be very clear, Paxil, also known as Paroxetine, is a heavy duty anti-depressant used to treat major depression, obsessive-compulsive, panic and social anxiety disorders in adult patients. Paxil was already known to be directly associated with significant weight gain and statistically significant increases in the risk of suicide in adults.
In fact, as we reported earlier, the "Paxil for Kids" research study Dr. Wagner co-authored had been widely criticized for its over-promotion of fictitious and ludicrously positive findings while downplaying the heightened suicidal thoughts and behaviour in adolescents participating in the study. Five research participant children attempted suicide.
The "Business" of Drugs is fraught with false promises, marketing deception, criminal negligence and billions of dollars.
Again, we predict that this and many stories like it won't go away.
Note: Relevant to this story, the international award winning filmmaker and documentarian, Kevin P. Miller invested an incredible amount time, money and effort to bring to light a situation of truly epidemic proportions Â- pharmaceutical company re-marketing of psychiatric drugs and their drugging of millions of our children merely for profit.
This film is not about drug pushers on the streets Â- it's about the business of re-marketing powerful psychiatric medications and prescribing them to children as young as 2 and 3 years old for symptoms and diseases successfully treated without them. It's about the drug company and FDAs pre-knowledge of the dangerous side effects and the numerous suicides and murders that resulted from children being put on these drugs. Take a new look at this problem and find out who and what lay behind it. Watch Generation Rx.
