Sins of the father
By far the most damning review of my book, Cracked, was Andrew Solomon’s (“Smug abut suffering,” August). He argued that by writing this book I now have “blood on my hands,” presumably because Cracked may dissuade people from submitting to treatments such as ECT or from taking antidepressants.
It turns out that Solomon’s father is CEO of Forest Laboratories, which manufactures one of the most popular antidepressants, citalopram. He should have stated the potential conflict of interest. Being upfront would not have undermined his review, but it would have told the reader something they ought to have known.
James Davies, author of “Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good”
Andrew Solomon replies:
Among the primary flaws of Davies’s writing is his constant impugning of people for their supposed conflicts of interest, whether their work is valid or invalid, on grounds that any association with profit renders someone incompetent to work in the field from which he has profited, directly or indirectly. I have received royalties on my book on depression; Davies is doubtless receiving royalties on his book. That does not invalidate our views. My relationship to my father (who is retiring in December) and his involvement with antidepressant manufacturing is hardly a tightly kept secret. It was the subject of a lengthy article, the cover story in Business Week, in 2002: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2002-05-26/a-ceo-and-his-son. And it is referenced in my own book on depression, The Noonday Demon, in which I have written:
"My father has worked in the pharmaceutical field for most of my adult life. As a consequence of this I have met many, many people in that industry. It is fashionable at the moment to excoriate the pharmaceutical industry as one that takes advantage of the sick. It has been my experience that the people in the industry are both capitalists and idealists--people keen on profit but also optimistic that their work may benefit the world, that they may enable important discoveries that will put specific illnesses into obsolescence. We would not have the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), antidepressants that have saved so many lives, without the companies that--with employees devoted variously to profitability, science, and healing--sponsored the research. I have done my best to write clearly about the industry insofar as this is part of the story of this book. I do not think that my ties to the industry have shaped my views; nor do I think they determined my own behavior. After his experience of my depression, my father extended the reach of his company into the field of antidepressants. His company is now the U.S. distributor of Celexa. To avoid any explicit conflict of interest, I have avoided mentioning the product except where its omission would be ostentatious or misleading."
I do not feel that it is necessary for me to review these details in everything I write, but they have certainly not been withheld from the public. Nor did they require much excavating by Davies. It should be noted, as documented in both these examples, that my father’s interest in antidepressants followed my own experience with them rather than the other way around. So the issue of an inclination in favor of the medications is not a consequence of his involvement with them. I note, also, that I am still on medications (and not the ones he makes) and that I continue to take them because I think I would die without them. They saved my life, a topic I’ve written about at length over the last fifteen years. So my concern about Davies’s blood on his hands is that I believe these medications are lifesaving, and that his approach to them will leave people avoiding treatment and suffering great unnecessary pain, as I said in the review.
It's worth noting that Forest does not sell antidepressants in the UK, and so my damning review would not affect company profits, even if that were my intent. To suggest that my writing is determined by my father's company's interests is exactly the kind of conspiracy theorizing that makes Davies's book so rant-like. I am a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Cornell Medical School (Weill-Cornell Medical College), Special Advisor to the Department of Psychiatry at Yale, hold a PhD in psychology from Cambridge, and wrote a book on depression that the Times counted as one of the hundred most important of the first decade of the new millennium—not because of my father’s work, but because of my own.
Andrew Solomon
The SNP’s stance on press regulation, and its activists’ attacks on individuals and media that they deem antagonistic, all point to a party without an understandingof media freedom and plurality. The First Minister’s friendship with Rupert Murdoch reinforces this impression.
It is easy to envisage a post-independence environment where criticism of the SNP comes to be viewed as “wanting independence to fail.” And with Scotland’s print newspapers in decline and no adequate digital equivalents on the horizon, there are good reasons to think that what Scottish media there is would not be an effective check on the executive.
Claire Enders, CEO of Enders Analysis
***
I am getting married in a kilt. In front of my friends and family I will—by my vows—proclaim my love and—by my garb—my Scottishness. This is particularly important as I am marrying an Englishman. But who, as the 2014 referendum approaches, is actually Scottish?
I say I am. Alex Salmond says I am not. I was born in Scotland in 1976. Yet because I live and work in England I, like Andrew Marr and thousands of others, am somehow not Scottish enough to vote. Worse still, English people living north of the border will have their say on the future of my country. It’s the West Lothian question in reverse.
Damian Barr, author of “Maggie and Me”
***
It’s good to see Andrew Marr back, but his article is troubled by the facts. Marr sees Donald Dewar as “aggressively anti-nationalist,” but attributes to Alex Salmond his Parnell-like “Journey without end” speech opening the 1999 Edinburgh Parliament. This he describes as a British monarchy fest, yet it climaxed with the new MSPs belting out “For a’ That!” by the republican Robert Burns.
“You’ve been away too long, son,” Margo MacDonald’s 1987 quip to Andrew Neil, still holds good.
Christopher Harvie, MSP for the SNP, 2007-11
he wealth of nations
Your interview with Amartya Sen (“Arrested development,” August) may give a wrong impression of what I wrote in my review, in the same issue, of his and Jean Drèze’s book on Indian economic development (“Getting India wrong”). There is no evidence of a magic bullet for achieving sustainable development in human well-being.
Wealth includes not only health, education, knowledge and the economy’s stock of manufactured capital, but also natural capital. And an economy’s wealth per head could well decline even as women become educated, factories grow in numbers and gross incomes rise. Sen and Drèze’s book pays no more than lip service to natural capital and population growth, which is the reason I grumbled.
Partha Dasgupta, Professor emeritus of Economics, University of Cambridge
No reason for optimism
I wish I could share Menzies Campbell’s optimism about Hassan Rouhani, the newly-elected President of Iran (“Iran’s choice,” August). Not only would he never have had a chance of election if he didn’t satisfy the Supreme Leader’s criteria, he strongly supported the suppression of the 1999 student uprisings at the time. And in the month since he was elected (at the time of writing) more than 90 people have been executed.
Carolyn Beckingham, East Sussex
Telling tales about Europe
Brendan Simms uses a review of four recent books (“One nation under Brussels,” August) to repeat some tired and increasingly dangerous British myths about the European Union.
One is that the UK has little influence in Brussels. On the contrary, Britain arguably still wins more of its battles in Brussels than any other large member state. Another is that the EU has a problem with Germany. The British press would never say so, but Germany is the most constructive member of a union in which the UK is often the least.
Graham Watson, President of ALDE Party, European Parliament
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Well, I thank the Lord (so to speak) that I do not live in a world ruled by Jonathan Sacks (“If I ruled the world,” August). The world he fantasises about would not only return us to dismal, empty Sundays, but, more worryingly, backwards to the days when religious minorities could impose their will on the rest us.
Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Professor of Social Policy, Heriot-Watt University
Have your say: Email letters@prospectmagazine.co.uk
By far the most damning review of my book, Cracked, was Andrew Solomon’s (“Smug abut suffering,” August). He argued that by writing this book I now have “blood on my hands,” presumably because Cracked may dissuade people from submitting to treatments such as ECT or from taking antidepressants.
It turns out that Solomon’s father is CEO of Forest Laboratories, which manufactures one of the most popular antidepressants, citalopram. He should have stated the potential conflict of interest. Being upfront would not have undermined his review, but it would have told the reader something they ought to have known.
James Davies, author of “Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good”
Andrew Solomon replies:
Among the primary flaws of Davies’s writing is his constant impugning of people for their supposed conflicts of interest, whether their work is valid or invalid, on grounds that any association with profit renders someone incompetent to work in the field from which he has profited, directly or indirectly. I have received royalties on my book on depression; Davies is doubtless receiving royalties on his book. That does not invalidate our views. My relationship to my father (who is retiring in December) and his involvement with antidepressant manufacturing is hardly a tightly kept secret. It was the subject of a lengthy article, the cover story in Business Week, in 2002: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2002-05-26/a-ceo-and-his-son. And it is referenced in my own book on depression, The Noonday Demon, in which I have written:
"My father has worked in the pharmaceutical field for most of my adult life. As a consequence of this I have met many, many people in that industry. It is fashionable at the moment to excoriate the pharmaceutical industry as one that takes advantage of the sick. It has been my experience that the people in the industry are both capitalists and idealists--people keen on profit but also optimistic that their work may benefit the world, that they may enable important discoveries that will put specific illnesses into obsolescence. We would not have the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), antidepressants that have saved so many lives, without the companies that--with employees devoted variously to profitability, science, and healing--sponsored the research. I have done my best to write clearly about the industry insofar as this is part of the story of this book. I do not think that my ties to the industry have shaped my views; nor do I think they determined my own behavior. After his experience of my depression, my father extended the reach of his company into the field of antidepressants. His company is now the U.S. distributor of Celexa. To avoid any explicit conflict of interest, I have avoided mentioning the product except where its omission would be ostentatious or misleading."
I do not feel that it is necessary for me to review these details in everything I write, but they have certainly not been withheld from the public. Nor did they require much excavating by Davies. It should be noted, as documented in both these examples, that my father’s interest in antidepressants followed my own experience with them rather than the other way around. So the issue of an inclination in favor of the medications is not a consequence of his involvement with them. I note, also, that I am still on medications (and not the ones he makes) and that I continue to take them because I think I would die without them. They saved my life, a topic I’ve written about at length over the last fifteen years. So my concern about Davies’s blood on his hands is that I believe these medications are lifesaving, and that his approach to them will leave people avoiding treatment and suffering great unnecessary pain, as I said in the review.
It's worth noting that Forest does not sell antidepressants in the UK, and so my damning review would not affect company profits, even if that were my intent. To suggest that my writing is determined by my father's company's interests is exactly the kind of conspiracy theorizing that makes Davies's book so rant-like. I am a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Cornell Medical School (Weill-Cornell Medical College), Special Advisor to the Department of Psychiatry at Yale, hold a PhD in psychology from Cambridge, and wrote a book on depression that the Times counted as one of the hundred most important of the first decade of the new millennium—not because of my father’s work, but because of my own.
Andrew Solomon
Oh! Caledonia!
The economy and security of an independent Scotland have been much discussed, as in Andrew Marr’s article (“Do Scots want to break up Britain?”, August), but a third area has been neglected: the quality of democracy Scotland would enjoy. A plural and free media is vital to that, yet there are reasons to doubt an independent Scotland would have one.The SNP’s stance on press regulation, and its activists’ attacks on individuals and media that they deem antagonistic, all point to a party without an understandingof media freedom and plurality. The First Minister’s friendship with Rupert Murdoch reinforces this impression.
It is easy to envisage a post-independence environment where criticism of the SNP comes to be viewed as “wanting independence to fail.” And with Scotland’s print newspapers in decline and no adequate digital equivalents on the horizon, there are good reasons to think that what Scottish media there is would not be an effective check on the executive.
Claire Enders, CEO of Enders Analysis
***
I am getting married in a kilt. In front of my friends and family I will—by my vows—proclaim my love and—by my garb—my Scottishness. This is particularly important as I am marrying an Englishman. But who, as the 2014 referendum approaches, is actually Scottish?
I say I am. Alex Salmond says I am not. I was born in Scotland in 1976. Yet because I live and work in England I, like Andrew Marr and thousands of others, am somehow not Scottish enough to vote. Worse still, English people living north of the border will have their say on the future of my country. It’s the West Lothian question in reverse.
Damian Barr, author of “Maggie and Me”
***
It’s good to see Andrew Marr back, but his article is troubled by the facts. Marr sees Donald Dewar as “aggressively anti-nationalist,” but attributes to Alex Salmond his Parnell-like “Journey without end” speech opening the 1999 Edinburgh Parliament. This he describes as a British monarchy fest, yet it climaxed with the new MSPs belting out “For a’ That!” by the republican Robert Burns.
“You’ve been away too long, son,” Margo MacDonald’s 1987 quip to Andrew Neil, still holds good.
Christopher Harvie, MSP for the SNP, 2007-11
he wealth of nations
Your interview with Amartya Sen (“Arrested development,” August) may give a wrong impression of what I wrote in my review, in the same issue, of his and Jean Drèze’s book on Indian economic development (“Getting India wrong”). There is no evidence of a magic bullet for achieving sustainable development in human well-being.
Wealth includes not only health, education, knowledge and the economy’s stock of manufactured capital, but also natural capital. And an economy’s wealth per head could well decline even as women become educated, factories grow in numbers and gross incomes rise. Sen and Drèze’s book pays no more than lip service to natural capital and population growth, which is the reason I grumbled.
Partha Dasgupta, Professor emeritus of Economics, University of Cambridge
No reason for optimism
I wish I could share Menzies Campbell’s optimism about Hassan Rouhani, the newly-elected President of Iran (“Iran’s choice,” August). Not only would he never have had a chance of election if he didn’t satisfy the Supreme Leader’s criteria, he strongly supported the suppression of the 1999 student uprisings at the time. And in the month since he was elected (at the time of writing) more than 90 people have been executed.
Carolyn Beckingham, East Sussex
Telling tales about Europe
Brendan Simms uses a review of four recent books (“One nation under Brussels,” August) to repeat some tired and increasingly dangerous British myths about the European Union.
One is that the UK has little influence in Brussels. On the contrary, Britain arguably still wins more of its battles in Brussels than any other large member state. Another is that the EU has a problem with Germany. The British press would never say so, but Germany is the most constructive member of a union in which the UK is often the least.
Graham Watson, President of ALDE Party, European Parliament
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Well, I thank the Lord (so to speak) that I do not live in a world ruled by Jonathan Sacks (“If I ruled the world,” August). The world he fantasises about would not only return us to dismal, empty Sundays, but, more worryingly, backwards to the days when religious minorities could impose their will on the rest us.
Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Professor of Social Policy, Heriot-Watt University
Have your say: Email letters@prospectmagazine.co.uk
