Chief among the academic luminaries Johnson & Johnson began to covet was Joseph Biederman, a pediatric psychiatrist. For more than a decade, Biederman had done pioneering work on the theory that behavior disorders among children and adolescents–such as attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—were the result of chemical imbalances in the brain that could be addressed with strong prescription drugs, such as Risperdal… .
By the time Biederman got onto Johnson & Johnson’s wish list, he had been credited as the author or co-author of hundreds of medical journal articles on the use of pharmaceuticals to address children’s behavioral issues. In 2005, The Institute of Scientific Information would rank him number one for scholarly citations related to ADD or ADHD.
Biederman’s supporters considered him a genius, even a savior. “I’ve had people from around the country who were old friends or even people I hardly knew calling me to help get them an appointment with Joe for their kid,” one former executive at Massachusetts General told me. His detractors, who generally were people worried about the effects of plying children with drugs, considered him a menace.
– From Chapter 3, Sales Over Science, in “America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker,” a long-form journalism piece at Huffington Post on the dirty practices of Big Pharma.