http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/1999/11/outfront.html#nami
By Elizabeth Hollander
November/December 1999 Issue

Prozac.org

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) bills itself as "a
grassroots organization of individuals with brain disorders and their
family members." The alliance was a prominent participant in last
June's White House Conference on Mental Health. Earlier, President
Clinton named its executive director, Laurie Flynn, to the National
Bioethics Advisory Commission.

But some mental health activists say the Arlington, Virginia-based
organization -- which is widely viewed as an independent advocate for
the mentally ill, and an influential voice in mental health debates --
is overly influenced by pharmaceutical companies. It's certainly well
funded by the industry: According to internal documents obtained by
Mother Jones, 18 drug firms gave NAMI a total of $11.72 million
between 1996 and mid-1999. These include Janssen ($2.08 million),
Novartis ($1.87 million), Pfizer ($1.3 million), Abbott Laboratories
($1.24 million), Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals ($658,000), and
Bristol-Myers Squibb ($613,505).

NAMI's leading donor is Eli Lilly and Company, maker of Prozac, which
gave $2.87 million during that period. In 1999 alone, Lilly will have
delivered $1.1 million in quarterly installments, with the lion's
share going to help fund NAMI's "Campaign to End Discrimination"
against the mentally ill.

In the case of Lilly, at least, "funding" takes more than one form.
Jerry Radke, a Lilly executive, is "on loan" to NAMI, working out of
the organization's headquarters. Flynn explains the cozy-seeming
arrangement by saying, "[Lilly] pays his salary, but he does not
report to them, and he is not involved in meetings we have with
[them]." She characterizes Radke's role at NAMI as "strategic planning."

As a matter of policy, NAMI does not reveal the amounts of specific
donations. But spokesman Bob Carolla acknowledges that the group
receives substantial funding from drug firms, who provide "most if not
all" of the antidiscrimination campaign's $4 million annual budget. In
addition, Carolla told Mother Jones, corporate donations account for
$310,000 of NAMI's 1999 core budget of $7.1 million -- with most of
that coming from pharmaceutical firms. The rest of the budget, he
says, comes from charitable and membership contributions. (Another
affiliated program, the NAMI Research Institute, has a budget of $20
million. Focusing on the biological causes of mental illness, it is
fully funded by the private Stanley Foundation.)

Janet Foner, a co-coordinator of Support Coalition International, an
activist organization of "psychiatric survivors," says NAMI does a
good job in some areas, but argues that the group's corporate sponsors
help shape its agenda. "They appear to be a completely independent
organization, but they parrot the line of the drug companies in saying
that drugs are the essential thing."

Many experts believe that the umbrella term "mental illness" embraces
a broad array of conditions with equally diverse causes. NAMI
spokesman Carolla says the group views mental illness as a disease,
like diabetes or Alzheimer's, that can be treated most effectively
with medications. "Mental illness is a biologically based brain
disorder," he says. "That's not to say that other factors can't affect
mental illness, but the core problem is biologically based."

NAMI's critics agree that mental illness can be triggered by
biological factors, but point also to environmental causes such as
incest, child abuse, family dysfunction, and other traumas. NAMI's
approach "reduces human distress to a brain disease, and recovery to
taking a pill," says Sally Zinman of the California Network of Mental
Health Clients. "Their focus on drugs obscures issues such as housing
and income support, vocational training, rehabilitation, and
empowerment, all of which play a role in recovery." Furthermore,
Zinman argues, Thorazine, Prozac, and other drugs routinely prescribed
for the mentally ill can be counterproductive and even harmful.

NAMI's Flynn says her group is "not a captive of any outside
industry." But she acknowledges there is at times a "synergy" in goals
between NAMI and the drug companies. For example, both favor so-called
health care parity laws, which would require insurers to view mental
illness as they do other diseases. "[The drug companies] want more and
greater markets, and we want access and availability to all
scientifically proven treatments. We don't think drugs are everything,
but for the vast majority they are important."

Flynn says the Campaign to End Discrimination is funded separately to
ensure that drug industry money is not comingled with funds earmarked
for NAMI's core budget. Sally Zinman, for her part, says that taking
money for any purpose from drug companies -- which have a direct
financial stake in the mental health debate -- is at odds with the
ideal of independent advocacy. "NAMI is seen by the media as the voice
of the mental health community, but the integrity of its work is
called into question by its sources of funding," she says. --Ken
Silverstein