IN OCTOBER 2004, the nation's most influential mental illness advocacy group signed a deal that financially tied it to some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies.
The so-called "Pharma Collaboration", unreported in the Australian media, linked the Mental Health Council of Australia directly to global pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Glaxo SmithKline, Bristol Myers Squibb, Lundbeck, Wyeth and Astra Zeneca.
It has been a good deal for the non-profit council, which promotes itself as Australia's peak mental health group, providing 8 per cent of its total income. It also seems to have benefited the drug companies, which have a strong financial interest in selling medication to treat mental illness, especially the "new epidemic" of depression.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/mental-health-takes-industry-pills/2006/08/07/1154802820416.html