When is a mental health clinic not a mental health clinic? Drug trial abuses reach social work.

The HOPE Clinic

In May 1999 the New York Times published a series about the abuses resulting from drug companies paying private practice doctors to refer patients as experimental subjects (Eichenwald & Kolata, 1999a, 1999b). The series provided an intriguing history of the economic events and policy decisions that created this situation. According to Eichenwald and Kolata (1999a), it began in the early 1990s, with managed care providers pressuring drug companies to reduce the price of their products and drug companies, in turn, strategizing to compensate for lost reven