American Psychiatric Association (APA) Assembly Notes and Full Treasurer’s Report
May 29, 2012
American Psychiatric Association (APA) Assembly Notes and Full Treasurer’s Report
Post #174 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-2bX
Update @ June 1, 2012
James H. Scully, Jr., M.D., CEO and Medical Director of the American Psychiatric Association, has published a response to Allen Frances’ Huff Po blog of May 30:
Update @ May 30, 2012
1 Boring Old Man | May, 30 2012
Huffington Post Blogs Allen Frances, MD
DSM-5 Costs $25 Million, Putting APA in a Financial Hole
Allen Frances | May 30, 2012
The American Psychiatric Association just reported a surprisingly large yearly deficit of $350,000. This was caused by reduced publishing profits, poor attendance at its annual meeting, rapidly declining membership, and wasteful spending on DSM-5. APA reserves are now below “the recommended amount for a non-profit (reserves equal to a year’s operating expenses).”
APA has already spent an astounding $25 million on DSM-5. I can’t imagine where all that money went. As I recall it, DSM-IV cost about $5 million, and more than half of this came from outside research grants. Even if the DSM-5 product were made of gold instead of lead, $25 million would be wildly out of proportion. The rampant disorganization of DSM-5 must have caused colossal waste. One obvious example is the $3 million spent on the useless DSM-5 field trial, with its irrelevant question, poorly conceived design, and embarrassing results…
On May 8, in an article for Medscape Medical News, Deborah Brauser reported:
…Members of the task force said they hope to publish the full results [of the DSM-5 field trials] “within a month.” However, the third and final public comment period for the manual opened last week and ends on June 15. Although the entire period is 6 weeks long, the public may only have 2 weeks to comment after the publication of the field trials’ findings. DSM-5 Field Trials Generate Mixed Results
With less than three weeks to go before the stakeholder and public comment period closes, there is still no sign of a report on the DSM-5 field trials.
If the Task Force does not get a report out soon, stakeholders will be obliged to submit feedback without the benefit of data from the trials to inform their comments. Once again, this third and final stakeholder review smacks of a purely tokenistic exercise.
For the two previous draft reviews, some disorders were accompanied by PDF documents expanding on new and revised disorder descriptions and work group rationales.
For the Somatic Symptom Disorders, no updated “Disorder Descriptions” or “Rationale/Validity” documents have been published that reflect substantial revisions made to proposals and criteria between the second and third drafts. The documents as published for the second review have been taken down from the DSM-5 Development site but have not been revised and reissued.
I have twice contacted APA Media and Communications for clarification of whether the Work Group intends to publish revised documents before the end of the comment period. Evidently APA Media and Communications don’t wish to provide me with a response.
I will update if and when a report on the field trials emerges from the Task Force.
In the meantime, here are two public domain documents that may be of interest to APA watchers:
APA Assembly Notes Spring 2012
or download here:
http://alabamapsych.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/apa_assembly_notes_may_2012.pdf
APA Treasurer’s Report May 2012 [.ppt compatible PowerPoint reader required]
or view here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzWdENl1wkVSYk5aXzRZelFYUjA/edit?pli=1
dx revision watch 