Robert Whitaker, Monday, February 22, 2016

Anatomy of an Epidemic: History, Science, and the Long-term Effects of Psychiatric Medications

The burden of mental illness in our society, as measured by the number of people on disability due to mental illness, has dramatically increased in the last 35 years. This raises the following question for Robert Whitaker: How do psychiatric medications affect people over the long-term? What do history and science show?

Whitaker is the author of five books, three of which tell of the history of psychiatry. Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill was named by Discover magazine as one of the best science books of 2002. His second book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America won the Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism in 2010, and has been translated into nine foreign languages. His latest book on the history of psychiatry, co-written with Lisa Cosgrove, is Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform.

He is the founder of madinamerica.com, a website that features research news and blogs from an international group of writers interested in "rethinking psychiatry."