Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill

by Whitaker, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780465020140
• ISBN10: 0465020143
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-05-25
• Publisher: INGRAM

Summary

Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world's poorest countries. InMad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker argues that modern treatments for the severely mentally ill are just old medicine in new bottles, and that we as a society are deeply deluded about their efficacy. The widespread use of lobotomies in the 1920s and 1930s gave way in the 1950s to electroshock and a wave of new drugs. In what is perhaps Whitaker's most damning revelation,Mad in Americaexamines how drug companies in the 1980s and 1990s skewed their studies to prove that new antipsychotic drugs were more effective than the old, while keeping patients in the dark about dangerous side effects.A haunting, deeply compassionate booknow revised with a new introductionMad in Americaraises important questions about our obligations to the mad, the meaning of "insanity," and what we value most about the human mind.

Author Biography

Robert whitaker's articles on the mentally ill and the drug industry have won several awards, including the George Polk Award for medical writing and the National Association of Science Writers' Award for best magazine article. He is also the author of The Mapmaker's Wife and The Lap of the Gods. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Revised Edition	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
The Original Bedlam (1750-1900)
Bedlam in Medicine	p. 3
The Healing Hand of Kindness	p. 19
The Darkest Era (1900-1950)
Unfit to Breed	p. 41
Too Much Intelligence	p. 73
Brain Damage as Miracle Therapy	p. 107
Back to Bedlam (1950-1990s)
Modern-Day Alchemy	p. 141
The Patients' Reality	p. 161
The Story We Told Ourselves	p. 195
Shame of a Nation	p. 211
The Nuremberg Code Doesn't Apply Here	p. 233
Mad Medicine Today (1990s-Present)
Not So Atypical	p. 253
Epilogue	p. 287
Afterword to the Revised Edition	p. 293
Notes	p. 305
Index	p. 337
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.