Updated with bonus material, including a new foreword and afterword with new research, this New York Times bestseller is essential reading for a time when mental health is constantly in the news.In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled … United States tripled over the past two decades?
Interwoven with Whitaker’s groundbreaking analysis of the merits of psychiatric medications are the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. As Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, other societies have begun to alter their use of psychiatric medications and are now reporting much improved outcomes . . . so why can’t such change happen here in the United States? Why have the results from these long-term studies—all of which point to the same startling conclusion—been kept from the public?
Our nation has been hit by an epidemic of disabling mental illness, and yet, as Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, the medical blueprints for curbing that epidemic have already been drawn up.
Praise for Anatomy of an Epidemic
“The timing of Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, a comprehensive and highly readable history of psychiatry in the United States, couldn’t be better.” —Salon.com
“Anatomy of an Epidemic offers some answers, charting controversial ground with mystery-novel pacing.” —TIME.com
“Lucid, pointed and important, Anatomy of an Epidemic should be required reading for anyone considering extended use of psychiatric medicine. Whitaker is at the height of his powers.” —Greg Critser, author of Generation Rx
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Filled with solid research from the top researchers and universities in the world, this book tells a vastly differently but very believable story about the true efficacy and real harms of psychotropic drugs.
If this book doesn’t open people’s eye, I don’t know WHAT will. I’ve been trying to tell people that by and large, pharmaceuticals are nothing but poison. Even those that are touted as being ‘wonder drugs,’ like penicillin are deadly. The truth is, if the real truth were told by the pharmaceutical industry, the entire world would hang them out …
Very informative! I now no longer trust the FDA, Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals or the American Psychiatric Association. The lying, deceit (by withholding true information from the public and the AMA) by both organizations is criminal as they have ruined innumerable lives. Incredible.
I only take my prescriptions after I have researched them to my …
Must read! If you or a loved one takes psychoactive drugs, please read. The book discusses the real reasons everyone is on something
This book opened my eyes to how the pychopharmaceutical companies have kept the truth hidddn about the damaging results of drugs especially on children. Step by step this author presents data and research to open eyes and infirm us. A must read for anyone battling mental health issues. Not a pleasant read but important!!
This book will explain so much and will scare you to death…..it has made me rethink so much.
This book is a mustered for anybody who knows, and especially those who love anyone, on psychotropic medication. The author provides, in highly understandable language, insight into how the medical establishment, in collaboration (if not outright collusion) with the pharmaceutical industry has worsened the prognosis for many with mental health …
A good history of the biopsychiatric “revolution” propelled by serendipitous discoveries of drugs that had some benefit in treating mental disorders. Whitaker documents the overreach of industry abetted by researchers, advocates and medicine. Big pharma has to sell ever more to simply maintain the corporate structure that developed to get drugs to …
This is the most alarming book I’ve read in years. The approach is neither polemical nor ideologically slanted. Relying on medical evidence and historical documentation, Whitaker builds his case like a prosecuting attorney.