Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the worlds poorest countries. In Mad 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 Whitakers most damning revelation, Mad in America examines 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 book - now revised with a new introduction - Mad in America raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, the meaning of 'insanity,'and what we value most about the human mind.
- ISBN10 1282562312
- ISBN13 9781282562318
- Publish Date 1 January 2001
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 3 June 2015
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Basic Books (AZ)
- Edition Revised ed.
- Format eBook
- Language English