Everyone who is thinking ot taking psychiatric drugs should read this well researched book on the topic of the medications used to treat mental illness. Spending on mental health issues is increasing faster than that in just about any other area of medicine. Mental illness is treated with powerful psychiatric medications and the fact that the brain is as dependent upon proper nutrition as is the heart and the digestive tract.
The following quote will provide an idea of the research in the area discussed by Whitaker. In a study that lasted 4.5 years the results of psychotic patients were as follows: "Medicated patients had one-eighth the recovery rate of unmedicated patients, and a threefold higher rate of faring miserably over the long term." (page 116) In a 15 year followup study 40% of those off medications were in recovery and over half were working. By contrast 5% of those taking anti-psychotics were in recovery and 64% were actively psychotic.
For further insight into the issue one would find the documentary The Marketing of Madness: Are We All Insane? helpful. The cover for this DVD says, "Digging deep beneath the corporate veneer, this three-part documentary exposes the truth behind the slick marketing schemes and scientific deceit that conceal a dangerous and often deadly sales campaign."
Another interesting resource if you can find it is Side Effects: Death by John Virapen. In this work he discusses how he bribed a key researcher to approve Prozac to advance his career at a pharmaceutical company
Reference Books:
Whitaker, Robert, Anatomy of an Epidemic, New York: Crown Publishers, 2010.
Citizens Commission on Human Rights, The Marketing of Madness.
Virapen, John, Side Effects: Death, Virtualbookworm.com, College Station, Texas, 2010.
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