Originally published October 28 2005
New article casts doubts on benefits of psychiatric drugs
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Robert Whitaker, in an article entitled "Anatomy of an Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America," talks about the rise of mental illnesses in the U.S. since the introduction of psychiatric drug therapy and finds fault with biological psychiatrists.
Some uncritical promoters of psychiatry and its current biological treatment paradigm have declared that the introduction of chlorpromazine (Thorazine) in 1955, was a revolutionary medical 'breakthrough' comparable to penicillin (e.g., Edward Shorter, A History of Psychiatry, 1997).
At best, these drugs temporarily reduce psychiatric symptoms with short-term use.
Robert Whitaker brings to light empirical evidence demonstrating that currently prescribed psychoactive drugs have shattered patients' mental and physical health.
Whitaker examines the unprecedented increase in disabling mental illness in the US since the introduction of those drugs.
The catalyst for this investigation was a book by E. Fuller Torrey, The Invisible Plague (2001), in which Torrey concluded that insanity had risen to the level of an "epidemic."
To answer this question, Whitaker turned to government documents recording the number of patients who received treatment for mental illness and the number of patients disabled by mental illness, and he turned to neuroscientific evidence of how these drugs work.
The first jolting finding is that the number of patients treated for mental illness in 2000 increased fourfold per capita since 1955-- from 1,028 episodes per 100,000 population in 1955 compared to 3,806 per 100,000 population in 2000.
Similarly, Harvard neuroscientist Stephen Hyman described the mechanism of action of psychoactive drugs - before his career change from scientist to administrator, first as Director of NIMH, currently, Provost of Harvard.
Contrary to the assertions of the profession and the mental health drug lobbyists, psychoactive drugs--in particular the atypical antipsychotics and SSRI antidepressants--have not only failed as therapies for the mentally ill - these irresponsibly prescribed drugs have led to an epidemic of chronic, incapacitating mental illness.
The experiment is being conducted on the basis of the speculative, unsubstantiated premise that Zyprexa (or any drug) might prevent schizophrenia.
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