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

Rating: Author: Robert Whitaker ISBN : Product Detai New from Format: PDF

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Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world’s 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 Whitaker’s 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.

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• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• File Size: 704 KB
• Print Length: 370 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0465020143
• Publisher: Basic Books; Second Edition edition (December 14, 2001)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003HO5UW4
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray:
  Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #187,250 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #64 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Schizophrenia
• #64 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Schizophrenia

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

I normally never write review but feel as though this book is worthy of one. What the author does in this book is what journalists fail to do. He investigates the people in charge of taking care of the mentally ill in a way that makes the reader wonder who is the one that is really ill.
He starts out with a brief history of how mentally ill people have been treated throughout history. From hydrotherapy to metrazol, insulin coma, draining of blood, "tranquilizer chairs", etc. This progresses to the more recent introduction of neuroleptics in the 1950's and how they induce a sort of parkinsonism. What's most revealing about these drugs is how he points out that people who never take them are more likely to recover. In this part of the book, he also talks about Freeman's disgusting labotomy procedures in which he pokes the patient about the eye and places a stick in their head and wiggles it to destroy the frontal lobes. Patients then go on to act like children and even continue eating after vomiting in their own food.
With all that said, the most revealing aspect is the fact that people in less developed countries fare a lot better with schizophrenia than people in more developed countries. The introduction of atypical neuroleptics also reveal how "dirty" these drugs really are in that they target so many different neurotransmitters. He goes on to point so many conflicts of interest in regards to the reviews of drugs that it left me shocked.
The saddest part of the book is the story of various individuals. A young woman was taken off venlafaxine and given amphetamines to induce her psychosis to the point where they could experiment on her using brain scans.

Whitaker and many of the reviewers here have a lot to say about schizophrenics and their medical treatment. Since I actually have schizoaffective disorder (a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) myself, I'd like to say a few words.

This subject is somewhat interesting to a lot of people in theory, but it's my life. I became ill in my early 20s and was beset by mania, depression, and psychosis. The mania and depression were a walk in the park on a sunny day compared to the psychosis. I heard loud, terrifying voices which threatened to kill me and worse. The voices sounded absolutely real and were impossible to ignore. I was completely disabled by them.

I was a smart young woman with a good education, but I could barely leave my house, let alone work. I could not even have a meaningful conversation with my friends or family because the voices were too loud. My parents became my caretakers and my friends disappeared completely.

This went on for years as I tried different antipsychotics. They worked to a degree but the voices did not go away. They certainly did not get better on their own--despite my family's love, kindness and support. Their are no words to describe how hellish and worthless my life felt.

Geodon, the antipsychotic I had settled on, began to give me symptoms of dyskinesia and my doctor insisted that I stop taking it right away and start taking a new drug: Seroquel.

Within weeks of starting the Seroquel, the voices dropped off and all but disappeared. They are very few and far between now and they no longer sound real. It took me a while to get used to living without my constant fear of the voices. I adjusted slowly and with cautious optimism--what if this didn't last?

It lasted.