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  • Mad in America

  • Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill
  • Written by: Robert Whitaker
  • Narrated by: Chris Kayser
  • Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (10 ratings)

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Mad in America cover art

Mad in America

Written by: Robert Whitaker
Narrated by: Chris Kayser
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Publisher's Summary

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 audiobook 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.

©2002 Robert Whitaker (P)2014 Audible Inc.

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Heavy material

an extremely emotional review of psychiatric and institutional practices in recent history....it is amazing these atrocities are not discussed more in society. difficult to keep emotions in check while listening.

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2 people found this helpful