David Healy

James G. Blaine was a leader of the Republican Party and a major shaper of national politics for more than a decade. This biography asserts that Latin America lay at the heart of Blaine's foreign policy and vision for America, and examines seven issues that defined his methods, goals and views.

It is estimated that forty-five to fifty percent of all Americans will suffer a mental disorder at some time during their lives. Increasingly, the treatment for these disorders is management with one or more psychiatric drugs, often prescribed by general practitioners. In Pillaged Ronald William Maris evaluates the psychiatric medications commonly used to treat several major types of psychiatric disorders - including depression and mood disorders, bipolar disorders, anxiety disorders, and psychotic disorders - asking “do they work as advertised?” and, more importantly, “are they safe?”Answers to these questions are more ambiguous than we might think, Maris explains, because drug manufacturers tend to minimize the adverse effects of their products. Furthermore, the underlying neurobiological theories of how psychiatric drugs work are complex, poorly understood, and often conflicting. Still Americans spend tens of billions of dollars a year on antidepressants and antipsychotics alone.While Maris questions the rampant prescribing of psychiatric medications especially in young people, Pillaged does not suggest that anyone cavalierly discontinue potentially beneficial psychiatric medications without the advice of a qualified mental health professional. The book acknowledges that psychiatric medications are often necessary in treating some psychiatric conditions, but it reminds readers of medication’s potential for degrading one’s quality of life, contributing to self-destructive behaviors, and even leading to death in a vulnerable minority of patients. Maris advocates an open and honest discussion of data on psychiatric drugs, their effects, and their dangers, and he reminds readers of available alternative, nondrug treatments for psychiatric disorders. By reviewing the history and effects of medications for mental disorders, Maris hopes to educate health care consumers and prescribers to make careful, informed decisions about the treatment of psychiatric disorders.

Shock therapy is making a comeback today in the treatment of serious mental illness. Despite its reemergence as a safe and effective psychiatric tool, however, it continues to be shrouded by a longstanding negative public image, not least due to films such as the classic One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, where the inmate of a psychiatric clinic (played by Jack Nicholson) is subjected to electro-shock to curb his rebellious behavior. Beyond its vilification in popular culture, the stereotype of convulsive therapy as a dangerous and inhumane practice is fuelled by professional posturing and public misinformation. Electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, has in the last thirty years been considered a method of last resort in the treatment of debilitating depression, suicidal ideation, and other forms of mental illness. Yet, ironically, its effectiveness in treating these patients would suggest it as a frontline therapy, bringing relief from acute symptoms and saving lives. In this book, Edward Shorter and David Healy trace the controversial history of ECT and other "shock" therapies. Drawing on case studies, public debates, extensive interviews, and archival research, the authors expose the myths about ECT that have proliferated over the years. By showing ECT's often life-saving results, Shorter and Healy endorse a point of view that is hotly contested in professional circles and in public debates, but for the nearly half of all clinically depressed patients who do not respond to drugs, this book brings much needed hope.

This searing indictment, David Healy's most comprehensive and forceful argument against the pharmaceuticalization of medicine, tackles problems in health care that are leading to a growing number of deaths and disabilities. Healy, who was the first to draw attention to the now well-publicized suicide-inducing side effects of many anti-depressants, attributes our current state of affairs to three. Key factors: product rather than process patents on drugs, the classification of certain drugs as prescription-only, and industry-controlled drug trials. These developments have tied the survival of pharmaceutical companies to the development of blockbuster drugs, so that they must overhype benefits and deny real hazards. Healy further explains why these trends have basically ended the possibility of universal health care in the United States and elsewhere around the world. He concludes with suggestions for reform of our currently corrupted evidence-based medical system.

This provocative history of bipolar disorder illuminates how perceptions of illness, if not the illnesses themselves, are mutable over time. Beginning with the origins of the concept of mania-and the term maniac-in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, renowned psychiatrist David Healy examines how concepts of mental afflictions evolved as scientific breakthroughs established connections between brain function and mental illness. Healy recounts the changing definitions of mania through the centuries, explores the effects of new terminology and growing public awareness of the disease on culture and society, and examines the rise of psychotropic treatments and pharmacological marketing over the past four decades. Along the way, Healy clears much of the confusion surrounding bipolar disorder even as he raises crucial questions about how, why, and by whom the disease is diagnosed. Drawing heavily on primary sources and supplemented with interviews and insight gained over Healy's long career, this lucid and engaging overview of mania sheds new light on one of humankind's most vexing ailments.

Americans, in viewing the globe in 1897, saw a world of empires that were dynamic and fast-growing. Western powers such as Germany, France, and particularly Great Britain were making colonial imperialism fashionable, and the United States, eager to flex its muscles as an emerging world power, was swept along with the European tide. One year later, the United States had truly established itself as a contender in the global game, victorious in a war with Spain and committed to imperialism. In US Expansionism, David Healy examines this brief but important chapter in American history. Analyzing the various intellectual, cultural, and economic forces that engendered and shaped America s imperialist drive, Healy also illustrates the key personalities involved, including the soon-to-be president, Theodore Roosevelt. A final section of the book examines the anti-imperialist opposition inspired by the new policy, and the ensuing debates about the proper role of American power."

This provocative history of bipolar disorder illuminates how perceptions of illness, if not the illnesses themselves, are mutable over time. Beginning with the origins of the concept of mania-and the term maniac-in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, renowned psychiatrist David Healy examines how concepts of mental afflictions evolved as scientific breakthroughs established connections between brain function and mental illness. Healy recounts the changing definitions of mania through the centuries, explores the effects of new terminology and growing public awareness of the disease on culture and society, and examines the rise of psychotropic treatments and pharmacological marketing over the past four decades. Along the way, Healy clears much of the confusion surrounding bipolar disorder even as he raises crucial questions about how, why, and by whom the disease is diagnosed. Drawing heavily on primary sources and supplemented with interviews and insight gained over Healy's long career, this lucid and engaging overview of mania sheds new light on one of humankind's most vexing ailments.

A psychiatrist provides an insider account on the controversial use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) Prozac. Paxil. Zoloft. Turn on your television and you are likely to see a commercial for one of the many selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) on the market. We hear a lot about them, but do we really understand how these drugs work and what risks are involved for anyone who uses them? Let Them Eat Prozac explores the history of SSRIs—from their early development to their latest marketing campaigns—and the controversies that surround them. Initially, they seemed like wonder drugs for those with mild to moderate depression. When Prozac was released in the late 1980s, David Healy was among the psychiatrists who prescribed it. But he soon observed that some of these patients became agitated and even attempted suicide. Could the new wonder drug actually be making patients worse? Healy draws on his own research and expertise to demonstrate the potential hazards associated with these drugs. He intersperses case histories with insider accounts of the research leading to the development and approval of SSRIs as a treatment for depression. Let Them Eat Prozac clearly demonstrates that the problems go much deeper than a side-effect of a particular drug. The pharmaceutical industry would like us to believe that SSRIs can safely treat depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental problems. But, as Let Them Eat Prozac reveals, this "cure" may be worse than the disease.

The Psychopharmacologists 3 completes a trio of interview-based books about the process of therapeutic innovation in clinical psychiatry. David Healy's method is to interview key individuals involved in the discovery and deployment of drugs that have proved useful to psychiatry, and to draw them together within a model of the mechanism and clinical discovery that he uses as an overall framework.These are historical accounts but highly relevant to the clinical psychiatrist of today, emphasising the importance of research, and of the marketing strategies of pharmaceutical companies in formulating disease entities as well as treatments for them.

Psychiatric Drugs Explained offers a wealth of evidence-based information on psychiatric drugs in an easy-to-use format that can be quickly referenced in the clinical setting. Written by internationally recognised author Dr David Healy, the book provides a comprehensive review of drug effects, action and side-effects. There is an emphasis on the lived experience of patients, providing the reader with a sense of what the adverse effects of drugs might feel like to those who use them. A reader-friendly approach and clear layout, with information organised by disorder, make this popular title accessible and useful not only to nursing staff, but to all members of the multidisciplinary team. Quick reference guide suitable for all members of the multidisciplinary team Helpful boxes on user issues make potential complications easy to spot Distinctive, reader-friendly style helps the reader understand the benefits and impacts of psychotropic drugs New topics include management of dependence disorders, stimulants and drugs for children, cognitive impairment and sleep disorders The only book with detailed coverage of the sexual side effects of psychiatric drugs and the abusive prescribing of prescription drugs

Life Expectancy in the West has been falling since 2015. Linked to this, the climate of healthcare has become toxic. This crisis, as urgent as global climate change, has its roots in the same factors that drive climate change. Shipwreck of the Singular looks at our changing environment through a healthcare lens rather than an economic one. One advantage to this is that each of us is better placed to put right what is going wrong in the climate of healthcare than we are to tackle the global climate. In tackling what needs changing in health, we may solve our wider climate crisis. This book does not come with recommendations from people of distinction, or experts who have turned a blind eye to developments that have landed us in the mess we now have. The people best placed to grasp what is going wrong and force our 'betters' to justify the distinctions that have been bestowed on them are those whose lives have been touched by what is going wrong in healthcare. Shipwreck shows you how we got to the point of peril we are now at. It points to a Care that needs courage. A book won't get us there. It needs you to engage and engage others.

Children of the Cure tells the story of the only Medical Study that has two publications in the academic literature-telling precisely the opposite story-and how no one is bothered by this. Study 329 was a clinical study that began in 1994 giving a new antidepressant to teenagers. It has become the most famous clinical trial ever, leading to a fraud charge, a $3 billion fine, and a Black Box Warning. Despite now knowing that all trials of antidepressants done in children are negative, sales of these drugs to children and adolescents continue to increase dramatically. This book is written by three members of the team-David Healy, Joanna Le Noury and Julie Wood-who have been behind writing the study and creating the website that hosts a set of documents pharmaceutical companies never expected you would get to see.

Before 1990, we brought our health problems to doctors and got "care". Today health services bring us problems with our bones, lipids, breathing, glucose, blood pressure, and even our moods. The managers of health services require staff to keep to guidelines, which means giving us medicines in order to reduce the risks we pose the services rather than to help us. In the 1980s few of us were on more than one drug. Now many of us are on five or more drugs every day of the year and those of us over sixty-five may be on ten or more. We have reached a crisis point-life expectancy is now falling. To restore Healthcare, we need to be able to restore validity to our judgements about the adverse effects of treatments

The Psychopharmacologists. An interview-based book about the process of therapeutic innovation in clinical psychiatry. David Healy's method is to interview key individuals involved in the discovery and deployment of drugs that have proved useful to psychiatry, and to draw them together within a model of the mechanism and clinical discovery that he uses as an overall framework. These are historical accounts but highly relevant to the clinical psychiatrist of today, emphasising the importance of research, and of the marketing strategies of pharmaceutical companies in formulating disease entities as well as treatments for them.

Drug Trial Secrets tells the story of the most famous clinical drug trial of all time, the only trial to lead to a fraud charge, as well as the biggest drug company fine in history. GlaxoSmithKline paid for Study 329, the clinical trial of their antidepressant Paxil (paroxetine) in the 1990s, and the resulting research was published in the Journal of the American Association of Child Adolescent Psychiatry. The article claimed the drug was effective and safe, even though GSK knew from the research that Paxil didn't work for children and was harmful. In 2004, New York State charged the company with fraud because of this publication. It wouldn't be until 2012 when the Department of Justice also charged GSK with fraud and failure to report safety data that GSK settled and paid a giant $3 billion fine. But perhaps the most important result was that independent researchers were given access to the full, original records of the clinical trial and relating documents. David Healy and his co-authors spent thousands of hours re-analyzing the raw data, and in this book they describe exactly how GSK and the medical professionals who claimed authorship of the journal article manipulated the data to produce the false result they wanted. They also document the battle they finally won to get the British Medical Journal to publish a re-write of the original study, thirteen years later! A gripping true-crime narrative, Drug Trial Secrets will leave readers with many questions about the reliability of drug company trials and research by medical professionals funded by drug companies.

It is estimated that forty-five to fifty percent of all Americans will suffer a mental disorder at some time during their lives. Increasingly, the treatment for these disorders is management with one or more psychiatric drugs, often prescribed by general practitioners. In Pillaged Ronald William Maris evaluates the psychiatric medications commonly used to treat several major types of psychiatric disorders - including depression and mood disorders, bipolar disorders, anxiety disorders, and psychotic disorders - asking “do they work as advertised?” and, more importantly, “are they safe?”Answers to these questions are more ambiguous than we might think, Maris explains, because drug manufacturers tend to minimize the adverse effects of their products. Furthermore, the underlying neurobiological theories of how psychiatric drugs work are complex, poorly understood, and often conflicting. Still Americans spend tens of billions of dollars a year on antidepressants and antipsychotics alone.While Maris questions the rampant prescribing of psychiatric medications especially in young people, Pillaged does not suggest that anyone cavalierly discontinue potentially beneficial psychiatric medications without the advice of a qualified mental health professional. The book acknowledges that psychiatric medications are often necessary in treating some psychiatric conditions, but it reminds readers of medication’s potential for degrading one’s quality of life, contributing to self-destructive behaviors, and even leading to death in a vulnerable minority of patients. Maris advocates an open and honest discussion of data on psychiatric drugs, their effects, and their dangers, and he reminds readers of available alternative, nondrug treatments for psychiatric disorders. By reviewing the history and effects of medications for mental disorders, Maris hopes to educate health care consumers and prescribers to make careful, informed decisions about the treatment of psychiatric disorders.

This searing indictment, David Healy's most comprehensive and forceful argument against the pharmaceuticalization of medicine, tackles problems in health care that are leading to a growing number of deaths and disabilities. Healy, who was the first to draw attention to the now well-publicized suicide-inducing side effects of many anti-depressants, attributes our current state of affairs to three key factors: product rather than process patents on drugs, the classification of certain drugs as prescription-only, and industry-controlled drug trials. These developments have tied the survival of pharmaceutical companies to the development of blockbuster drugs, so that they must overhype benefits and deny real hazards. Healy further explains why these trends have basically ended the possibility of universal health care in the United States and elsewhere around the world. He concludes with suggestions for reform of our currently corrupted evidence-based medical system.

David Healy follows his widely praised study, The Antidepressant Era, with an even more ambitious and dramatic story: the discovery and development of antipsychotic medication. Healy argues that the discovery of chlorpromazine (more generally known as Thorazine) is as significant in the history of medicine as the discovery of penicillin, reminding readers of the worldwide prevalence of insanity within living memory. But Healy tells not of the triumph of science but of a stream of fruitful accidents, of technological discovery leading neuroscientific research, of fierce professional competition and the backlash of the antipsychiatry movement of the 1960s. A chemical treatment was developed for one purpose, and as long as some theoretical rationale could be found, doctors administered it to the insane patients in their care to see if it would help. Sometimes it did, dramatically. Why these treatments worked, Healy argues provocatively, was, and often still is, a mystery. Nonetheless, such discoveries made and unmade academic reputations and inspired intense politicking for the Nobel Prize. Once pharmaceutical companies recognized the commercial potential of antipsychotic medications, financial as well as clinical pressures drove the development of ever more aggressively marketed medications. With verve and immense learning, Healy tells a story with surprising implications in a book that will become the leading scholarly work on its compelling subject.

Prozac. Paxil. Zoloft. Turn on your television and you are likely to see a commercial for one of the many selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) on the market. We hear a lot about them, but do we really understand how these drugs work and what risks are involved for anyone who uses them?Let Them Eat Prozac explores the history of SSRIs-from their early development to their latest marketing campaigns-and the controversies that surround them. Initially, they seemed like wonder drugs for those with mild to moderate depression. When Prozac was released in the late 1980s, David Healy was among the psychiatrists who prescribed it. But he soon observed that some of these patients became agitated and even attempted suicide. Could the new wonder drug actually be making patients worse?Healy draws on his own research and expertise to demonstrate the potential hazards associated with these drugs. He intersperses case histories with insider accounts of the research leading to the development and approval of SSRIs as a treatment for depression. Let Them Eat Prozac clearly demonstrates that the problems go much deeper than a side-effect of a particular drug. The pharmaceutical industry would like us to believe that SSRIs can safely treat depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental problems. But, as Let Them Eat Prozac reveals, this "cure" may be worse than the disease.