Abstract
In the two decades following the publication of DSM-III, American psychiatry, in concert with pharmaceutical companies, brought a second generation of psychiatric drugs to market, which were heralded as much better than the older drugs. A new benzodiazepine, Xanax, was approved for the treatment of panic disorder, which had been newly identified as a discrete disorder in DSM-III. Prozac and other SSRIs took the nation by storm and quickly replaced tricyclics and monoamine oxidase inhibitors as the antidepressants of choice. Next, atypical antipsychotics like Risperdal and Zyprexa were touted as breakthrough medications, both more effective and much safer than chlorpromazine, haloperidol, and other “standard neuroleptics.” Our society embraced the use of the second-generation drugs, such that by 2010, one in every five Americans was taking a psychotropic medication on a daily basis.2
As the saying goes, “if one tortures the data long enough, it will eventually confess to anything.”
—Erick Turner, 20131
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Notes
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© 2015 Robert Whitaker and Lisa Cosgrove
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Whitaker, R., Cosgrove, L. (2015). Psychiatry’s New Drugs. In: Psychiatry Under the Influence. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137516022_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137516022_5
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