内容简介
In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning scienceand history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery:Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United Statestripled over the past two decades? Every day, 1,100 adults andchildren are added to the government disability rolls because theyhave become newly disabled by mental illness, with this epidemicspreading most rapidly among our nation’s children. What is goingon?
Anatomy of an Epidemic challenges readers to think through thatquestion themselves. First, Whitaker investigates what is knowntoday about the biological causes of mental disorders. Dopsychiatric medications fix “chemical imbalances” in the brain, ordo they, in fact, create them? Researchers spent decades studyingthat question, and by the late 1980s, they had their answer.Readers will be startled—and dismayed—to discover what was reportedin the scientific journals.
Anatomy of an Epidemic challenges readers to think through thatquestion themselves. First, Whitaker investigates what is knowntoday about the biological causes of mental disorders. Dopsychiatric medications fix “chemical imbalances” in the brain, ordo they, in fact, create them? Researchers spent decades studyingthat question, and by the late 1980s, they had their answer.Readers will be startled—and dismayed—to discover what was reportedin the scientific journals.