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hexedd

Excellent and Informative History of an Important Subject

Reviewed in Canada on 14 June 2014

This is an excellent book, and one that I believe everyone should read. Healy crafts an important narrative about how psychopharmacology began with good intentions, controlled largely by clinicians and universities, and was then co-opted by rising pharmaceutical companies that devised sneaky (and sometimes downright deceptive) manners in which to work within the law while effectively defining new illnesses for which they could provide the fix.

Perhaps Healy's most important point is that while industry (in this case big pharmaceuticals) will aim to provide a product that will alleviate or control psychiatric symptoms, their goal first and foremost is to create a larger profit margin. Thus, being accountable to shareholders, rather than the universities or clinicians that they have increasingly funded, "big pharma" acts in ways that often run counter to what the ostensible goal of psychiatry has been over the past one hundred years, i.e. finding pathologies and cures for mental illnesses.

Healy brilliantly shows how as the pharmaceutical industry grew in size and influence, the tacit goal became not to find a specific cure for specific illnesses, but to market drugs that were effective across a wide range of disorders to sell more product. Perhaps the most insidious part of the story is that in doing so, big pharmaceuticals devised ways to co-opt psychiatrists and university departments in order to define "new" illnesses of dubious character that they could then provide a fix for. ADHD stands out as one of the "star" illnesses that was, based on Healy's persuasive and varied evidence, created by companies. By controlling the evidence, and in many cases using ghost-written studies, they have been able to act within the FDA regulations while ignoring more effective medications simply because they are *too* specific and therefore less profitable.

The second main thread in Healy's narrative revolves around how psychopharmacology has over the past forty to fifty years been involved in the creation of a "biomedical self." Healy argues, quite persuasively, that as well as the 1960s being an era of liberation, it also created a more muddy definition of "health." Healy makes a strong point that as cosmetic pharmacology and surgeries have developed, it has been more difficult to define what illness is, and perhaps most importantly, our sense of self is tied directly to health matters and now largely defined by biomedical corporations.

Healy's work is an important one. It is far more than simply a "whistleblower's" account. This book provides an eye-opening history of how psychopharmacology in the early twenty first century is no longer in the hands of clinicians and researchers, but rather the companies that fund them. Perhaps the most ironic part of this history is that as health matters have become increasingly more technological and therefore more expensive, universities and other funding bodies that formerly controlled the flow of research and science no longer have the funds to do so. Thus, mental health matters are left in the hands of those who have profit concerns at the forefront of their minds and curing illness somewhere in back, if it is there at all.

For anyone who has ever been prescribed a medication, whether psychiatric or not, this book is a cautionary tale that not only asks the reader to question what is happening with big pharmaceuticals, but also asks us to look in the mirror and ask ourselves how much we have bought in (both figuratively and literally) to the biomedical self that has been defined for us.

kent peterson

On time and in decent shape

Reviewed in the United States on 25 May 2022

Verified Purchase

Price was good

Lewis A. Opler

The best of times, the worst of times

Reviewed in the United States on 7 April 2014

Verified Purchase

A remarkable view by someone who was there of the rise of modern psychopharmacology, with explanations of its progress as well as of missed opportunities due to pettiness by some and greed by others.

2 people found this helpful

Deanna Spingola

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on 9 July 2014

Verified Purchase

Wonderful book!

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