Do not think about, write about or deal with human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.
Some quotes lifted from this article which is written like a more traditional scientific paper and is the basis of his book.
The case against antipsychotic drugs R. Whitaker
"Summary Although the standard of care in developed countries is to maintain schizophrenia patients on neuroleptics, this practice is not supported by the 50-year research record for the drugs. A critical review reveals that this paradigm of care worsens long-term outcomes, at least in the aggregate, and that 40% or more of all schizophrenia patients would fare better if they were not so medicated. Evidence-based care would require the selective use of antipsychotics, based on two principles: (a) no immediate neuroleptisation of first-episode patients; (b) every patient stabilized on neuroleptics should be given an opportunity to gradually withdraw from them. This model would
dramatically increase recovery rates and decrease the percentage of patients who become chronically ill."
………
"Moreover, there was one state that did compare discharge rates for schizophrenia patients treated with and without drugs, and its results do not support the historical claim made for neuroleptics. In a study
of 1413 first-episode male schizophrenics admitted to California hospitals in 1956 and 1957, researchers found that “drug-treated patients tend to have longer periods of hospitalization. . . furthermore, the hospitals wherein a higher percentage of firstadmission schizophrenic patients are treated with these drugs tend to have somewhat higher retention rates for this group as a whole”. In short, the California
investigators determined that neuroleptics,
rather than speed patients’ return to the community, apparently hindered recovery [13].
The true period of deinstitutionalization in the US was from 1963 to the late 1970s, the exodus of patients driven by social and fiscal policies. In 1963, federal government began picking up some of the costs of care for the mentally ill not in state institutions, and two years later, Medicare and Medicaid legislation increased federal funding for care of mental patients provided they were not
housed in state hospitals. Naturally, states responded by discharging their hospital patients to private nursing homes and shelters. In 1972, an amendment to the Social Security act authorized disability payments to the mentally ill, which accelerated the transfer of hospitalized patients into private facilities. As a result of these changes in fiscal policies, the number of patients in state mental hospitals dropped from 504,600 to 153,544 over a 15-year period (1963–1978) [14].
…..
Thus, there is a preponderance of evidence
showing that standard neuroleptics, over the longterm, increase the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill. This outcome is particularly problematic when one considers that the drugs also cause a wide range of troubling side effects, including neuroleptic malignant syndrome, Parkinsonian symptoms, and tardive dyskinesia. Patients maintained on standard neuroleptics also have to worry about blindness, fatal blood clots, heat stroke, swollen breasts, leaking breasts, impotence,
obesity, sexual dysfunction, blood disorders, painful skin rashes, seizures, diabetes, and early death [35–40]. Once all these factors are considered, it is hard to conclude that standard neuroleptics are therapeutically
neutral. Instead, the research record shows harm done, and the record is consistent
across nearly 50 years of research. [See “Timeline to Failure” in Appendix A.]"
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies
August 26, 2010 at 5:00 am |
[...] The parallel between the responses to a depression of economic activity and depression in a human is compelling. First, they are remarkably ineffective. The Great Depression and human depression [...]