Go to ScienceDirect® Home Skip Main Navigation Links
 Register or Login:   Password:     Athens Login 
HomeBrowse JournalsBrowse Abstract DatabasesBrowse BooksBrowse Reference WorksMy ProfileAlerts Help (Opens new window)
Medical Hypotheses
Volume 62, Issue 1 , 2004, Pages 5-13

This Document
Abstract
Full Text + Links
PDF (189 K)

Actions
E-mail Article

doi:10.1016/S0306-9877(03)00293-7    How to cite or link using doi (opens new window) Cite or link using doi  
Copyright © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The case against antipsychotic drugs: a 50-year record of doing more harm than good*1

Robert WhitakerCorresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author

19 Rockingham St., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Available online 7 November 2003.


Abstract

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.


Corresponding Author Contact InformationCorresponding author. Tel.: +617-499-4354

*1 Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill (Perseus Publishing, 2002).



This Document
Abstract
Full Text + Links
PDF (189 K)

Actions
E-mail Article
Medical Hypotheses
Volume 62, Issue 1 , 2004, Pages 5-13


 
HomeBrowse JournalsBrowse Abstract DatabasesBrowse BooksBrowse Reference WorksMy ProfileAlerts Help (Opens new window)

Send feedback to ScienceDirect
Software and compilation © 2004 ScienceDirect. All rights reserved.
ScienceDirect® is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V.


Your use of this service is governed by Terms and Conditions. Please review our Privacy Policy for details on how we protect information that you supply.