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The case against antipsychotic drugs: a 50-year record of doing more harm
than good*1
19 Rockingham St., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Available online 7 November 2003.
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. Tel.: +617-499-4354
*1 Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill (Perseus Publishing, 2002).
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Volume 62, Issue 1 , 2004, Pages 5-13 |
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