Robert Whitaker

Cuando el galardonado periodista científico Robert Whitaker se percató de que entre 1987 y 2007 el número de pacientes con discapacidad por enfermedad mental se había casi triplicado, en paralelo a un espectacular aumento en la produccion de droga psicotropica, comenzo a reflexionar.Parece como si estos psicofarmacos fueranbalas magicasque dejan fuera de juego a la enfermedad mental, reinsertando a los pacientes a las filas de la ciudadania productiva. Pero numerosos estudios clinicos publicados hace mas de 50 años en prestigiosas revistas cientificas, revelaban una anomalia sorprendente: en repetidas ocasiones, las drogas psiquiatricas empeoran la enfermedad mental, y disparan los riesgos de daño hepatico, de aumento de peso, de colesterol, o de azucar en la sangre. Realmente no se sabe que causa la enfermedad mental, no hay cura o tratamiento paliativo que se encuentre en esas pildoras. Las conclusiones de Whitaker, tras examinar estos medicamentos a traves del prisma de los resultados a largo plazo, exponen el brutal engaño de una industria que mueve miles de millones.

In the 1740s, a young scientist named Jean Godin traveled from France to Peru--a French colony in those days--as part of a project to map the earth and measure its size. There he met and married a teenage bride, Isabel Grameson, hoping to take her back to France with him. In order to get permission to do so, he left Isabel behind and trekked across the continent to confer with the colonial authorities--who promptly forbade him to return, because Isabel''s part of Peru was under Spanish rule. Twenty years later, Isabel herself set out to find her husband on a perilous journey that culminated in a long sojourn, alone, in the rain forest as she tried to survive. This dramatic true story is told against the backdrop of early scientific inquiry as well as the tortured history of colonialism in South America.

En 1735 llegaba a Cartagena de Indias una expedición científica francesa. Su misión era resolver la gran incógnita de la época: ¿ cuáles eran las dimensiones exactas de la tierra? Los mienbros de esta mision nunca imaginaron las increibles aventuras que les esperaban en el Nuevo Mundo...Jean Godin, el benjamin de la expedicion, tampoco imagino que en Quito encontraria a su futura esposa, Isabel Grameson. Los recien casados se instalaron en Riobamba, pero el destino no jugo a su favor...

Sur fond dexploration scientifique au XVIIIe siècle en Amérique latine (la première réalisée par des Français), lincroyable histoire damour dun couple séparé depuis 20 ans qui se retrouve dans des co

Sur fond dexploration scientifique au XVIIIe siècle en Amérique latine (la première réalisée par des Français), lincroyable histoire damour dun couple séparé depuis 20 ans qui se retrouve dans des co

In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clarks exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely completed their mission. One was murdered, another perished from fever, and a third-Jean Godin-nearly died of heartbreak. At the expeditions end, Jean and his Peruvian wife, Isabel Gramesen, became stranded at opposite ends of the Amazon, victims of a tangled web of international politics. Isabels solo journey to reunite with Jean after their calamitous twenty-year separation was so dramatic that it left all of 18th-century Europe spellbound. Her survival-unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration-was a testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, and the power of devotion. Drawing on the original writings of the French mapmakers, as well as his own experience retracing Isabels journey, acclaimed writer Robert Whitaker weaves a riveting tale rich in adventure, intrigue, and scientific achievement. Never before told, The Mapmakers Wife is an epic love story that unfolds against the backdrop of "the greatest expedition the world has ever known."

They shot them down like rabbits . . . September 30, 1919. The United States teetered on the edge of a racial civil war. During the previous three months, racial fighting had erupted in twenty-five cities. And deep in the Arkansas Delta, black sharecroppers were meeting in a humble wooden church, forming a union and making plans to sue their white landowners, who for years had cheated them out of their fair share of the cotton crop. A car pulled up outside the church . . . What happened next has long been shrouded in controversy.In this heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant story of courage and will, journalist Robert Whitaker carefully documentsand exposesone of the worst racial massacres in American history. Over the course of several days, posses and federal troops gunned down more than one hundred men, women, and children.But that is just the beginning of this astonishing story. White authorities also arrested more than three hundred black farmers, and in trials that lasted only a few hours, all-white juries sentenced twelve of the union leaders to die in the electric chair. One of the juries returned a death verdict after two minutes of deliberation. All hope seemed lost, and then an extraordinary lawyer from Little Rock stepped forward: Scipio Africanus Jones. Jones, whod been born a slave, joined forces with the NAACP to mount an appeal in which he argued that his clients constitutional rights to a fair trial had been violated. Never before had the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a criminal verdict in a state court because the proceedings had been unfair, so the state of Arkansas, confident of victory, had a carpenter build coffins for the men.We all know the names of the many legendary heroes that emerged from the civil rights movement: Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. among them. Whitakers important book commemorates a legal struggle, Moore v. Dempsey, that paved the way for that later remaking of our country, and tells too of a man, Scipio Africanus Jones, whose name surely deserves to be known by all Americans.

An updated edition of the classic history of schizophrenia in America, which gives voice to generations of patients who suffered through "cures" that only deepened their suffering and impaired their hope of recoverySchizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the worlds poorest countries. In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker argues that modern treatments for the severely mentally ill are just old medicine in new bottles, and that we as a society are deeply deluded about their efficacy. The widespread use of lobotomies in the 1920s and 1930s gave way in the 1950s to electroshock and a wave of new drugs. In what is perhaps Whitakers most damning revelation, Mad in America examines how drug companies in the 1980s and 1990s skewed their studies to prove that new antipsychotic drugs were more effective than the old, while keeping patients in the dark about dangerous side effects. A haunting, deeply compassionate book -- updated with a new introduction and prologue bringing in the latest medical treatments and trends -- Mad in America raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, the meaning of "insanity," and what we value most about the human mind.

Cuando el galardonado periodista científico Robert Whitaker se percató de que entre 1987 y 2007 el número de pacientes con discapacidad por enfermedad mental se había casi triplicado, en paralelo a un espectacular aumento en la produccion de droga psicotropica, comenzo a reflexionar.Parece como si estos psicofarmacos fueran "balas magicas" que dejan fuera de juego a la enfermedad mental, reinsertando a los pacientes a las filas de la ciudadania productiva. Pero numerosos estudios clinicos publicados hace mas de 50 años en prestigiosas revistas cientificas, revelaban una anomalia sorprendente: en repetidas ocasiones, las drogas psiquiatricas empeoran la enfermedad mental, y disparan los riesgos de daño hepatico, de aumento de peso, de colesterol, o de azucar en la sangre. Realmente no se sabe que causa la enfermedad mental, no hay cura o tratamiento paliativo que se encuentre en esas pildoras. Las conclusiones de Whitaker, tras examinar estos medicamentos a traves del prisma de los resultados a largo plazo, exponen el brutal engaño de una industria que mueve miles de millones.

Updated with bonus material, including a new foreword and afterword with new research, this New York Times bestseller is essential reading for a time when mental health is constantly in the news.In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Interwoven with Whitakers groundbreaking analysis of the merits of psychiatric medications are the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. As Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, other societies have begun to alter their use of psychiatric medications and are now reporting much improved outcomes . . . so why cant such change happen here in the United States? Why have the results from these long-term studiesall of which point to the same startling conclusionbeen kept from the public? Our nation has been hit by an epidemic of disabling mental illness, and yet, as Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, the medical blueprints for curbing that epidemic have already been drawn up.Praise for Anatomy of an EpidemicThe timing of Robert Whitakers Anatomy of an Epidemic, a comprehensive and highly readable history of psychiatry in the United States, couldnt be better.SalonAnatomy of an Epidemic offers some answers, charting controversial ground with mystery-novel pacing.TIMELucid, pointed and important, Anatomy of an Epidemic should be required reading for anyone considering extended use of psychiatric medicine. Whitaker is at the height of his powers. Greg Critser, author of Generation Rx