Robert Whitaker is an American journalist and author, writing primarily about medicine, science, and history. He is the author of five books, three of which cover the history or practice of modern psychiatry. He has won numerous awards for science writing, and in 1998 he was part of a team writing for the ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' that was shortlisted for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for a series of articles questioning the ethics of psychiatric research in which unsuspecting patients were given drugs expected to heighten their psychosis. He is the founder and publisher of Mad in America, a webzine critical of the modern psychiatric establishment.

Career

Whitaker was a medical writer at the ''

Albany Times Union The ''Times Union'' is an American daily newspaper, serving the Capital Region of New York. Although the newspaper focuses on Albany and its suburbs, it covers all parts of the four-county area, including the cities of Troy, Schenectady and Sa ...

'' newspaper in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York C ...

from 1989 to 1994. In 1992, he was a Knight Science Journalism fellow at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. Following that, he became director of publications at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

. In 1994, he co-founded a publishing company, CenterWatch, that covered the pharmaceutical clinical trials industry. CenterWatch was acquired by Medical Economics, a division of

The Thomson Corporation The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to fo ...

, in 1998. In 2002, ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...

'' published Whitaker's article "Mind drugs may hinder recovery" in its editorial/opinion section. In 2004, Whitaker published a paper in the non-peer-reviewed journal ''

Medical Hypotheses ''Medical Hypotheses'' is a not-conventionally-peer reviewed medical journal published by Elsevier. It was originally intended as a forum for unconventional ideas without the traditional filter of scientific peer review, "as long as (the ideas) are ...

'', titled "The case against antipsychotic drugs: a 50-year record of doing more harm than good". In 2005, he published his paper ''Anatomy of an Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America'' in the peer-reviewed journal ''

Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry Peter Roger Breggin (born May 11, 1936) is an American psychiatrist and critic of shock treatment and psychiatric medication and Covid-19 response. In his books, he advocates replacing psychiatry's use of drugs and electroconvulsive therapy with ...

''. In his book '' Anatomy of an Epidemic'', published in 2010, Whitaker continued his work.

''Mad in America''

He has written on and off for the ''

'' and in 2001, he wrote his first book '' Mad in America'' about psychiatric research and medications, the domains of some of his earlier journalism. He appeared in the film ''Take These Broken Wings: Recovery from Schizophrenia Without Medication'' released in 2008, a film detailing the pitfalls of administering medication for the illness.

''Anatomy of an Epidemic''

An IRE 2010 book award winner for best investigative journalism, this book investigates why the number of mentally ill patients in America receiving SSI or SSDI disability checks keeps rising, despite the so-called "psychopharmacological revolution." Whitaker's main thesis is that psychopharmacological drugs work well to curb acute symptoms. However, patients receiving prolonged treatment courses often end up more disabled than they started. Despite these results from several landmark studies in the 1970s, in the 1980s pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lily together with the American Psychiatric Association began more aggressively pushing second generation anti-depressants and anti-psychotics on psychiatric patients. Many prominent academic psychiatrists worked as key opinion leaders for the pharmaceutical companies, and were compensated millions of dollars.

Awards and honors

Articles that Whitaker co-wrote won the 1998

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

for Medical Writing and the 1998

National Association of Science Writers The National Association of Science Writers (NASW) was created in 1934 by a dozen science journalists and reporters in New York City.

’ Science in Society Journalism Award for best magazine article. A 1998 ''

'' article series he co-wrote on psychiatric research was a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In April 2011, IRE announced that '' Anatomy of an Epidemic'' had won its award as the best investigative journalism book of 2010 stating, "this book provides an in-depth exploration of medical studies and science and intersperses compelling anecdotal examples. In the end, Whitaker punches holes in the conventional wisdom of treatment of mental illness with drugs."

Books

*
Mad In America
Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill'', Perseus Publishing, December 24, 2001, *
The Mapmaker's Wife
A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon'', Basic Books, April 13, 2004, *
On the Laps of Gods
The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation'', Crown, June 10, 2008, *
Anatomy of an Epidemic
Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America'', Crown, April 13, 2010, *
Psychiatry Under The Influence
Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform'', with Lisa Cosgrove, Palgrave Macmillan, April 23, 2015,

References

External links

C-SPAN video
Whitaker talks for 1.5 hours about subjects in his book Anatomy of an Epidemic like how antidepressants work, the chemical imbalance myth, and the importance of best-use policies with drugs
Mad in America
Robert Whitaker's blog for the magazine

Popular Psychology Popular psychology (sometimes shortened as pop psychology or pop psych) is the concepts and theories about human mental life and behavior that are purportedly based on psychology and that find credence among and pass muster with the populace. The ...

. * *
Take These Broken Wings
Daniel Mackler - Full movie. {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitaker, Robert American male journalists American science writers Harvard Medical School people Year of birth missing (living people) Living people George Polk Award recipients Anti-psychiatry