Healy and others have demonstrated how extensively the production of evidence in psychiatry has been co-opted by economic and marketing considerations. Pharmaceutical companies largely draw on biased ghostwriting, make sure that only positive results are published while reframing or concealing the negative outcomes of clinical trials, and exaggerate the effectiveness of medications (Angel 2004; Dumit 2012; Goldacre 2013; Gupta 2014; Healy 2004, 2008; Kirmayer and Raikhel 2009). Insofar as the drug-based approach has fueled the expansion of mental illness to its current epidemic proportions, the system sustains itself (Whitaker 2010).
The pharma-psych drive is not merely a matter of economics and medicine but also of professional ethics. The pharmaceutical industry’s funding of biomedical research and education generates conflicts of interest that medical doctors and researchers frequently prefer not to disclose.
This situation has led to a significant weakening of public trust and to intense discussions about how best to regulate this area of the medical profession (Grande 2010).
Dr. David Healy is an internationally respected psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, scientist, and a...
Inspired by the homonymous book by Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega, this timespace presents the authors' genealogy of the cerebral subject and the influence of the neurological discourse in human sciences, mental health and culture.
