The Sedated Society

"The most authoritative and wide-ranging critique yet published of the global trend towards chemical management of psychological and social problems ... . Hard-hitting, scholarly and highly readable." (Professor David Ingleby, Centre for Social Science and Global Health, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) "The Sedated Society is a provocative critique of the over-prescription psychiatric drugs, their minimal effectiveness, and the dangers they pose. The authors are eminent experts and their conclusions are important and troubling. It should be required reading for all medical students." (Prof Irving Kirsch, Associate Director at the Harvard Medical School, USA) "A brilliant revelation of our drug-hooked world ... .With admirable clarity and panache the contributors chart the incredible story of bad science, naivety and greed that has enslaved the lives of millions." (Paul Flynn MP, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons)

This edited volume provides an answer to a rising public health concern: what drives the over prescription of psychiatric medication epidemic?This edited volume provides an answer to a rising public health concern: what drives the over prescription of psychiatric medication epidemic? Over 15% of the UK public takes a psychiatric medication on any given day, and the numbers are only set to increase. Placing this figure alongside the emerging clinical and scientific data revealing their poor outcomes and the harms these medications often cause, their commercial success cannot be explained by their therapeutic efficacy.Chapters from an interdisciplinary team of global experts in critical psychopharmacology rigorously examine how pharmaceutical sponsorship and marketing, diagnostic inflation, the manipulation and burying of negative clinical trials, lax medication regulation, and neoliberal public health policies have all been implicated in ever-rising psycho-pharmaceutical consumption. This volume will ignite a long-overdue public debate. It will be of interest to professionals in the field of mental health and researchers ranging from sociology of health, to medical anthropology and the political economy of health.