Product Description
When we stop at the pharmacy to pick up our Prozac, are we simply buying a drug? Or are we buying into a disease as well? The first complete account of the phenomenon of antidepressants, this authoritative, highly readable book relates how depression, a disease only recently deemed too rare to merit study, has become one of the most common disorders of our day-and a booming business to boot.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 5 reviews)

History and Hysteria by Squiggles (CANADA)

3 Stars
January 25, 2007
I wish I had done better in Symbolic Logic before drawing conclusions from this book. Fortunately, my experience and that of my friends', has been an adequate guide in the midst of political, socioeonomic, and ideological wars that his work inspires. I am a pragmatist at heart. Dr. Healy is a good historian of psychiatry. This is a very well-researched book on the evolution of antidepressant treatment. But I think I would rather have Dr. Healy as a professor than as a doctor. Squiggles

Good book by Vornan19

4 Stars
October 05, 2005
Good review of the negative aspects of SSRIs (and there are many). Would have given it five stars, but he leaves out the very important fact that SSRIs can sometimes cause permanent sexual dysfunction after the drugs are stopped. This has long been overlooked by the medical community and should be included here. Do a goolge search for details.

Packed with information, but difficult to read

4 Stars
June 03, 2002
David Healy obviously knows a lot about antidepressants (and about psychopharmacology in general). However, he apparently doesn't know a lot about using clear, straightforward, unpretentious language.This book badly needs an editor. Healy's writing is far more difficult and opaque than it needs to be.Nevertheless, I'm giving the book four stars because of the excellent content.

ignorance may be bliss but it does not solve the problem by Bruce Scott (Southampton, UK)

4 Stars
August 20, 2001
Being a researcher of SSRIs and depression from a psychologiacl standpoint I was impressed by the line took by Healy- my own research is begining to show that even when people take SSRIs their self-esteem (which is formed by childhood and environment) is not affected or changed. I agree with Healy that we should take far more account of the fundamnetal social implications of depression within society and treat this as well as the individual- doing this is a far more efective way of tackling depression. However this may not be the case for the drug companies.

Review of the Antidepressant Era by David Healy by D.R.Sharples & Pam Armstrong/ Bactolife.uk.com (uk)

5 Stars
May 13, 2000
Having worked for so long with the less desirable effects of mind altering medication it is extremely useful to read a book which so clearly presents, alongside much of the history of medicine and through to the present day day and the Prozac era. David Healy presents many views very similiar to my own with great great clarity and honesty. Indeed, this a book I would love to have written if I had his knowledge and word power. David Healy depth of research is awe inspiring and he has the ability to put an idea in such a way that is capivates much of the reader. The whole concept of marketing depression as a disease and then designing drugs to fit is one that few on us have considered. The idea of the designed drug rather than the discovered drug is also an useful comparsion. This book is certainly different in its approach and intregity and the knowledge it contains is very needed. I hope it is widely read.

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