Expert Panel Hosts: Robert Whitaker, Gabriel Cousens, Irving Kirsch, Gwen Olsen • Robert Whitaker - investigates how the influence of pharmaceutical money and guild interests has corrupted the behavior of the American Psychiatric Association and academic psychiatry during the past 35 years. He documents how the psychiatric establishment regularly misled the American public about what was known about the biology of mental disorders, the validity of psychiatric diagnoses, and the safety and efficacy of its drugs. He also looks at how these two corrupting influences encouraged the expansion of diagnostic boundaries and the creation of biased clinical practice guidelines. This corruption has led to significant social injury, and in particular, a societal lack of informed consent regarding the use of psychiatric drugs, and the pathologizing of normal behaviors in children and adults. Robert Whitaker argues that reforming psychiatry will require the neutralization of these two corrupting influences—pharmaceutical money and guild interests—and the establishment of multidisciplinary authority over the field of mental health. • Gabriel Cousens - Not all depressions are alike. And despite the attention given to Prozac and other drugs, there quite literally is no magic pill. Someone who suffers from depression needs a customized, individual program, one that attacks the personal, biochemical roots of the problem. Dr. Cousens shows how to heal depression safely by synergistically rebalancing what he calls "the natural drugs of the brain," using a five-step program of mood-boosting substances, vitamin and mineral supplements, and a mood-enhancing diet and lifestyle. Grounded in cutting-edge science, yet accessible and safe, he shows how to regain your optimism and energy through balancing your own biochemistry. • Irving Kirsch - Irving Kirsch has the world doubting the efficacy of antidepressants. Based on fifteen years of research he makes an overwhelming case that what the medical community considered a cornerstone of psychiatric treatment is little more than a faulty consensus. But Kirsch does more than just criticize: He offers a path society can follow to stop popping pills and start proper treatment. • Gwen Olsen - The United States health care system is killing Americans at an alarming rate, even though we spend over fifteen percent of the Gross National Product (GNP) on health care. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, our health care outcomes ranked only fifteenth among twenty-five industrialized nations worldwide. Adverse effects from prescription drugs have become the third-leading killer of Americans. Only heart disease and cancer claim more lives. We trust our doctors to inform us and our government to protect us from medical malfeasance that may put profits ahead of consumer health and safety. But the fine line walked by the FDA between the interests of the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the American public has continually been crossed. The result is the unleashing of an unprecedented number of lethal drugs on the U.S. market!