Do antidepressants work? Of course everyone knows it. Like his colleagues, Irving Kirsch, a researcher and clinical psychologist, for years referred patients to psychiatrists to have their depression treated with drugs before deciding to investigate for himself just how effective the drugs actually were. Over the course of the past fifteen years, however, Kirschs research a thorough analysis of decades of Food and Drug Administration data has demonstrated that what everyone knew about antidepressants was wrong. Instead of treating depression with drugs, weve been treating it with suggestion. The Emperors New Drugs makes an overwhelming case that what had seemed 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 so that we stop popping pills and start proper treatment for depression.

Gossip is no trivial matter; despite its reputation, Epstein argues, it is an eternal and necessary human enterprise. Proving that he himself is a master of the art, Epstein serves up delightful mini-biographies of the Great Gossips of the Western World, along with many choice bits from his own experience. He also makes a powerful case that gossip has morphed from its old-fashioned best--clever, mocking, a great private pleasure--to a corrosive new-school version, thanks to the reach of the mass media and the Internet. Written in his trademark erudite and witty style, Gossip captures the complexity of this immensely entertaining subject.

Advances in modern medicine - with the exception of psychiatry - are fantastic. Who would accept the surgical techniques of 1950, today? Which hospital would allow a surgeon fully trained in 1950 to even enter a modern surgical suite? In psychiatry, modern treatment does no better than it did in 1950. Psychiatry has the worst record of any medical specialty. This assessment is based on my observations from 1950 when I began to work in the mental hospitals in Saskatchewan. At that time patients were locked up in awful buildings placed far from centers of population. The treatment used by the Quakers in 1840, which yielded fifty percent discharge recoveries, was forgotten. Admission to mental hospital in 1950 was a life sentence, with no time off for good behaviour. The situation is different today. Patients are no longer locked up, but their brains are imprisoned by powerful, toxic chemicals from which they can not and are not allowed to escape. Orthomolecular treatment, which developed before these toxic drugs were found, has been ignored. Modern psychiatry uses only drugs and ignores the three most important elements of treatment, i.e. shelter, food, and treatment with civility and respect. The evidence is provided in this book. The optimum treatment in 1850 when drugs were not available yielded fifty percent recovery; today it is less than ten percent if the criteria are freedom from symptoms, ability to get along well with family and the community, and paying income tax.