Don’t forget to tune in October 10th for Holy Hormones Honey! at 9 am Pacific for our show on… The Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America
Episode Description
In Anatomy of an Epidemic, whistleblower Robert Whitaker asks why the number of adults and children disabled by mental illness skyrocketed over the past fifty years. In 1955, there were 355,000 adults in state and county mental hospitals with a psychiatric diagnosis. During the next three decades, (the era of the first generation psychiatric drugs) the number of disabled mentally ill rose to 1.25 million. According to government records there are now more than four million people in the US who receive a disability check because of a mental illness and that number continues to soar. Every day, 850 adults and 250 children with a mental illness are added to the disability rolls.
According to Whitaker, the astonishing increase in disability numbers raises the obvious question: âCould the widespread use of psychiatric medications–for one reason or another–be fueling this epidemic?â Has the âpsychopharmacological revolutionâ, failed consumers? Are we going âMad in America?â
Guest Bio
Robert Whitaker is the author of four books, two of which tell of the history of psychiatry. His first, Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill was named by Discover magazine as one of the best science books of 2002. His newest book on this topic, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, won the Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism in 2010.
Prior to writing, Whitaker worked as the science and medical reporter at the Albany Times Union newspaper in New York. His journalism articles won several national awards, including a George Polk award for medical writing, and a National Association of Science Writersâ award for best magazine article. A series he co-wrote for The Boston Globe was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. He also was director of publications at Harvard Medical School for a time.
Leslie Carol Botha
Leslie Carol Botha, host of Holy Hormones on the VoiceAmerica Health and Wellness Channel, is a Womenâs Health Educator and Internationally Recognized Expert on Womenâs Hormones and Behaviors. She is the co-author of the highly acclaimed Understanding Your Mind, Mood, and Hormone Cycle, the first in a menstrual health education series that provides women with the education they never received about how their hormone cycle affects not only their minds, and moods, but their personal and professional relationships and their overall health and happiness.
Botha is a member of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, and an advisory board member for the Cycles Research Institute. In 2006, Botha received the Edward R. Dewey Award for her pioneering research on how womenâs hormonal fluctuations affect their behaviors. The award was bequeathed by the Foundation for the Study of Cycles.
Her research is also featured in The World According to Cycles- How Recurring Forces Can Predict the Future and Change Your Life by Samuel A. Schreiner, Jr., published by Skyhorse Publishing, New York City. Schreiner has noted that Botha is âone of the most prominent twenty-first century natural cycle thinkers.â
Botha has been a radio broadcast journalist for over 30 years. Her message is loud and clear: it is time for women to reclaim their health, and her passion and drive is to provide information to assist women in making informed choices about their health and well-being.
