RxISK blog

Samizdat is proud to announce the imminent birth of El Naufragio de lo Singular – a transformation into Spanish of Shipwreck of the Singular.  The birth will be before the end of September. As the expectant parents wait – they invite you this post as the equivalent of a baby shower party. Baby showers may […]

Imagine this. Someone in your life finds you inordinately eccentric, annoying or alarming, and decides you have a “mental illness,” whatever that is. Soon, you are being apprehended, sometimes violently, and locked up on a psych ward, despite your clear statements that you do not agree to being detained or to being medicated against your […]

To me, The Zyprexa Papers reads like a combination between a Stephen King horror tale and a John Grisham legal thriller. I have met the author Jim Gottstein once, and I remember him as an unassuming low-key individual not prone to self-promotion. After reading this book, I now realize what a heroic figure he actually is. Not […]

On November 28, 2006, attorney Jim Gottstein received a phone call that would change his life. It would propel Gottstein into a legal war against the giant pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, who would retaliate against him for his release of Lilly’s own documents about its drug Zyprexa. A U.S. District Court would rule that Gottstein […]

Book sales are strange things.  Depending on how you cut the cake, it can take relatively few buys to make a book the number one selling book in a particular category.  It may be that there aren’t a huge number of mental health law books and this explains how early orders of the new hardback […]

This Review by Maryanne Demasi first appeared in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics Online December 29, 2020 Harvard-trained lawyer Jim Gottstein is the author of the new book, The Zyprexa Papers. It is a compelling, first-hand account of how a humble attorney from Alaska manages to expose the rot inside one of the biggest […]

Paul John Scott’s review of : Prescription for Sorrow: Antidepressants, Suicide and Violence by Patrick D. Hahn (Samizdat Health. Available in Print or Kindle ) Prozac, arguably the most famous drug of our lifetimes, was never approved for sale. Rather, Prozac when combined with anti-anxiety medication was approved for sale. In an unpromising design that seems so very much […]

There are quite a few books published about the lack of benefit and harm caused by so-called “anti-depressants.”  The fact that so many people have felt compelled to write such books is interesting in itself.  Prescription for Sorrow, by Patrick Hahn, is simply the best one I have read.  It is the most engaging and readable.  This […]

This review by Kevin Miller was posted on Amazon under the heading The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction As one who has had the fortune/misfortune of reporting on the “science” behind prescription psychiatric drugs for 20+ years, I was thrilled to find MALCHARIST, the new novel by Paul John Scott. Mr. Scott’s writing is engrossing […]

This review of Malcharist is by Patrick D. Hahn, author of Prescription for Sorrow and Madness and Genetic Determinism with a further review below by Annie Bevan. What Paddy Chayefsky’s Network was to the Twentieth Century, Paul John Scott’s Malcharist is to the Twenty-First. This is a novel that takes the reader deep inside the Pharmaceutical Empire which invents […]

  Malcharist began life as The Hemingway Effect, and possibly other things before that.  For a long time it was The Placebo Suicides before Paul John Scott decided to experiment and see if people would buy a book with a title that didn’t conjure up images they might identify with – other than something vaguely […]

  Malcharist… warns, educates, inspires. Malcharist tells stories mirroring the ugliness and craziness of health care  Review by Gary Schwitzer I don’t read much fiction. Never have. As a journalist for 48 years, my mind and my eyes are focused on learning from history and reflecting on current events. But I’ve crossed paths with Paul […]