Our Medical System Protects Wrongdoers and Punishes Whistleblowers: An Interview with Carl Elliott
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Release Date: 08/07/2024
Learning to Soar: A Conversation With Artist Kev G Mor
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Musician and artist Kev G Mor joins us to discuss his experience of psychosis, his daily support strategies, and the pros and cons of having a hundred-pound pit bull terrier for emotional support. Kev is a suicide survivor who grew up with early childhood trauma and has experienced homelessness as a teen, is a single father, and is now again in recovery. His work is about showing what staying well looks like on hard days and keeping it practical for people who live with psychosis. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely...
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Antidepressant Withdrawal: Finding an Astronomical Perspective - A Conversation with Safa Askeri
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Safa Askeri joins us to discuss his experience of antidepressant withdrawal and the gaslighting he was subjected to as he raised concerns with his doctors. “After this happened to me, I know that I can handle anything in life, no matter how hard it is.” *** Like to know more about Mad in America or rethinking psychiatry more broadly? On our podcast, Robert Whitaker will answer your questions. Email questions to by November 30, 2025 and we’ll pick a selection for our December episode. We'd love to hear from you. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our...
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Psychiatric Drugs: The Real World is Where the Harms Live
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Joining us for a roundtable discussion are Brooke Siem, David Antonuccio, Kim Witzak, Angie Peacock and David Healy. They discuss the challenges of openly discussing psychiatric drug withdrawal, the true meaning of informed consent, getting doctors to acknowledge medication-induced harm and much more. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: © Mad...
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Medical Organizations Turn Blind Eye to Harms of Maternal Antidepressant Use: A Conversation With Adam Urato and Joanna Moncrieff
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
On July 21st 2025, the FDA convened a on maternal use of antidepressants during pregnancy and the impact this use has on fetal development. Around 400,000 children in the United States are born each year whose mothers took antidepressants while pregnant, and so it's easy to see the societal importance of this topic. What are the risks to the fetus, the newborn, and the long-term development of that child? Adam Urato and Joanna Moncrieff were members of that FDA panel, and so too were several others well-known to MIA readers, including David Healy and Joseph Witt-Doerring. The purpose of...
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Psychotherapy, Spirituality, and Democratic Socialism: A Conversation with Frank Gruba-McCallister
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Frank Gruba-McCallister is a clinical psychologist, educator, and scholar whose career spans more than three decades of teaching and academic leadership. He served as Vice President of Academic Affairs at , where he helped to reorient the institution’s mission toward training socially responsible practitioners. His leadership and curricular reforms contributed to Adler’s doctoral program receiving the American Psychological Association’s Board of Educational Affairs Award for Innovative Practices in Graduate Education in 2007. He has also taught at the Illinois School of...
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Science Under Pressure, Humanity at Stake: An Interview with John Ioannidis
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
John Ioannidis is a Stanford professor, a physician, and one of the most eminent scholars in the world in the field of evidence-based medicine. Ioannidis has spent his career exposing the weak foundations of much of modern medicine. His 2005 paper, "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False," became the and helped spark a global reckoning with reproducibility. He has since warned about how by industry influence, how in academia favor quantity over quality, and how even . His critiques extend to psychiatry, where , , and . He is a tenured professor at Stanford and has an...
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Therapy in the Age of Abandonment: A Conversation with Psychological Anthropologist Talia Weiner
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Talia Weiner is a psychological anthropologist, licensed professional counselor, and assistant professor of psychology at the University of West Georgia. As a medical and psychological anthropologist, her work focuses on the intersection of social-structural forces and how those forces show up in lived experience, particularly in relation to mental health care. Weiner studies these and other topics with students in the Clinical Ethnography Lab within the University of West Georgia’s psychology program. Weiner has an upcoming book titled , scheduled for release Jan. 6, 2026, through NYU...
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How to be a Critical Psychologist Without Losing Your Soul: A Conversation With Zenobia Morrill, José Giovanni Luiggi-Hernández and Justin Karter
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
On the Mad in America podcast this week, we explore the importance of raising awareness of psychological approaches that challenge mainstream perspectives. Joining us today are three people who are practising clinical psychologists and who have written for Mad in America. Zenobia Morrill is a critical-liberation psychologist and psychology professor who received her doctorate from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her research interests include critical and liberation psychology, the psychotherapy process, and wider conceptual and ethical issues in psychology and psychiatry. José...
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Is Dialogue the Best Medicine? A Conversation With Jaakko Seikkula
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Welcome to MIA Radio. Today, we are pleased to have as our guest Jaakko Seikkula. Jaakko is a psychologist who helped develop the Open Dialogue practice at Keropudas Hospital in Tornio, Finland, in the 1990s, and he is the person who has conducted the research that told of remarkable longer-term outcomes with this form of care. For the past 15 years, he has developed and led training programs that have seen Open Dialogue practices adopted in 40 countries. He recently published a book titled, . In this interview, we discuss how Open Dialogue came to be, the research that shows its...
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“I Made it Through the Horrors of Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal” A Conversation with Comedian Dex Carrington
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Jørgen Kjønø, whose stage name is Dex Carrington, is a Norwegian-American stand-up comedian based in Oslo, Norway. He is also an actor, host of the Truth Train podcast, and former travel show host who gained international recognition as the host of Dexpedition, which aired on MTV in over 30 countries. He joins us on the Mad In America podcast to talk about his experience with Lyrica and Zyprexa, including a five-and-a-half-year taper after 10 years on the drugs. *** Find a full transcript of the interview here: Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our...
info_outlineCarl Elliott is a distinguished professor at the University of Minnesota with joint appointments in the Department of Philosophy and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
An influential voice in bioethics, Elliott is known for his critical examination of the medical and pharmaceutical industries. His latest book, The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No,describes the harrowing experiences of whistleblowers who expose corruption and malpractice in clinical trials and psychiatric research.
Originally from South Carolina, Elliott's diverse academic background includes a medical degree and a PhD in philosophy from Glasgow University in Scotland. His extensive postdoctoral work has taken him to institutions such as the University of Chicago, the University of Otago in New Zealand, and the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in South Africa. Elliott is the author and editor of several influential books, including Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream and White Coat and Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine. His articles have been featured in prestigious publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, and The New England Journal of Medicine (as well as Mad in America). Elliott's critical work in bioethics has earned him numerous accolades, including the Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media and a fellowship at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
His investigative work has shed light on numerous scandals, including the tragic case of Dan Markingson, a young man who died during a controversial clinical trial at the University of Minnesota. In this interview, Elliott discusses the systemic issues that protect wrongdoers, the personal and professional toll on those who speak out, and the broader implications for ethics in medical research and practice.
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow.
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