Brief Bio
About Peter R. Breggin, MD.
Dr. Breggin has created a new organization to bring together professionals and laypersons concerned with a critical analysis of biopsychiatry and with more effective empathic approaches in mental health, education, and living.
In the early 1990s Dr. Breggin was appointed and approved by the court as the single scientific expert for more than 100 combined Prozac product liability concerning violence, suicide and other behavioral aberrations caused by the antidepressant. In 2001-2002, he participated as a medical expert in a California lawsuit whose resolution was associated with a new label warning for Paxil concerning withdrawal effects.
Recently Dr. Breggin was the medical expert in the first psychosurgery malpractice suit and also the first ECT malpractice suit ever won in court. He has been a medical expert in many courtroom victories for individuals injured by medications, including numerous cases of tardive dyskinesia caused by neuroleptic drugs.
View Dr. Breggin’s resume and bibliography
Dr. Breggin has also been a consultant to the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) on the adverse effects of psychiatric drugs on pilots.
Peter R. Breggin M.D. conducts a private practice of psychiatry in Ithaca , New York , where he treats adults, couples, and families with children. He also does consultations in the field of clinical psychopharmacology and often acts as a medical expert in criminal, malpractice and product liability suits. Before moving to Ithaca in November 2002 he was in practice for nearly thirty-five years in Washington , DC and Bethesda , Maryland . He has written dozens of scientific articles and many professional books, including Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime (2008), and is on the editorial board of several journals.
In 2010 Dr. Breggin and his wife Ginger formed a new organization that continues their emphasis on bringing professional and laypersons together to share their concerns about the hazards of contemporary biological psychiatry while promoting more caring and empathic approaches to personal conflict and suffering. The new organization will sponsor an annual meeting each April in Syracuse, New York (empathictherapy.org).
Many of Dr. Breggin’s accomplishments as a reformer are documented in detail in The Conscience of Psychiatry: The Reform Work of Peter R. Breggin, M.D. (2009). This biographical tribute to Dr. Breggin’s work draws on more than half-a-century of media and more than 70 special contributions from his colleagues, as well as many other sources.
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“Breggin’s background is pure establishment:
Harvard College, Case
Western Reserve Medical
School, a teaching
fellowship at Harvard
Medical School …”
Christine Gorman |
Since 1964 Dr. Breggin has been publishing peer-reviewed articles and medical books in his subspecialty of clinical psychopharmacology. He is the author of dozens of scientific articles and more than twenty professional books, many dealing with psychiatric medication, the FDA and drug approval processes, the evaluation of clinical trials, and standards of care in psychiatry. A few of the titles include Toxic Psychiatry (St. Martin’s, 1991), Talking Back to Ritalin (Perseus, revised, 2001), the Antidepressant Fact Book (Perseus, 2001) and the Ritalin Fact Book (Perseus, 2002). Others, such as The Heart of Being Helpful (1997), deal with how to help people through psychotherapy and other human services.
Dr. Breggin’s two most recent books are Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex (2008) and Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mind-Altering Drugs (July 2008).
Dr. Breggin’s work has led to significant changes within the profession. In the early 1970s he conducted an international campaign to stop the resurgence of lobotomy and newer forms of psychosurgery. His reform efforts and his testimony in the Kaimowitz case in Detroit led to the termination of lobotomy and psychosurgery in the nation’s state mental hospitals, NIH, the VA, and most university centers. A public education campaign, including his 1983 medical book, Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain, led the FDA to require a new class warning for tardive dyskinesia in 1985. In 1994 his public education campaign led to the NIH to reform some of its research policies and to end the potentially racist violence prevention initiative aimed at inner city children. The FDA’s recent recognition of numerous adverse reactions caused by the newer antidepressants — including suicidality in children and young adults, and a stimulant profile involving agitation, akathisia, hostility, aggression, and mania — closely follows observations made and publicized by Dr. Breggin over the past ten years.
Dr. Breggin’s scientific articles can be downloaded on this website. The list can be arranged chronologically or alphebetically. Many of the papers were well ahead of their time, and several helped to influence the FDA to update the required warnings on all labels for antidepressant and antipsychotic medications. All of the articles listed here are available to read without charge on this website.
