Public Health Policy, Economics, and 'Charities'

Liberation by Oppression: a Comparative Study of Slavery and Psychiatry

" Originally called mad-doctoring, psychiatry began in the seventeenth century with the establishing of madhouses and the legal empowering of doctors to incarcerate persons denominated as insane. Until the end of the nineteenth century, every relationship between psychiatrist and patient was based on domination and coercion, as between master and slave. Psychiatry, its emblem the state mental hospital, was a part of the public sphere, the sphere of coercion."  For more information, we link to Prof. Szasz’s website

ISBN: 0-7658-0145-0 Cloth. 370 pp. $39.95 April 2002
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What is the real relationship between politics and medicine in society today?
Are we becoming an unhealthy "pharmacracy"? Thomas Szasz, an eminent and controversial American psychiatrist and social critic offers his analysis in a fascinating and disturbing new book.

Economist Milton Friedman praises this book, calling it "a passionate warning of the danger of converting the welfare state into the therapeutic state." Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York Health Science Center, has been a bold critic of the medical establishment for decades, and is the author of numerous books, including the now classic The Myth of Mental Illness (1961). In this latest work, he takes on the subject of the increasingly disturbing and powerful marriage between medicine and the state, analyzing how this has happened, and the unhealthy consequences for personal liberty, medicine, and politics. "Whether you agree or disagree, and whether you are pleased or enraged, Szasz will provoke you into an increasingly rare modern activity: critical thought," says Alvan R. Feinstein of the Yale University School of Medicine. A must-read! Click here for reviews of the book.

ISBN: 0-275-97196-1

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Does Advertising Increase Smoking? Economics, Free Speech, and Advertising Bans
Prof. Sydney Houston High, 1999

This is a critical survey of the major economic, and marketing, studies, throughout the world, regarding the relationship, if any, between advertising of tobacco products and tobacco consumption. The conclusion is that there is impressively little evidence that people generally, and children in particular, consume tobacco products as a result of advertising; and the great weight of the evidence suggests that the over-whelming effect of tobacco advertising is to affect market share of an existing market.

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Cancer Scam: Diversion of Federal Cancer Funds to Politics
James T. Bennett and Thomas J. DiLorenzo

A powerful book from Bennett and Di Lorenzo courageously describes the disgusting financial orgy going on in the "non-profit organizations," their methodology, and political goals. Faced with the decline of donations, the "non-profits" are now tapping in the government (that is, in the taxpayers' pockets) for their finances, and aggrandizement. To achieve this, they fuel health hysterias, and spread manipulated information. Wonderfully written, this book is a "must read". Review of the book - Jim Powell's review - How to order

ISBN: 1-56000-334-0

From Pathology to Politics : Public Health in America
by James T. Bennett, Thomas J. Dilorenzo

Arguing through case studies that the law of diminishing returns applies to the nearly daily public health scares, the economist authors of The Food and Drink Police (Transaction, 1999) trace the politicization of US public health. Bennett is at George Mason U.; DiLorenzo is at Loyola College.Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR

ISBN: 0765800233

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The Food & Drink Police : America's Nannies, Busybodies & Petty Tyrants
by James T. Bennett, Thomas J. Dilorenzo

If you are one who thinks the government had your best interest at heart when it took on the cigarette industry, you need to read this book because you'll find out here that the federal tobacco wars were only the beginning. Sugar, salt, fat, wine, beer, distilled spirits, and beef are all on the chopping block of federal nannies who want only what is best for us. And it's all "for the children." Bennett and Dilorenzo make an important contribution to the national debate over what role--if any--the federal government should play in providing for the happiness which Americans derive from their personal choices of food and drink. The authors skewer federal bureaucrats and their private sector "non-profit" cronies who use taxpayer money to try forcing their own self-righteous world views on all citizens. They show with bitter humor that prohibitions on food and drink will follow in the wake of recent success against tobacco companies. I'll put this slim, entertaining, alarming volume right up there with James Bovard's Lost Rights as a book which thoughtful Americans should read.

If citizens don't start reining in their representatives in D.C., the executive branch bureaucrats will be free to continue spending our tax dollars to make us all miserable. And thin. And free of alcohol, beef, and pleasure. An important book.

ISBN: 1560003855

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Unfair Competition "is an in-depth investigation of the commercial activities of nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits have been granted many special privileges by the government, including exemption from taxation and subsidized postal rates. These privileges lower operating costs so nonprofits may carry out their public service mission more efficiently." The authors argue that the special privileges nonprofits enjoy give them an unfair advantage over for-profit firms, and they propose a solution to this escalating problem which has serious economic implications.

ISBN: 0819171808

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Freedom of Expression - The case against tobacco advertising bans
John C. Luik, D. Phil., Editor

On July 26, 1991 Justice Jean-Claude Chabot of the Quebec Superior Coutr ruled that the Canadian government's legislation banning tobacco advertising and sponsorship violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Justice Chabot's carefully argued and eloquent decision is the first systematic, precise and objective attempt to determine whether tobacco advertising has any demonstrable effect on tobacco consumption and the recruitment of new smokers and whether advertising bans on products like tobacco have a legitimate place in a free and demoscratic society.

ISBN: 0-6965625-0-8

Not available on line

US publishers: The Manhattan Institute
UK publishers: The Social Affairs Unit
ISBN 0-907631-44-4

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Rethinking Risk and the Precautionary Principle
by Julian Morris (Editor)

* Up to date discussion of current issues and scientific controversies.

* Challenges the claim that the 'precautionary principle' is an appropriate guide to public policy decisions-making in the face of uncertainty.

The precautionary principle is frequently invoked as a justification for regulating human activities. From bans on the use of growth hormones in cattle to restrictions on children's playground activities, precautionary thinking seems to be taking over our lives. As the contributors to this book show, such an approach is of dubious utility and may even be counterproductive.

ISBN: 0750646837

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The Death of Humane Medicine and the Rise of Coercitive Healthism
Petr Skrabanck

UK publishers: The Social Affairs Unit
ISBN 0 907631 59 2

Not available on line.

The Tyranny of Health: Doctors and the Regulation of Lifestyle
Michael Fitzpatrick, 2000

Fitzpatrick's conclusion is that the policies of public health promotion should best be abandoned. Governments should stay out of the surgery, while doctors should concentrate on treating the sick and leave the well alone. This is a brave act of heresy, given society's morbid obsession with these issues today, and he acknowledges that some might think the conclusion "perverse". His book should be kept by the bed as an indispensable second opinion, and an antidote to health panics past, present and future.

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