Episode 3: “Your Hunch is the Science” with Dr. David Healy

Join Heather and Lee’s discussion with Dr. David Healy highlighting randomized controlled trials, why you can’t always trust the “science,” and the importance of your hunch or gut feeling when treatment goes wrong and how it’s your best guide to avoid unnecessary harm.

Dr. David Healy is a world-renowned psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, neuropsycopharmacologist, scientist, and author. He undertook his doctoral research on the serotonin system on which antidepressants work, while qualifying in psychiatry. He moved to Cambridge University for higher training in psychiatry and to engage in post-doctoral research.

He has since been a Professor of Psychiatry in Cardiff University and Bangor University, working clinically in the NHS for 30 years, before recently being appointed as a professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University in Canada.

His main area of research includes the contribution of psychotropic drugs to suicide, for which he was one of the very first researchers to make this link; the adverse effects of these drugs; the conflicts of interest between pharmaceutical companies and academic medicine; and the history of pharmacology.

He has published 25 books on medicine, primarily on physical treatments and the development of the pharmaceutical industry, including the standard histories of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood-stabilizers. He has authored over 60 chapters in books on similar issues, over 200 peer-reviewed articles, and over 250 other pieces, for the most part dealing with the impact of medicines on health care.

He has been involved in numerous legal cases, centered primarily on the harms of treatment. He has acted as an expert in numerous cases in the United States involving suicide and psychotropic drugs, and he has publicly and internally provided testimony and consultation to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding psychotropic drugs and their effects.