Lithium Specificity for Mania

In 1970, a booklet published by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and intended for public consumption claimed that lithium produces no unwanted effects on mood and behavior and only the symptoms are leached out while the rest of the personality remains unaffected. The NIMH report concludes that the drug is unique among psychophar-maceuticals in that it rarely produces any undesirable effects on emotional and intellectual functioning. It calls the substance the first specific chemical treatment for a mental disease.  

Five years later, the American Psychiatric Association (APA, 1975) published The Current Status of Lithium Therapy Report of the APA Task Force. Without citing evidence, the authors stated, The task force has concluded that lithium is a more specific anti-manic agent than neuroleptics and that its therapeutic results are achieved in a unique pharmacologic effect rather than nonspecific calming action.  

Ronald Fieve became one of the leading advocates of lithium. In his book Moodswing (1989), he stated, I have not found another treatment in psychiatry that works so quickly, so specifically, and so permanently as lithium for recurrent manic and depressive mood states (p. 4). He describes this extraordinary therapeutic effect as occurring with no discernible adverse effects. The evidence will reveal that instead that lithium is neither quick nor specific nor permanent in its impact. Nor is lithium relatively free of adverse effects. It is one of the more deactivating, disabling drugs in the psychiatric armamentarium. 

BRAIN-DISABLING EFFECTS ON ANIMAFS, INFANTS, PATIENTS, AND VOFUNTEERS 

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