FROM THE PUBLISHER
Ronald Dworkin, Fellow at the Hudson Institute, has written a book of social
commentary that combines the politics of healthcare and medical ethics with
several momentous changes that have dramatically altered the relationship
among doctors and patients, creating what Dworkin dubs "artificial
happiness." He examines the rise of psychotropic drugs; alternative
medicine; the belief in endorphins as a way to maximize health through
exercise; and medicine's investigations of spirituality - all during the
past thirty years - fitting them together into a story that puts Americans
at the center of a novel social experiment: helping people feel happy
independent of the facts in their lives. Though well-intentioned, Dworkin
identifies a dark side, asserting that Prozac, for instance, is freezing
people in unsatisfactory relationships and jobs, nullifying their impulse to
change, because of the "happiness" induced by the medicine.
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