Haloperidol’s introduction in the United States: A tale of a failed trial and its consequences

ABSTRACT

Haloperidol, the first butyrophenone neuroleptic, was created in Europe by Janssen Pharmaceuticals in 1958 and was introduced swiftly throughout the continent with great enthusiasm. On September 15, 1959, at Janssen’s headquarters in Belgium, teams from around Europe praised the effectiveness of haloperidol. In the United States, on the contrary, its introduction was a tremendous failure, plagued by accusations of inefficacy and patent disputes. A clinical trial in Manhattan has been blamed for this commercial failure. The results of the Manhattan trial were seen as radically different from the results obtained in continental Europe. This divide would have considerable impact not only with regard to haloperidol’s path on both sides of the Atlantic, but also possibly on the practical experience and theoretical construction of psychiatry. This article tries to reconstruct the story of that trial based mainly on published papers and interviews. Exploring how societal changes and issues of gender and race shaped this process, this investigation attempts to understand and contextualize different possible reasons for this Atlantic rift.

KEYWORDS:

• Drug trial
• gender
• haloperidol
• history of psychopharmacology
• race

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ During the second world war, psychologist Joshua Brier and psychiatrist Maxwell Jones started promoting therapeutic comunity approaches that emphasized more democratic institutional processes, self-help, and close, personal connections between staff and patients (Shorter 2005).

² For a nuanced review of the “Pinelian revolution” see, for example, Gauchet and Swain (2012).

³ The contribution from Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926) to create the conditions for the abuses of psychiatry during the Third Reich has been debated. Among others, his role as direct supervisor of some of the most influential Nazi psychiatrists has been highlighted, as well as his views on Jews, Judaism, and homosexuality (Strous, Opler, and Opler 2016).

Additional information

Funding

The author reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.