Alex Berenson on mental health: what the evidence says · JRE #1246
SUBJECT: MENTAL HEALTH
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
in 2017, the National Institutes of Mental Health suddenly changed its estimate for the percentage of people with schizophrenia in the US from 1.1% to 0.3%. They did it with no public notice.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
NIMH's website did lower its headline US schizophrenia prevalence figure around 2017, but the characterization of a secretive, unexplained 1.1%-to-0.3% swap is misleading. Since at least 1993 NIMH reported a one-year prevalence of 1.5% among adults (1.2% among children) to Congress, based on the 1980s Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) study; NIMH's current published statistics page instead cites a range of 0.25%-0.64%, drawn from the 2001-2003 National Comorbidity Survey Replication and Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data. NIMH's own page discloses that these newer household-survey and medical-claims sources exclude institutionalized, incarcerated, and homeless populations, and states that these excluded groups may have higher prevalence, meaning the lower figure reflects a narrower methodology and case definition rather than a real sevenfold drop in schizophrenia's occurrence. The revision appeared as an update to NIMH's own public statistics page rather than a concealed alteration, though NIMH did not pair it with a dedicated public explanation of the methodology change. Overall: a real and substantial downward revision occurred and was under-explained, but it was a public methodology change documented on NIMH's own site, not a secret alteration of a stable epidemiological fact.