Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice.

I thought that mental health would be much more important to this book. It turned out to not really be important at all in some ways.

It's like it's not about mental health at all, actually, at least in some, important at all in some ways. It's like it's not

about mental health at all, actually, you know, at least in some, in some, in some, in some, in many of these

situations, just, it's about control. Welcome to the Mad in America podcast. My name is Leia

Harris. And I'm so, so pleased to introduce to the listeners, Dr. Anthony Ryan Hatch. Dr. Hatch is a sociologist and associate

professor of science in society, African American studies, and environmental studies at Wesleyan

University, who studies how medicine and technology impact social inequalities in health.

Professor Hatch is the author of two books.

His first book, Blood Sugar, Racial Pharmacology and Food Justice in Black America

critiques how biomedical scientists, government researchers, and drug companies use the

concepts of race and ethnicity to study and treat metabolic syndrome,

a biomedical construct that identifies people at high risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

His second book, Silent Cells, The Secret Drugging of Captive America,

examines how custodial institutions like prisons, nursing homes,

and the U.S. military use psychotropic drugs to manage mass incarceration and captivity in the United States.

Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, Tony. It's so, so good to have you.

Thank you, Leah. It's so good to be with you.

In the preface of your book, Silent Bells, you talk about not wanting to participate in what's called liberal science, but more in a foremost liberatory social science that would really challenge America's unique brand of mass incarceration. So I'm wondering if you can share a little bit more about how you came to this orientation and how it's informed your work.

I had just graduated from graduate school and joined a small group of other self-identified black assistant professors in this

really small postdoctoral fellowship at the Moor House School of Medicine in Atlanta.

And that fellowship was designed to have us focus on issues of HIV and AIDS, mental health, and substance use

...