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He was instrumental in the development of the use of lithium carbonate for treatment of bipolar disorder and in winning Food and Drug Administration approval for use of this drug in the United States.
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Martin Blinder
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Born 1937) is a physician and forensic psychiatrist licensed to practice in Hawaii, California, Kentucky and Georgia. He is Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal, Family Therapy, past Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and Past Adjunct Professor of Law at Hastings School of the Law, San Francisco. In the early 1970s he was a City Councilman and Mayor of San Anselmo, California, and authored the first law restricting public smoking in the United States.
He has primary offices in Ka"a"wa, Hawaii, and San Anselmo/San Francisco, California.
Blinder is noted for his testimony in the 1979 trial of Dan White. In that trial, Blinder testified that White was suffering from depression and pointed to several behavioral symptoms of that depression, including the claim that White had gone from being highly health-conscious to consuming sugary foods and drinks such as Twinkies and Coca-Cola.
A remark by Blinder that the sugar might have worsened such a depression was widely reported as a claim that the sugar had contributed to the depression, giving rise to the derisive label, the Twinkie defense, for defendants" claims that an unusual biological factor contributed to their motivation to commit a crime.
