In 2012, Harrow published a 20-year follow up, "Do All Schizophrenia Patients Need Antipsychotic Treatment Continuously Throughout their Lifetime? A 20-Year Longitudinal Study," which reiterated his 15-year conclusions. Harrow found that patients diagnosed with schizophrenia who were "not on antipsychotics for prolonged periods were significantly less likely to be psychotic and experienced more periods of recovery."
In addition to the Harrow study, what also convinced Insel to rethink treatment was astudy by Dutch researcher Lex Wunderink published in JAMA Psychiatry in July, 2013. Wunderink used a randomized design, the "gold standard" or research, and had similar results as Harrow. In Wunderink's study, patients were randomly assigned to either maintenance on antipsychotic drugs or a tapering-off and discontinuation of the drugs. Insel summarizes Wunderink's results: "By seven years, the discontinuation group had achieved twice the functional recovery rate: 40.4 percent vs. only 17.6 percent among the medication maintenance group."