Herbert Sacks Dies at 84

Herbert Sacks, M.D., a former APA president, died August 30 at age 84 in New Haven, Conn. Sacks, who was president of APA for the 1997-1998 term, was a clinical professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, where more than four decades ago he founded the medical school's Committee on International Health.

Sacks was long interested in the interlocking needs of modern psychiatry and social and health policy. During his APA presidential year, he was instrumental in forcing the issue of insurance parity for mental health care onto the national legislative agenda and vociferously warned that the managed care movement threatened the survival of individual psychotherapy by psychiatrists.

He was also a member of the National Commission on Confidentiality of Health Records and was a strong backer of the ethics principle known as the Goldwater Rule, which bars psychiatrists from publicly offering professional opinions on the mental state of individuals whom they have not examined.

His concern about international health issues led to his appointment as a consultant to the Peace Corps in its formative years, and he worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development on studies of the mental health impact of natural disasters in several parts of the world.

At the time of his death, Sacks also maintained a private psychiatric practice in Westport, Conn.