"ADHD Is A Fictitious Disease" says Inventor of ADHD

[sxtasy]

http://www.worldpublicunion.org/2013-03-27-NEWS-inventor-of-adhd-says-adhd-is-a-fictitious-disease.html


INVENTOR OF ADHD'S DEATHBED CONFESSION: "ADHD IS A FICTITIOUS DISEASE"

Fortunately, the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics (NEK, President: Otfried Höffe) critically commented on the use of the ADHD drug Ritalin in its opinion of 22 November 2011 titled Human enhancement by means of pharmacological agents: The consumption of pharmacological agents altered the child’s behavior without any contribution on his or her part.

That amounted to interference in the child’s freedom and personal rights, because pharmacological agents induced behavioral changes but failed to educate the child on how to achieve these behavioral changes independently. The child was thus deprived of an essential learning experience to act autonomously and emphatically which “considerably curtails children’s freedom and impairs their personality development”, the NEK criticized.


The alarmed critics of the Ritalin disaster are now getting support from an entirely different side. The German weekly Der Spiegel quoted in its cover story on 2 February 2012 the US American psychiatrist Leon Eisenberg, born in 1922 as the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, who was the “scientific father of ADHD” and who said at the age of 87, seven months before his death in his last interview: “ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease”

Since 1968, however, some 40 years, Leon Eisenberg’s “disease” haunted the diagnostic and statistical manuals, first as “hyperkinetic reaction of childhood”, now called “ADHD”. The use of ADHD medications in Germany rose in only eighteen years from 34 kg (in 1993) to a record of no less than 1760 kg (in 2011) – which is a 51-fold increase in sales! In the United States every tenth boy among ten year-olds already swallows an ADHD medication on a daily basis. With an increasing tendency.

When it comes to the proven repertoire of Edward Bernays, the father of propaganda, to sell the First World War to his people with the help of his uncle’s psychoanalysis and to distort science and the faith in science to increase profits of the industry – what about investigating on whose behalf the “scientific father of ADHD” conducted science? His career was remarkably steep, and his “fictitious disease” led to the best sales increases. And after all, he served in the “Committee for DSM V and ICD XII, American Psychiatric Association” from 2006 to 2009. After all, Leon Eisenberg received “the Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Research. He has been a leader in child psychiatry for more than 40 years through his work in pharmacological trials, research, teaching, and social policy and for his theories of autism and social medicine”.


And after all, Eisenberg was a member of the “Organizing Committee for Women and Medicine Conference, Bahamas, November 29 – December 3, 2006, Josiah Macy Foundation (2006)”. The Josiah Macy Foundation organized conferences with intelligence agents of the OSS, later CIA, such as Gregory Bateson and Heinz von Foerster during and long after World War II. Have such groups marketed the diagnosis of ADHD in the service of the pharmaceutical market and tailor-made for him with a lot of propaganda and public relations? It is this issue that the American psychologist Lisa Cosgrove and others investigated in their study Financial Ties between DSM-IV Panel Members and the Pharmaceutical Industry7. They found that “Of the 170 DSM panel members 95 (56%) had one or more financial associations with companies in the pharmaceutical industry. One hundred percent of the members of the panels on ‘Mood Disorders’ and ‘Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders’ had financial ties to drug companies. The connections are especially strong in those diagnostic areas where drugs are the first line of treatment for mental disorders.” In the next edition of the manual, the situation is unchanged. “Of the 137 DSM-V panel members who have posted disclosure statements, 56% have reported industry ties – no improvement over the percent of DSM-IV members.” “The very vocabulary of psychiatry is now defined at all levels by the pharmaceutical industry,” said Dr Irwin Savodnik, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles.


This is well paid. Just one example: The Assistant Director of the Pediatric Psychopharmacology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School received “$1 million in earnings from drug companies between 2000 and 2007”. In any case, no one can easily get around the testimony of the father of ADHD: “ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease.”

The task of psychologists, educators and doctors is not to put children on the “chemical lead” because the entire society cannot handle the products of its misguided theories of man and raising children, and instead hands over our children to the free pharmaceutical market. Let us return to the basic matter of personal psychology and education: The child is to acquire personal responsibility and emphatic behavior under expert guidance – and that takes the family and the school: In these fields, the child should be able to lead off mentally. This constitutes the core of the human person.

[Unknown303]

This is exactly what I've thought all along.

[jsn]

Originally posted by Unknown303
This is exactly what I've thought all along.

Me too. Not to say that drugs can't help you concentrate better, but I don't really see it as a disease either. There are alot of times that I find it really hard to concentrate, especially if it's something dull and boring. But then again, everyone concentrates harder on things they enjoy rather than something dull and monotonous. I can't even count all the times back when I was in Uni, that I'd doze off or day dream in lectures or when I was studying for exams, but it's something you have to learn to deal with. I probably could have tried getting diagnosed with ADHD so I could get extra time on exams and get prescription "study aids," but I don't want to rely on drugs. Just learn to deal with it.

I don't believe that people diagnosed with ADHD should get extra time for exams and things like that.

[woodywoodford]

Yup, ADHD = an excuse for mental laziness and a lack of self discipline. Any time somebody tells me they've got it I just roll my eyes.

[vengie]

Originally posted by woodywoodford
Yup, ADHD = an excuse for mental laziness and a lack of self discipline. Any time somebody tells me they've got it I just roll my eyes.

This.

[JAYMEZ]

Originally posted by woodywoodford
Yup, ADHD = an excuse for mental laziness and a lack of self discipline. Any time somebody tells me they've got it I just roll my eyes.


I have ADHD and was prescribed medication for it. I roll my eyes at you :thumbsup:


I roll my eyes at idiots who blame ADHD for things when they have never even been tested for it.

[Unknown303]

Originally posted by JAYMEZ



I have ADHD and was prescribed medication for it. I roll my eyes at you :thumbsup:


I roll my eyes at idiots who blame ADHD for things when they have never even been tested for it.

I was tested and diagnosed with it as a child and never once have I taken medication for it.

[CanmoreOrLess]

I lost interest in the topic once I glanced at the formatting in the article. Perhaps I have ADHD?

[JAYMEZ]

Originally posted by Unknown303


I was tested and diagnosed with it as a child and never once have I taken medication for it.


Ok?

[Sugarphreak]

...

[JAYMEZ]

Wow didnt know so many Doctors visited beyond lol..

I think people are mixing the dumb people who say they have adhd as an excuse for being morons vs people who do have it . :thumbsdow .. Get your facts straight guys.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally posted by sxtasy
http://www.worldpublicunion.org



Hahahaha oh man, my sides. The articles. :rofl: Hey guys, did you know all vaccines have the cancer virus in them?

From the site:
http://www.worldpublicunion.org/images/vh01.jpg

Whole lotta confirmation bias up in here.

[sxtasy]

Originally posted by JAYMEZ
Wow didnt know so many Doctors visited beyond lol..

I think people are mixing the dumb people who say they have adhd as an excuse for being morons vs people who do have it . :thumbsdow .. Get your facts straight guys. I think this discussion is about wether ADHD is actually a real "disease" or more of a personality trait. I know many kids and adults alike who are definitely hyperactive, get bored quickly and always have to be busy with something. At what point do they have this disorder?

The general consensus from most articles I have read, is that Ritalin is way over prescribed. And why not, when there are conflicts of interest between big money pharmaceutical companies and medical groups.

It can be a slippery slope, I found Louis Theroux's documentary to be interesting. Some of these kids are on half a dozen different types of psychoactive drugs
G8k0iw1Kon4

[Toma]

Lol. Lots of phds in here quick to jump on the band wagon. All I can say is..... people that comment on shit they have no clue about must be imaginary as well.

[sxtasy]

Originally posted by Toma
Lol. Lots of phds in here quick to jump on the band wagon. All I can say is..... people that comment on shit they have no clue about must be imaginary as well. Maybe I am wrong and maybe the article is full of shit? I am far from being a PHD lol. But even you as an anti capitalist, knows that there is something wrong in the medical, pharmaceutical world. Where money is more important than the general well being of society. Can you agree that Ritalin is way over prescribed? Do you think that it is sometimes an easy scapegoat for lazy parenting? Do you think that there are other effective ways for treating this disorder other than immediately putting a child on psychoactive drugs?

[JAYMEZ]

Well seeing as Doctors don't make a damn thing on prescribing meds .. My dad is my Doctor and I only got prescribed ADHD pills in my mid 20s by 1 of the doctors that works for him. They don't prescribe Ritalin a lot at all.. Maybe 15 years ago? Most people are started on dex .. this isn't the early 90s anymore.

[CanmoreOrLess]

^^ Is correct^^^ Doctors get nothing in Canada from pharma, the rules are not the same for the USA, open season there. I have a relative who is a senior VP with big pharma in Canada, they can't even offer the doctors cruise ship weeks or big golf weekends, etc without the government and pharma finance executives getting involved, in the past it was smooth sailing. Even sports sponsorship and paying for nurse conventions are all pretty much declined. You see, drugs cost the government, they don't like doing things like in the past. This is 2013, new rules have been in place for a few years at least. The one thing that has not changed, attractive pharma reps, there is a reason as they need to get in the door. It is actually a tough industry now, big pharma had it good in the past, not so much anymore.

Beware of your "news", we are not the USA.

As for the ADHD, I have no experience of this, I know of a few who are one some drugs for this and other like conditions. I really doubt an adult would want to be on them if there was another way, so many complications.

[AE92_TreunoSC]

You could argue that Depression is just sadness caused by circumstance.

It's all just words and its up to people to decide on how they want to take care of themselves. I don't care if the guy next door has any mental illness as long as its not violent.

[davidI]

I'm a huge advocate of drug-free living. The human body hasm incredible processes for balancing itself out and at the end of the day, people just need to learn how to control themselves.

That said, I have OCD and ADD...I like things perfect, but not for very long. ;)

[CUG]

I just think mental faculties aren't uniform. There's a line that represents the majority and those pills bring you back towards that line so you can function in a system that most of the world adheres to.

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by JAYMEZ
Well seeing as Doctors don't make a damn thing on prescribing meds .. My dad is my Doctor and I only got prescribed ADHD pills in my mid 20s by 1 of the doctors that works for him. They don't prescribe Ritalin a lot at all.. Maybe 15 years ago? Most people are started on dex .. this isn't the early 90s anymore.

I'd be rather concerned if my dad was a doctor and I had an unprescribed "disease" for 20 years.

[snowcat]

Originally posted by davidI
I'm a huge advocate of drug-free living. The human body hasm incredible processes for balancing itself out and at the end of the day, people just need to learn how to control themselves.

That said, I have OCD and ADD...I like things perfect, but not for very long. ;)


Completely agree. I try to not take any pills.

[Go4Long]

My personal opinion of it is that ADD/ADHD is a real condition, but it is the most overdiagnosed and over medicated condition in existence.

Parents who were never meant to be parents take their kids to a doctor and say "my kid's got no attention span, he's hyper, he doesn't focus, and he always seems to have more energy left over" doctor goes "oh, no problem, we've got a pill for that"

Really what the parent just described is a normal kid with no disorder at all...but because the parents insist that because they can't deal with a child there must be something wrong with them, on to the meds they go...and cases like this diminish the value of the people that really do have the condition.

Just my opinion of course.

[Maxt]

http://www.slappytickle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ad-hd-t-shirt.jpg


I think some kids have disorders, but yeah ,its an excuse for every bit of bad behavior now.

[Toma]

Originally posted by Maxt
http://www.slappytickle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ad-hd-t-shirt.jpg


I think some kids have disorders, but yeah ,its an excuse for every bit of bad behavior now.

True. I have mild ADHD. Never taken anything for it. Was challenging through University, just learnt to study 45 minutes, then go clean something, then study something else for 45 minutes, then go work on a car, then study for an hour... etc

30 to 45 minutes on subjects I was not interested in was standard, as after that, I could read the same passage 5 times, and have no idea what it said not matter how hard I tried.

Like any other deal, there is a gradient of severity, and you can come up with coping strategies and workarounds. I do know people that are so bad, they cannot hold a job, and/or are a danger in their workplace if working around heavy equipment.

Medication for them makes a night and day difference. A friend of mine that is particularly bad has such a frayed mind, its unreal... you can be talking to him, and then notice his eyes are kinda glazed over and he is off somewhere else. Like a light switch. When he takes his meds, he is sharp, and ON. He wired from scratch my RX7 with a standalone in one evening cause he was "bored" but on his meds.

[FixedGear]

My best friend and roommate for freshman year in college had a prescription for Ritalin, but we would just crush it up, snort it, and stay up all night chain smoking cigarettes. Luckily I transferred to a different school after my first year. :rofl:

[Go4Long]

Originally posted by Toma

I do know people that are so bad, they cannot hold a job, and/or are a danger in their workplace if working around heavy equipment.


So here's the question. Are these people dangerous because they have no attention span? or are they dangerous because they're fuckin stupid?

[Isaiah]

Originally posted by snowcat
Completely agree. I try to not take any pills.
I think I speak for most of Beyond when I say that in your case, medication would be a very good idea and the stronger the better.

[soupey]

As an OD it's easy to see that a lot of kids are written off as having ADD/ADHD when they may have other prescription related problems that weren't assessed when they were diagnosed. I don't believe it's entirely fictitious, for all kids, and the drugs obviously make a difference in the symptoms, but i still think all other factors should be ruled out before using any kind of medication to pull a quick fix on any child or adult.

I've seen some kids come in that are completely out of control until they get used to putting on a pair of glasses that focus in their world so that they can see and pay attention to things that are in front of them rather than everything that's far away. Parents sometimes come back shocked at the difference in their children within a month or two.

A lot of kids who have visual focusing problems simply have to put way too much effort into doing anything close to them, so they end up paying attention to everything far away and have no attention span to anything closer up. They can't track words left to right correctly or accurately because they continuously lose focus and lose position when refocusing...or give up entirely because the task is more work than just looking up and away.

[sxtasy]

Here is an article from today's Herald, there is a dramatic increase in antipsychotic drug use right here in Canada. And now even being prescribed to infants. Something not completely fucked with this situation?:dunno:

http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Dramatic+growth+antipsychotic+drug+even+targets+infants+experts/8407645/story.html



Dramatic growth in antipsychotic drug use even targets infants, experts say


BY SHARON KIRKEY, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 19, 2013 4:39 PM

Dr. Dina Panagiotopoulos, a pediatric endocrinologist at BC Children’s Hospital, says “second-generation” antipsychotics are being prescribed to two- and three-year-olds for aggression.

Dr. Dina Panagiotopoulos’s investigations into some of the most potent psychiatric drugs on the market began when other doctors started calling for help.

Could she see a child on an antipsychotic drug who had developed a potentially lethal condition that can end in a diabetic coma?

Another child on an antipsychotic was now experiencing uncontrollable twitching and muscle spasms. Still another had returned to her psychiatrist a year after starting a similar drug, 50 pounds heavier and almost unrecognizable.

In a sign of what experts are calling an unprecedented spree in the prescribing of mood-altering pills, drugs once reserved for the floridly psychotic are now being given to children still in diapers.

Read Part 1 here

According to Panagiotopoulos, a pediatric endocrinologist at BC Children’s Hospital, so-called “second-generation” antipsychotics, or SGAs, are being prescribed to two- and three-year-olds for aggression. Doctors have become so used to seeing side effects in children on these drugs — including sudden and massive weight gain and diabetes — that they no longer bother reporting them to Health Canada.

“A lot of parents come to me as a specialist and say, ‘No one ever told me about the side effects, and I didn’t think to ask,’ ” said Panagiotopoulos, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia. “They can’t understand why their kid went from drinking water, to seven litres of Coke every week.”

There appears to be no limit to how much we’re willing to allow doctors to medicate our apparent psychological angst. Last year, more than 74 million prescriptions worth $2.6 billion were filled for psychiatric drugs in Canada — more than 203,000 prescriptions a day, and up from 58 million prescriptions in total in 2008, according to data compiled by prescription drug research firm IMS Brogan for Postmedia News.

The growing embrace of medications to treat “broken” minds is a triumph of drug company marketing, experts say, the selling of new diagnoses and overzealous prescribing of pills for conditions for which they have never been approved.

Many of the drugs have been marketed as more effective and safer than the opiates, barbiturates and benzodiazepines of the past. But emerging research shows that many of the newer drugs are no more effective than the ones they unseated, psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Carlat writes in his book, Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry — A Doctor’s Revelations about a Profession in Crisis. What’s more, “even our newer drugs’ supposed advantage — fewer side effects — is being called into question,” he said.

Many antidepressants are said to work by fixing “chemical imbalances” in the brain. But no consistent chemical abnormality has ever been found in the brains of patients with mental disorders, said Dr. Joel Paris, professor and past chair of the department of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal.

Use of some of the heaviest-hitting psychotropic drugs — so called “atypical,” or second-generation antipsychotics — is increasing dramatically. One drug alone, paliperidone, increased in use nearly 30-fold between 2008 and 2012, according to IMS Brogan. Prescriptions for another, ziprasidone, increased 700 per cent.

Antidepressants, meanwhile, have become so popular, they fit “so neatly into every day life”, that 11 per cent of the U.S. adult population now takes them, Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke University writes in his new book, Saving Normal. In 2002, six per cent of Canadians were on antidepressants.

Increasingly, people are on not just one drug, but multiple pills, including pills to chase the side effects of the drugs the doctor started with, writes Carlat, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.

Furthermore, the bulk of the prescribing is being done not by psychiatrists, but by family doctors, often with little training in their use beyond what drug sales reps have told them.

“Pharma did the math,” Frances writes. “There are only 40,000 psychiatrists in the United States (and about 4,100 in Canada) but about ten times as many PCPS (primary care physicians). Why not recruit PCPs to write prescriptions for psychiatric drugs?”

The message to doctors, he said, was “loud, clear and heavily promoted — psychiatric disorders are often missed and easy to treat with a magic pill … Who needs a psychiatrist when the medicine is so safe and easy to use?”

But Paris, of McGill, said even psychiatrists are turning away from psychological theories and treatments and embracing drug therapy. “They want to be like other doctors,” he said. “They want to make diagnoses and write prescriptions.” Psychotherapy is harder to learn, he said. It also doesn’t pay as well. Increasingly psychiatrists are performing what Carlat, of Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston calls the “15-minute med check,” sending patients off with a pill “and a few words of encouragement.”

Nothing is more astounding, Frances and other say, than the growth in the use of antipsychotics once reserved for obvious psychosis and full-blown mania.

Second-generation antipsychotics are increasingly being prescribed to children for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, “conduct” disorders, “frustration intolerance” and even poor sleep. The drugs can cause side effects such as elevated blood fats and abnormal blood sugar levels. As of Dec. 12, 2012, Health Canada had received 17 fatal reports in children related to SGAs, and, despite guidelines to doctors, experts say the risks to children are going largely unmonitored. Only one of the drugs, aripiprazole, or Abilify, has been approved for use in children, and only then for schizophrenia in teens aged 15 to 17.

At UBC, Panagiotopoulos’s research has shown that children exposed to second-generation antipsychotics have three times the risk of developing pre-diabetes or Type 2 diabetes compared to children never treated with the drugs; more than double the risk of becoming overweight or obese; and 30 times the risk of metabolic syndrome — a cluster of health problems that increases the risk of heart attack and stroke later in life.

No one knows what the long-term effects might be on a child’s developing brain. Still, prescriptions for the drugs to children under 14 increased 10-fold in B.C. alone between 1997 and 2007. Across Canada, from 2005 to 2009, antipsychotic drug prescriptions for children and youth increased 114 per cent. Surveys suggest that 12 per cent of all prescriptions are for children aged eight and under.

The drugs — which are being used for symptoms and diagnoses in children that have never been studied — can cause potentially irreversible movement disorders if untreated, such as uncontrollable spasms and tremors, involuntary movements of the jaw and tongue, puckering of the face, and frowning. In older adults, the drugs have been linked with an increased risk of sudden cardiac death. Another rare but life-threatening side effect, neuroleptic malignant syndrome, or NMS, is fatal in about 10 per cent of cases, said David Gardner, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacy at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Even one extra case of fatal NMS is unacceptable, Gardner said, when the drugs are used simply to calm a distracted child down.

In the United States, drug companies have been fined billions for promoting antipsychotics for unapproved uses. “The whole drug industry depends on off-label use,” said psychotherapist Gary Greenberg. “It appears the fine is just the cost of doing business.”

Panagiotopoulos said antipsychotics can be lifesaving in cases of severe aggression and behaviour problems. But there are concerns the drugs have become the default for desperate parents struggling to get help in a seriously frayed and under-resourced mental health system.

But the concerns don’t stop with antipsychotics: Last year in Canada, nearly 43 million prescriptions were filled for anti-depressants. Prozac-like drugs and other antidepressants have proven effective for moderate and severe depression. But Frances said the mother lode of prescribing is to the so-called worried well.

Last week, the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care issued new guidelines for screening for depression that recommend doctors stop routinely screening people with no obvious symptoms because of the potential harms, including diagnosing depression where none exists and putting people on drugs they don’t need.

Studies have shown that, for mild depression, the difference between antidepressants and placebo is so small it’s sometimes non-existent.

“The response rate for placebo in mildly disordered people is at least 50 per cent,” Frances said in an interview. “The perfect patient for a drug company is someone who’s not too sick to start with, because they’ll get better on their own.”

For moderate or severe conditions, the drugs are “remarkably more helpful,” he said.

All the major drug categories — antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers such as lithium — have “radically changed for the positive people’s lives,” added Dr. Roger McIntyre, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Toronto.

Out of 100 people treated, 30 to 50 per cent benefit, he said. “I think that’s not bad, given how complicated these illnesses are.”

Susan Prins, of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C., said that, when prescribing any drug, doctors are expected to make decisions “based on well-documented, comprehensive clinical assessments.”

“In the event that concerns are identified, the college holds physicians accountable for those decisions,” she said in an email.

Paris, of McGill, said doctors should stop all contact with the drug industry and refuse to attend industry-sponsored “continuing medical education” events.

True mental illness is devastating for those who live with it, Frances said. “Drugs used well,” he writes in Saving Normal, are “a godsend for the patients helped.”

But, “It’s a ridiculous marketing ploy that every problem in life is a chemical imbalance,” he said in an interview.

“Of course everything is mediated through the brain. But that doesn’t mean the treatment for it is a pill.”

[Maybelater]

SORRY FOR THE TEXT WALL, BUT:


I wonder how many of the Doctors(lol) on here that came into this thread when it was fresh and called people with ADHD lazy and stupid are actually going to come back into this thread and back up their opinions with some fact, or just conviently ignore this thread.

First. There is some truth to Leon Eisenberg's statement. Der Spiegel which is a reputable source of news from Germany did publish an article from an interview with Leon in which he did comment on ADHD in. But lost in translation and overhyped by right wing crazy sites like the one that posted this article are taking it out of context and/or mis-quoting it. It is true that he is skeptical, but he is more worried about the over usage diagnosis as many are and feels that poor parenting is often a key reason too.

Now this isn't the first time somebody famously denounced something at their deathbed, I mean isn't that what Darwin did? :rolleyes: And calling him the 'inventor' makes no sense, he is more along the lines of a significant contributor to medical research of ADHD.


That amounted to interference in the child’s freedom and personal rights, because pharmacological agents induced behavioral changes but failed to educate the child on how to achieve these behavioral changes independently. The child was thus deprived of an essential learning experience to act autonomously and emphatically which “considerably curtails children’s freedom and impairs their personality development”, the NEK criticized.

Seems a bit extreme don't you think. The child should be educated and receive CBT, but I wonder if they would feel the same if the child had an early onset of something that was more harmful? Or more obvious?


Originally posted by sxtasy
I think this discussion is about wether ADHD is actually a real "disease" or more of a personality trait. I know many kids and adults alike who are definitely hyperactive, get bored quickly and always have to be busy with something. At what point do they have this disorder?

The general consensus from most articles I have read, is that Ritalin is way over prescribed. And why not, when there are conflicts of interest between big money pharmaceutical companies and medical groups.

I understand the concern the public and some of the medical community has with the prevalence of medication usage in children and adults. Doctors and Psychologists need to be investing way way more resources in diagnosis when it involves a chronic disorder which means a life time of medication usage.

More doctors need to think this way when they are using a risk:benefit ratio. If the benefit is better then the risk then so be it, but the benefit is never better if its a misdiagnosis. Way more caution needs to be used.

At what point do they have disorder? That is a good question, now there is way more symptoms of ADHD then poor attention span. So it takes more symptoms then just poor attention. At what point does anything cross the line into disorder, or possible disorder? When it causes enough issues to create significant impairment in ones daily life.


Originally posted by sxtasy
Maybe I am wrong and maybe the article is full of shit? I am far from being a PHD lol. But even you as an anti capitalist, knows that there is something wrong in the medical, pharmaceutical world. Where money is more important than the general well being of society. Can you agree that Ritalin is way over prescribed? Do you think that it is sometimes an easy scapegoat for lazy parenting? Do you think that there are other effective ways for treating this disorder other than immediately putting a child on psychoactive drugs?

It is true that medical companies in the past have pretty much been caught red-handed bullshitting the public and harming them to increase profit. This and many other reasons is why I have lost faith in Laissez-faire capitalism.

I have a relative who is very educated and is a quality control person in the pharmaceutical industry on behalf of the government. He himself says it is safe to take lots of what the big medical corporations say with a grain of salt.

I wouldn't ever feel that they could get as far as to make up a disorder but they defiantly can guide research in a manner that would create an unwarranted increase in diagnosis.

The increase in diagnosis though also has to do with a stronger prevalence of study in the field, a better understanding and in general a society that finally fully accepting the legitimacy of psychiatry.

On the flip-side there is definitely misdiagnosis or doctors who don't actually understand what they are doing. And ignorant parents who are not willing to accept that they are poor parents.

Can other things be done to help children? Yes, CBT should be the first line.


Originally posted by davidI
I'm a huge advocate of drug-free living. The human body hasm incredible processes for balancing itself out and at the end of the day, people just need to learn how to control themselves.

That said, I have OCD and ADD...I like things perfect, but not for very long. ;)

So what is the balance for a person with schizophrenia? A person who kills themselves because of depression?


Originally posted by CUG
I just think mental faculties aren't uniform. There's a line that represents the majority and those pills bring you back towards that line so you can function in a system that most of the world adheres to.

I partially agree. If everyone had ADHD then what would happen to the people without it?

I think there is still lots of room to debate that. But you obviously have an abnormality if you are in the minority of people. Once again, what would be the line for people with things with schizophrenia?


Originally posted by kertejud2


I'd be rather concerned if my dad was a doctor and I had an unprescribed "disease" for 20 years.

Doctors are not psychologists. Personally I don't think they should be permitted to give out diagnosis of mental disorder without the assistance of a psychologist/psychiatrist. With the exception of a person who is a potential harm.

[Maybelater]

Alright now for my own personal opinions. I've been diagnosed by a doctor and a neurologist as a child and once again by a psychiatrists as an adult.

No mental disorder should ever be diagnosed by a medical doctor without the assistance of a psychiatrist/psychologist. I had a friend who got psychosis once, from there it happened more then once but the psychiatrists still were very cautious of making a wrong diagnosis and it took lots of time to get a final answer. All disorders should be handled this way. If any of you reading this has a child that a doctor/teacher etc suggests has a mental disorder I highly suggest a the properly trained expert is used and the doctors only real role should be writing the prescription.

CBT is also a very important element that is often excluded when treating ADHD. All children should be given CBT which would help them learn to cope and understand themselves. I never come to really learn to handle myself until I was an adult, I still have constant issues and ADHD does really flare up at times, but I had to figure these things out on my own through pretty much trial and error.

Why do I feel it is a true mental issue? Because people with ADHD have a higher incidence of imprisonment, suicide and other issues and a higher incidence of co-morbid with a select few types of mental issues. On a more scientific side the disorder and its often co-morbid issues is thought all to be related to the area of executive function in the brain. The frontal lobes are what pretty much make us intelligent animals, so for that area to undeveloped provides absolutely no benefit to a person. There could be many reasons why that might happen, from evolution to environment, but it is a disorder nonetheless.

How do I think we can change the way things work? A huge huge increase in the public services related to psychiatry. GP's shouldn't be dealing with this stuff, mental health professionals should be. But currently mental health is underfunded and backlogged, so its just simply easier to make a quick diagnosis without really getting to know the person you're dealing with or asking critical questions to a patient. Then you're back dealing with a doctor who might not have the experience and skills to really notice any issues or give you answers.

You can go to a private psychiatrist for $100s an hour that would be able to better help you and help you with CBT but the prices are outside of many peoples range. Especially the mentally ill.

A good way to put it is that people with ADHD need way more stimulation because the parts of thir brain have weaker connections, so stimulation has a duller effect. Imagine if something took an average person 100% attention to keep them focused, a person with ADHD would need more then that, say 125% to hold them. But our society and natural environment is adapted with that 100% in mind and issues come out of it. Medication helps because it can stimulate you to the point of filling in that missing part. This is why adults with ADHD often have and are good at hectic jobs and work lots of hours, it keeps them focused, boring work is often ignored.

What has my experience been like? Good and bad. I like to think I have things that my ADHD has helped me with, but at the same time I really struggled with it when I was younger and it took a long time of self-reflection and learning to become properly emotionally mature and control myself. I never actually tell anyone (internet people I don't know is diffrent) because I don't like getting flak about it, but people often notice I'm a bit odd.

How do I get through with it? I use to really hate and have insecurities that it took me longer to learn then most and that I make stupid mistakes often. But, I've learned that we all get dealt diffrent cards and I still work my best to be the best. It might just take a bit more out of me, but I don't like using it as a crutch, because many are worse off. But I can understand why it might totally ruin some people, especially without proper understanding of themselves and ways to cope.

[sputnik]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/adhd.asp

[JAYMEZ]

Originally posted by kertejud2


I'd be rather concerned if my dad was a doctor and I had an unprescribed "disease" for 20 years.


Rightt... are you questioning my dads profession now lol? First of all . Doctors cant prescribe family anything , and he cant be my family doctor.. So If someone doesn't complain about things , its not going to be tested .

I had to see a psycologist first and then my family doctor.. Id feel like if I heard you say thing is person to me , id probably back hand you for the disrespect. But thank god this is the internet :thumbsup:

[DeleriousZ]

I shall post this again in here...

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