Professor at Harvard University and world-renowned psychologist, Jerome Kagan, who was named as the 22nd most eminent psychologist of the twentieth century, stated that ADHD is an “invention” and does not exist.
Moreover, in a critique of how mental disorders are diagnosed and treated, he stated that ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is actually a “hoax” as well as placed a great proportion of the problem on the physicians making the diagnosis and the power of pharmaceutical companies.
His statement gained much criticism from psychologists and many other medical professionals.
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However, he defended his viewpoint and noted that the way mental disorders, such as ADHD are treated should be changed.
Kagan criticized the trend for kids that underperform or misbehave at school are diagnosed with ADHD. He pointed out that physicians are too eager to hand out mind-altering medications, like Ritalin without adequately examining the circumstances.
He explained that each kid that doesn’t do well in school is sent to visit a pediatrician. Most pediatricians prescribe Ritalin to these children.
But, the truth is that approximately 90% of all ADHD-diagnosed children do not suffer from an abnormal dopamine metabolism. The real problem is, in case a medication is available to physicians, then they will actually make the corresponding diagnosis.
As stated above, a great proportion of the blame could be attributed to the power of pharmaceutical companies. In fact, prescription medications are big business. Also, when money is involved, other factors start influencing the treatment administered.
This means that a great number of doctors benefit from prescribing and promoting some drugs.
This is actually “corruptive and immoral” leading to misdiagnosis as well as over-diagnosis in a number of cases.
In addition, misdiagnosis is another problem characterized by lack of deep investigation taking place before children are diagnosed with mental disorders.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that in 2011, about 6.4 million kids were diagnosed with ADHD.
According to Kagan, drugs needs to be a last resort for physicians and parents. He also said that the way health problems, such as anxiety, ADHD and depression are diagnosed and treated should be changed.
He also said that administering mind-altering medications, particularly to kids, is a serious concern. So, physicians should thoroughly examine the individual circumstances before they make a diagnosis.
He insisted that, instead of just looking at symptoms, diagnosis of any mental disorder needs to be made on a case-by-case basis to ensure the safety and health of the patient.
Source: http://www.positivethingsonly.com
My elderly friend told me this morning that her grandson has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and, at age 25, has been granted a disability pension of $1100 monthly. He was not able to finish college and dropped out a couple years ago to live in his parents’ basement. Now, he can afford his own apartment. So glad our tax dollars have helped him out,
I think I have a case of Ass Burgers around here somewhere.
Michael Burry has Asperger’s and he made a billion dollars betting against the housing market.
Well, apparently he can draw a monthly disability check if he wants.
I always thought that syndrome was invented to explain being an asshole to people. “Lacks empathy for others” sounds like a whole lot of “normal” people out there, including me.
Laughed! When I told my husband our friend Bill had been dx’d with Aspergers, he laughed and accused me of making that up. It is what gave me the idea of pressure canning little patties of meat in sauce with Quinoa. Healthy too. Ass Burgers .
Sounds like ALL of Congress.
Thats sociopathy not ADHD.
The jar of Ass Burgers were too heavy to put in the box, JQ. They almost doubled the cost of postage, so you will just have to fantasize about them.
My experience (46 years) as a software developer. I ask a lot of questions. I need the info, if the customer is to get what he wants.
In my experience – most people don’t read. Of those who can read, I’ve learned to send only one question per e-mail – virtually no one is capable of handing more than one question.
As a support person (in fairly large corps) I get emails with no subject. Sentences such as: ‘printer doesn’t work’. Which fucking printer? They all have labels and IP addresses right on them – they have all been told this multiple times. Then there are the ones that ‘have an error’. What does the error say? Did you get a screen shot? Oh, I don’t remember.
Most people are this fucked up. So no, there is no ADHD – it is the norm.
OMG Dutchman so FREAKING TRUE!!!! The foreclosures I sell require very strict adherence to the way the forms are filled out, spelling, etc. I attach an instruction sheet with every single listing to help the agents submit offers correctly. 99% of them, even if they do read it, do NOT do it right on the first pass, and most often I have to send the paperwork back 3 and even 4 times to get them to make the corrections.
I spell out on every one of my listings to “PLEASE read the attachment before calling with questions or offers” and most of them do not do this. EVER. Reading is Fundamental, anyone remember that campaign for kids? WTF is happening in this world. Sigh.
ADHD was originally invented as an excuse to drug young boys into not acting like young boys.
It has expanded quite a bit since then.
And since these kids got hooked on Asserol they tried other things, i.e. the Opiod/Heroin “crisis”.
Asserol?
Is either a typo or a critique.
Or…he meant casserole?
I mean, I liked mom’s casserole but it would be a stretch to say I got hooked on it.
Yes.
“Criminalizing” normal behavior exhibited by a large proportion of the human species. We are not all the same, so quit expecting us to be.
I couldn’t focus as a kid, but not because of some bullshit ADHD, but because I was FUCKING BORED out of my mind with the public school curriculum. Thank God they weren’t prescribing these drugs when I was in school.
Got out of the teaching profession years ago. I remember one teacher in the workroom talking about all of her students that needed medication because of their behaviors. I listened because I had taught these same students. I finally told her that I believe more teachers needed to be medicated than students!
Same here, TC.
It’s about time someone stated the obvious.
Anyone who doesn’t believes ADHD doesn’t exist, has never had to live with someone who has it!
My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD and combative behavior something something. This was 15 years ago. This is my wife’s daughter actually. Yes, she was a handful and caused many problems and got into trouble. Mostly innocent trouble. We bought into it but had a bitch of a time to get her to take the pills. She said she didn’t like the way they made her feel. We didn’t push it and didn’t try to make her take them after a week or so. I truly believe that she is/was traumatized by an earlier horrible marriage between her father and mother. Nothing but abusive language and drug use by her father. I think that is her battle, trying to work out her rage. I really don’t blame her. I pray for her constantly.
As alternative physicians have shown time and time again, ADHD can be “cured” by changing the child’s diet. Remove the sugars, dyes and other crap in the diet and feed them real food and they will recover. I suggest looking up alternative diets for ADHD, such as the GAPS diet.
That helps. A lot, in fact. Unfortunately not enough to satisfy my son’s teachers, who demand utter stasis throughout the school day or else I get emails complaining about his behavior.
Truth be told I thing part of the issue is that teachers are no longer empowered to put limits on kids. If a teacher says a mean word, the parents find out and go ballistic.
Anyone who doesn’t believe in ADHD needs to live with my husband for two weeks. One week on meds & the other off meds. I agree that too many children are being drugged by parents that have no coping skills. My husband did not start meds until well into his adult life. It has made a big difference for the better. I also agree that each case should stand on its own merit-to drug or not.
Being wacked-out on drugs does usually does make people appear calmer.
Right up till they commit a mass murder or something.
After which no one can understand what led up to it.
Hyperbole much?
My friend’s husband has ADHD and takes meds. He was also dx’d in adulthood. I agree that the condition does appear to be a valid and treatable condition. However, I would hesitate to agree to anyone prescribing a child with the medication he takes. When I visited there earlier this year, I was shocked to see all the high dosage amphetamine (Adderal is one of the meds he takes, as if Zoloft. I think just one other drug… opiate… makes the cocktail that is considered to be so dangerous) just sitting on the kitchen counter. I suggested to my friend that he “disappear” the meds into a locked cabinet. Their daughter is 15 and eventually might notice. Or, her friends would.
The meds are gone from the kitchen.
The unnatural stimuli of the modern world is severely taxing on attention-spans. ADHD is legitimate, but prescribing stimulants to treat it is likely the equivalent of the Fed printing more money. There will be side-effects and a costly price to pay down the road.
Kagan will be forced to resign from Harvard and MSM will no longer invite him on any shows.
Not only that but might have a “accident” soon,am sure pissed off the billions of year pharm industry.
Ya think?
I was diagnosed in my 40’s by a psychologist w ADD. After learning about it, my life made a lot
more sense. it had been my assumption the entire world saw through my eyes, which obviously they
don’t. Organization skills or time management, plus, plus are just not available like they can be to others. I took med’s for a few years which helped me see the world in a more normal way. It actually caused me to slow down and see others differently. I’ve been told it’s ‘speed’ to normal brains.
My wish would be to have learned at a young age what my challenges were and how to deal with life and people in a better way.
As mentioned, it needs to be personalized to the individual but it is very real to those involved personally.
There are those who do not behave as you do.
There are those who CANNOT behave as you do.
For a few with ADHD, the problem is discipline. If you have never grown up with discipline, you will not model it yourself. The cure is thoughtful, preventative and EXPLAINED discipline, along the lines of “If you keep this up, the other people in the world will eventually put you in jail to protect themselves, if they don’t kill you first. Exert control on your own behavior so that no one else needs to”.
For others, no amount of discipline or medicine can help; they lack self-control / impulse control in toto. They cannot control their own behavior; either they need minders or institutionalization. End of discussion; if you are incorrectly wired, no amount of drugs or discipline will help.
In between are a class of medication patients. They lack discipline and self-control as brain chemicals, so that medication stimulates / supplants / replaces the brain chemicals they need. I have no idea how many this class consists of, but I can’t believe it’s all of them.
My two kids are medicated. The elder can function (sort of) without them, but lacks some self-restraint when off them. The problem is impulse control; without medicine the elder might do self-damage, or jump into a really risky situation without considering implications. On meds the elder is totally functional (graduated college), holds down a job and thinks of the future.
The younger has rage and frustration issues. Even medicated, these still remain, but are subdued to the point they are manageable. Younger hates loud noises (will not go to movies, will not attend concerts, finds ordinary restaurants / Muzak annoying and barely tolerable. Off meds younger will not go out in public at all, to avoid over-stimulation; on meds is about to graduate (hopefully next year) in computer science.
I agree with an above comment, until they are your children and you have to live with them and their issues 24/7/365 you have little idea what it is like. Or, you could spend real time with some of these kids and find out what it is to live with these conditions.
HAARP? Fluoride in the drinking water? Depletion of trace elements from the soil and foods? Addition of everything from HFCS and sugar to white flour and diary products where they weren’t before? I have no idea what causes these, but if ADHD is imaginary then both my children were superb actors from before the time that they could talk.
When I was in High School back in the ’60’s, I was a complete fuckup. F’s all the way, playing hooky, etc. Yeah, I was bored. Then they threw me into military school. Boy, that SUCKED. BUT… my GPA went from 0 to 4! Headmasters list. Honors. Why? Discipline, I guess.
Of course, I managed to get kicked out after two years for drinking etc.
But the principle was valid.
“until they are your children and you have to live with them and their issues 24/7/365 you have little idea what it is like. Or, you could spend real time with some of these kids and find out what it is to live with these conditions”
So, like what did people do before the advent of these drugs within the past 20 years? We are not that special.
Many of them died young. Those who cannot control impulses around horses get kicked, stamped, head-butted: if there’s a cliff too near, they fall over them to their demise. Likewise, an impulsive person around firearms may be short-lived. There are lots of ways to leave the earth when you cannot control your impulses.
Others went into the penal system. If you are an impulsive firebug, your arson gets you locked up for public safety. Variations on that theme include institutionalization, exile and shunning (when a society refuses to deal with you because of your behavior).
We are masters, now, of evading the consequences we earn. Medicine can cure some things, like syphilis, that were a death sentence a hundred years back. Or if your family / you are rich enough, you can evade justice, sometimes for a lifetime. But the lack of an ADHD diagnosis did not stop Edison; it just made him unique, in that he overcame it without medicine. Not everyone is an Edison; but then, thank God, not all ADHD become criminals, psychopaths or politicians.
I was alive then. All these horse and gunshot accidents weren’t happening … at least in my good-sized midwest city. Arsonists weren’t running rampant either.
Maybe shunning actually was pretty effective at causing one to get control of themselves?
At best psychologists and psychiatrists practice a profession based on “soft science” the same as nigger and feminine and queer studies. It’s not a good idea to pay much attention to a profession that thinks LGBTQ is normal and ignores hard facts about racial IQ differences. A good percentage of these clowns can’t tell the difference between male and female.
I began to question ADHD a number of years ago when a friend claimed he was diagnosed with it, but had been previously diagnosed by numerous physicians with bipolar disorder. ADHD seems to have become a bit of a catch all for numerous mental problems, and doesn’t seem to carry the stigma that bipolar and other disorders seem to – especially for older, adult patients.
Adhd simply excuses bad behavior and gives parents the ability to say “see, it is not my fault, and I am not a bad parent”.
It is total bullshit. Instead of drugs, those kids need a good dose of discipline.
I believe that is the case for MOST ADHD diagnoses.
Some do, some don’t. ADHD kids are frequently prescribed amphetamines, which SLOW DOWN their brain activity somewhat, and allow them to cope better. If we gave you dexedrine, would it slow you down?
Another feature is that amphetamines do not make them high, or get them buzzed.
Both my children have been on medication for some time. They can tell when they have forgotten to take a pill, and know what it takes to get back on track. But we have never had to keep them from overdosing, or found any pills “missing”. They actually dislike having to be on medication, and only hard experience ( realizing what their behavior is like when they skip or forget, sometimes comments from their friends, etc.) keeps them on it. But both are strongly against drug abuse, and neither has ever had to detox, be told not to use heroin, etc. Being forced to depend on medicine every day to avoid bad experiences has made them intolerant of drug abuse. Either would give up their meds in a day if they could, but know their “natural” state is either impulsive beyond good sense, angry and frustrated beyond functionality or just plain goofy.
It took a long time and repeated demonstrations of bad behavior before I could accept that my children’s brains don’t make enough of whatever chemicals they need to control themselves. We all want to believe our children are born perfect, above average and beyond reproach. Then they grow up ….
And my children did not grow up without discipline, physical and mental. But discipline is not a brain chemical, nor is a spanking a medicine. If your child needed a (chemical) crutch, would you spank them? THAT would be bad parenting indeed!
Thank you James for the rational comment.
My son takes ADHD medication. It makes me uneasy. I fought many a battle against his teachers and my wife but lost the war. I have to admit that he is an absolute train wreck without it. No ability to focus, scattered thoughts, motor agitation, you name it. Some ignorant shits here have described it as “Whacked-out on drugs”. Well no, my son is very normal and high-functioning when he takes his medication. He can hardly remember 2 x 2 without it.
I cannot for the life of me imagine what the witless cunts here think would constitute proper “discipline”. Shall I beat my son until he can concentrate properly? Should I slap him really hard, or go ahead and use my fists? I know, maybe putting out a cigarette on him would get him to focus real good?
Sick fucks should keep their stupid yaps shut when they have no practical experience with this issue.
Rdawg – what, you think most people have no experience personally with this stuff? Hell yes they do.
And my experience is it comes down to discipline and parenting. Every damn time. Sure, there would be a small percent where there is an underlying issue. But those instances are a miniscule percentage.
If you are too dense to understand discipline takes many forms, and generally does NOT mean of the physical type, perhaps you should evaluate your parenting skills, because your scope of understanding is narrow indeed.
Parenting starts day one. By the time most parents realize there is a problem, it is too damn late, as their poor parenting from day one evolved into a monster of a kid six years later.
I have seen toddlers where I knew they would end up diagnosed with adhd and on drugs. Why? Because their frigging parents sucked. Those kids were doomed from day one.
Beat kids? Burn them? Just parent them is all that is needed.
Right, Llpoh, and to eat a healthy diet with real food. Again, I recommend the GAPS diets, although there are others out there, for ADHD, ADD, etc. These problems have been successfully been treated by alternative medicine doctors, but you won’t hear about it on the main stream news, who accepts pharmaceutical advertising.
Not 100% effective unfortunately in our case, although very helpful.
We have found that we can reduce my son’s dosage by nutritional intervention, but cannot eliminate his medication entirely without pushback from his teachers.
Just wait til they decide obesity is a “disease”.
Why on earth would they want a cure for obesity, talk about a cash cow!
They don’t want a cure, ottomatik. They just want to sell you more pharmaceutical drugs. Whether the drugs help or not is a different story. It’s just like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.
I was diagnosed with hyperactivity (what ADD and ADHD used to be called) when I was a kid, but my mom wouldn’t let them put me on ritalin. Instead, my parents encouraged me to be play outdoors a lot, and participate in sports, so I got 2 to 3 hours of physical activity a day. Indoors, I read all the time, because I could do that at my own pace. It worked out okay, although I still have a pretty short attention span for anything I’m not really interested in. I still get a lot of exercise, watch my diet, and for the most part stay away from sugar.
My son was diagnosed autistic when he was 3. There’s no doubt he was, but my wife and I put him in a bunch of different therapies and activities where he was around other people and he gradually learned to interact. We gave him vitamins but shied away from medication. Now he’s a junior at college and lives in a fraternity, so that worked out okay. My general advice for these type of conditions is use non-drug therapies, especially things like diet, exercise, vitamins and socialization, and give them time enough for a fair test. If you don’t see improvement, then perhaps you have to consider drugs. For both me and my son, I’m glad drugs were not used.
Me too. The hell that was school 1st-6th grade ’68-69 to 74 still haunts me. Sports (though I was uncoordinated and pathetic at team sports) and constant activity, walking hiking fishing long bike rides that was possible in the seventies before kids had to be corralled and “protected” 24/7 but are impossible today. Boxing was a gift. Later, in high school, I found running. I owe my life to it. My youngest son has it. He is a social butterfly, unlike me, but he has been brought up in catholic school where he has a great social network, but the homework is a constant struggle for him and his mother. ( I say forget homework ’till he’s through puberty, most teachers are losers. I got mostly F’s and incompletes ’till I was 13 or so . I Later became a weather officer in the Air Force and earned a PhD in Chemical Physics) My son is fantastic at karate and music and his instructors insist he doesn’t have a focusing problem at all there. It breaks my heart to force him to take the stuff. He hates it and will spit out the pills when he can get away with it. I found 20 or so Adderall behind the cushion in a couch that he tossed there in the morning. He was in trouble with his mom and was starting off seventh grade with all these teacher complaints and “I’m concerned about Karl,” at the PTA meetings his mother goes to. I try to make her understand. It is contrary to the nature of boys to sit quietly and politely at a desk attending to a teacher for eight hours a day. ADHD is a term given to kids, mostly boys, who are not average. It’s only a “disorder” because those who need “order” are “average” but dominate because of their numbers, and their consensus and approval is required because they are the gatekeepers.
A doctor suggested my son might be hyperactive when he was about three. I refused to see him zoned out on Ritalin like my nephew (one of whom has been in and out of prison since juvenile.)
I will admit there were times he drove me bananas and sometimes at 4 a.m. when the little guy was awake for no reason, I did dream about having some children’s valium somewhere just for such early morning activity. However, he is incredibly healthy and strong due to my feeding him real food and almost zero processed sugar. And, he is stubborn when it comes to drugs as well… he was actually diagnosed with ADHD while in college, prescribed Adderall and after one month, he decided he didn’t like depending on stimulants to focus his mind.
I’d like to take credit for his practicality, but it actually runs in his father’s family. My mother-in-law cooked a lot of really wonderful food, but she did it from scratch and with quality ingredients that took all day to simmer and blend into the wonderful (and sometimes stinky when involving cabbage) dishes she served the family. She refused to take medications and when Poppa Grooch was once told he needed to have a biopsy on a growth seen in his lungs? She REFUSED to let them cut him open just for that. I thought she was crazy for that, but since he lived another decade and never expressed lung cancer, I hadda admit the old lady was right.
I believe that many of these mental conditions are real,but are very rare.Whether it’s ADD,ADHD,transgenderism,or whatever,it becomes common when it is not so.
It is easy for the doc to diagnose & write a script,and often easier for a parent to accept a diagnosis because they have something upon which to blame the behavior.
And of course the drug companies will not make a large amount of $ from conditions that are not common enough to justify huge amounts of drugs being prescribed.
More and more researchers are finding that the gut flora controls the brain,which seems to confirm what some of you are saying about nutrition and exercise.
I’m only 52, but I remember when the US was the only country to list ADD/ADHD as an illness. Everybody else knew it for what it was–being an annoying asshole who wasn’t raised properly.
Tennessee Budd? Like long and lean?
good choice nkit,i haven’t heard that in a couple of years–
doc does a great rendition of this song but it’s such a great song almost anybody makes it sound good–
TN Budd
Go eat a fucking bag of dicks.
Oh, and welcome to TBP.
So this article was just copied verbatim from the link at the top life4fitmama, hmmm. Don’t bother clicking on the link at the bottom… WTF is that all about?
I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult by a quack doctor and prescribed Adderal Rx (time-release version). Now maybe this drug works for some, everyone has somewhat different personal chemistry, but for me despite being told it was not addictive, well, that was just a lie in the words of the song. Adderal can definitely be addictive.
When I finally stopped taking it after realizing I was just continuing to use it for its euphoric properties, I had fairly noticeable withdrawal symptoms that lasted for several weeks. I felt completely miserable like I was living under ten miles of mud. These medications are good for big pharma but bad for those that get snared by the easy undeliverable promises.
No need to throw sh!t at each other over this. There are OBVIOUSLY many cases of bad parenting out there, and when schools have to do something with those unfortunate children, they send the to the doc for some magical compliance drugs.
But there seems to also be a real mental problem for a lot of children and even adults which is not rooted in a lack of ass-whooping. I agree with Vixen Vic and Tim Young. Poor diet paired with unreasonable expectations and inadequate physical activity /overstimulation by electronics seem to be likely causes in many cases. I’d like to add low fat diets onto the list of contributing factors. Not that people actually are eating healthy, mind, but that wholesome animal (natural) fats have been taken out of the diet and replaced with seed oils (industrially produced). The brain is built with fats, if the mother’s diet has low levels of good, natural, SATURATED fat, it stands to reason that the baby’s brain will have problems. And children are given low fat or skim milk, low fat snacks, and getting fatter than ever. Even McDonalds used to use beef tallow in the fry oil (I’m told), switched out now of course for some industrial lubricant masquerading as food. Maybe that’s why we could eat McDonald’s once or even twice a week and still not turn into land whales…
I didn’t read the entire article because I couldn’t concentrate. Could one of you summarize it for me?
I have no experience with ADHD. My question would be – Over time, what do these drugs do to the liver, pancreas and kidneys in these kids? Not to mention their brains.
Children’s bodies are still in development at these young ages.
After more than a decade my children have normal physical test results – they have not developed diabetes, low blood sugar, or anything else. I suspect there may be some minor effects – my elder works the night shift by preference, and younger does most of his studying by night as well. It may be that they both find full daylight a bit intense – perhaps amphetamines cause daylight sensitivity? Hasn’t seemed to hurt either, the one loves working at night and the other’s grades are holding up well.
But if becoming night owls is a side effect of their medications, it’s much better than being either so impulsive as to ignore danger or so angry and frustrated that you sit in a lump – or turn into a pile of rage. There are “discipline cases” – I was one, as a youth, before one teacher put me on an intensive academic path (I was Salutatorian in high school, and now have three STEM degrees). There are cases of bad parenting – not everyone who becomes a parent should have. But there are, in some percentage, cases of those who simply are not like you are, or like anyone you grew up with. And some of those are ADHD and benefit from medication.
LLPOH said, “And my experience is it comes down to discipline and parenting. Every damn time. ” IN YOUR EXPERIENCE is not the same as UNIVERSAL, COMPLETE experience with the entire set of human beings. Remember the Black Swan by Taleb? An ENTIRE CONTINENT of scientists was convinced that black swans DID NOT EXIST – until a few were brought back from Australia! Keep that in mind, along with Will Rogers’ “It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.”