Posted on 01/17/2014 6:33:22 PM PST by Lorianne
After more than 50 years leading the fight to legitimize attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Keith Conners could be celebrating.
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Severely hyperactive and impulsive children, once shunned as bad seeds, are now recognized as having a real neurological problem. Doctors and parents have largely accepted drugs like Adderall and Concerta to temper the traits of classic A.D.H.D., helping youngsters succeed in school and beyond.
But Dr. Conners did not feel triumphant this fall as he addressed a group of fellow A.D.H.D. specialists in Washington. He noted that recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the diagnosis had been made in 15 percent of high school-age children, and that the number of children on medication for the disorder had soared to 3.5 million from 600,000 in 1990. He questioned the rising rates of diagnosis and called them “a national disaster of dangerous proportions.”
“The numbers make it look like an epidemic. Well, it’s not. It’s preposterous,” Dr. Conners, a psychologist and professor emeritus at Duke University, said in a subsequent interview. “This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Conspiracy talk!
(And rather ironic/amusing, too!)
IIRC, I read that once you start on these drugs...because they have messed up your brain...you will need meds for life.
I understand there is a communications company that does nothing but create previously unheard of names for every new drug that the pharmaceutical industry brings to market. This communications company receives exceptionally large sums of money for successfully naming each new drug. Just looking at the proprietary (as opposed to chemical) names of the drugs mentioned in the article is a cause for wonder. The names are truly unique and ingenious by any measure. I wonder why we as a country are so talented at these types of tasks yet have succeeded in selling out the rest of our middle-class-sustaining economy to the Far East and South and Central America?
I do see the possibility that modern changes in diet and "advances" in food science (GM food, hormones, etc) may increase the percentage of people having certain disabilities, but largely this is just medical professionals over-diagnosing people and creating larger marketplaces for their services.
Depression is another. It's real. It exists. Medicine can help some people. But a lot of the people on the medicine could get better help without the medicine. But Zoloft is easy, and it's profitable. So there you go.
And the Prozac generic is $4.00 at Wal*Mart.
CC
If it has the word disorder in it, it’s fake.
Not fake, just not nearly as widespread as it looks. There are no doubt a lot of false diagnoses, and there probably *is* a negative effect to the medication for those who don’t need it. But, there are people who genuinely have the problem, and for whom the medication is warranted. Like me.
I was diagnosed with ADD (non-hyperactive) back in the 80s as a junior in high school. I had been getting Cs and Ds (and more than a few Fs), despite being far more capable than many of my peers. After more than 6 months of evaluation at Umass Medical Worcester, I was put on Ritalin, and almost immediately saw results. I was diagnosed halfway through junior year, with a GPA in the 2.5 range, and was getting all As by the end of that year. I made honor roll my senior year, and my SAT qualified me for Mensa. I stopped taking the medication once I finished college, and have so far not needed it since. I even managed to get a Masters Cum Laude through distance learning without it, due to the learning skills I was able to internalize back when I had been taking medication.
The government at work to dumb down and drug all the active and thinking children of America so that they will be drug addicts by their teen years and thereby destroyed by the evil DC monsters using uninformed to do their will.
And to address the INTJ thing, I was always INTJ, and while I did notice a bit less creativity while I was on medication, I found that losing it was not permanent. When not taking it, I am emotionally back to how I was before I started. I’m not saying it isn’t a bad thing, for some people, but I don’t feel it has had any negative effects on me.
Thank god for Armslist, then.
Everyone’s chemistry is a little different. It may have been great for you, and that’s fine. But I would rather just be me on pure air. I don’t think the world needs to see me pushed even further down the INTJ line when my percentages average at 80% in all categories.
[I took Ritalin for several years as a kid. Hey, it was the 80’s, we didn’t know any better then. I went from being free-spirited and emotional to cold and calculating.]
Most parents are fools and allow their children to be drugged so they do not have to be parents to them. And it is the male children who are largely overdosed and most wind up using drugs, over 80% become addicts and many commit suicide and yet most American homes are full of ritilan boys.
There have always been people trying to diagnose kids who don’t fit in.
A classmate of mine would have been classic Asperger’s syndrome. It was really because he was uniquely brilliant. He didn’t have a lot of social skills because he was teaching himself college level science when he was in second and third grade.
Our teacher tried to have him sent out to a “special” school but failed.
Now, he’s a college professor doing cutting edge research. I’m sure the meds would have made him more normal in grade school, but what would they have done with the rest of his life?
They tried to put my kid on drugs for ADD or ADHD back in the 80’s and I refused to allow it. My kid was extremely smart and was bored in class but they failed to stimulate his mind and earn his respect. He could spot a fake and a hippocrite in a NY second.
I am so glad I didn’t allow them to destroy his body along with his mind. I took him home and home schooled him and he soared.
They were so adamant that he HAD to have some hyperactivity disorder that they called me a liar when I informed him that he slept like a rock. The kid was flat out bored. He was also an awesome multitasker so he could be playing with his cars under his desk, talking to the kid beside him, and listening to his teacher all at once and not loose a beat. They couldn’t comprehend that. Today, he’s a drummer.
They insisted he was going to end up in prison for murder when he reached puberty...he became a prison guard instead. He was non violent. He just didn’t put up with injustice nor would he allow himself to be downtalked to.
I know there are some very good eduators out there, I met some in my own life, but I’m sorry to say that the majority are idiots who never grew up.
Oh it’s not just the medical field to blame here. Parents want a quick chemical fix. I can’t tell you how often the kids I see on these drugs have no daddy and and a mom with zero parenting skills. Parents have also learned that to get their kid labeled can mean a check (SSI), and even middle class parents learn it can be an advantage, special tutors and classes, ability to get special perks on standardized tests, and Precious Snowflake is immune to discipline in the school. And the schools push for as many kids as possible to be on the drugs because it means more money, special ed teachers psychologists, learning labs etc etc. Lots of people profit and share the blame here.
I had my school problems starting in the first grade in the early 50s. By Junior high I was spending as much time in the headmistress’s office as in class. Threats did no good. I could be good for a couple weeks and then go off my trolly. I never did anything really bad, but The woman told my parents that I was like a fly buzzing around her head. She said I should see a Dr. Unfortunately, ADHD had not been discovered yet. I was an introvert and had few friends. I didn’t want anyone to know what condition I was in—they would think I was crazy . This is real, but I would say it affects about one per cent or less of the population. It is rare for a female to have ADHD. I am 70 and still disorganized and spend much of my time doing unproductive tasks.
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