Neal Boortz and ADD

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[Houmatt]

The following are short pieces recently written by Neal Boortz regarding Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, appearing in Neal's Nuze:

DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO THIS. JUST KEEP DRUGGING YOUR KIDS.

More and more medical and psychological professionals are speaking out against this phony disease of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Dr. Bob Jacobs, a psychologist, is on the advisory board of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. He recently told a conference in Australia that ADHD is a behavioral problem, not a medical disorder. He correctly points out that there is no proof that ADHD exists.

Jacobs notes that many children who are “diagnosed” with ADHD – children who it is said can’t pay attention – are perfectly capable of sitting still with a video game and paying rapt attention for hours on end. He also points out that when parents pay attention and change the way they are treating and handling their children, the ADHD symptoms go away. “A real diseas doesn’t go away when somebody else does something.”

I just love it that this debate is surfacing again. Sure, Ritalin works. It’s a drug, of course it’s going to have an affect on children. It makes them more docile and compliant. Take that word “compliant” and put it next to “government.” Would anyone argue that government doesn’t just love a compliant citizen? Then why wouldn’t a government school teacher love a docile and compliant child? It sure makes their job easier, doesn’t it?

In 2001 U.S. drug companies made more than $600 million profit in ADHD drugs like Ritalin. If ADHD goes away … so do those profits.

It’s time for you parents and teachers to stop looking for the easy way out here. Your easy way out is a potential disaster for your child.

I’M STILL HERE …

The controversy over my comments on ADD/ADHD continues. Station management continues to feel the effects of an organized campaign to have me either silenced or fired. Hey, I don’t blame these people. If I was drugging my child for a non-existent disease I wouldn’t want anyone reminding me of my irresponsibility either.

Just to fuel the fire, here are some excerpts from letters and e-mail I’ve received in the last few days:

I am a Special Education teacher in Kansas --anti-NEA, extremely conservative: endangered species. Agree with you on ADHD. Problem - liberals insist all students with behavior problems have the right to disrupt the education of others, so meds used to control behaviors. In Kansas, ADHD students receive special education services under the label of Otherwise Health Impaired (OHI). Some of us know that OHI really stands for Otherwise HOME Impaired. Please do not use my name publicly -- retaliation from liberal dominated administration probable

Before you delete this please read on. I am ecstatic on your position on add and ADHD. I have a son that was so diagnosed, they, she who is always right, put him on Ritalin. it is a devastating drug, they are doped up and not themselves. Chris is adopted has a handicap and parents that care. i took on the problem, the problem was not a condition it was a matter of wills. i withdrew him from the medication and worked my ass off making the difference. Neal is right, get off the medication, instill confidence, give a damn about how they behave and stand firm. today my son has a 4.0 average in his junior year of high school and has been accepted to Penn State, will get a partial scholarship and is a GREAT KID. Not bad for someone the system wanted to put into a stupor. Dad's can make a difference, although you may not be the most popular guy around. God Bless

Man, when your right your right! The stories that I could tell you about my ex-wife and hooking my son on this drug since he was two are unbelievable. Parents and teachers are not alone in this. Doctors who are prescribing this and other mind altering drugs are the number one problem. My ex-wife found a doctor in Miami that did "testing" on my son only by giving him some blocks to assemble, and when my son started looking around instead of putting all of the blocks in place that was it, instant A.D.H.D. Oh yeah, this boy was not only A.D.D. He was hyper as well.(here's a clue HE'S TWO YEARS OLD!!) Needless to say this eventually lead to our divorce, but to make matters worse, there are judges out there who believe this crap also, so I did not get custody. He's now 15 and my Ex-wife and I have another court appointment to settle this issue.

AND NOW --- INTRODUCING YOU TO “ODD!”

This will be the next great fad disease for school age children. Oppositional Defiance Disorder. The “ODD child” is a child that gets angry or frustrated and defies authority. In other words … a child. He argues with adults, he loses his temper, he has a negative attitude, he blames others for his mistakes. Teachers.net has a chatboard discussing this grand new disease. One post by a teacher says: “Today was a really bad day. I have been teaching grade seven for four years and today was the first time I was called a "Whore," by a kid who has Oppositional Defiance Disorder.”

Stand by folks, this is soon going to become a full-fledged disease and some drug company is going to develop some mind-altering drug that will make these kids compliant and passive. Oh man, are the parents going to love this one. Here’s a link on this new fad-disease so you can start getting your excuses ready. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/9346/odd.html

http://www.4troubledteens.com/odd.html

ADEQUATE DICIPLINE DEFICIENCY

There’s been quite a firestorm of controversy on the show since I started talking about the various experts who are debunking the ADD/ADHD craze. We had Dr. Bob Jackobs, a psychologist, telling a youth conference in Queensland, Australia that there has never been any proof that ADHD exists. Then there was neurologist Dr. Fred Baughman Jr. who, in a 1998 letter to Attorney General Janet Reno called ADHD “the single biggest health care fraud in U.S. history.” This has all been very unsettling to parents who have decided that drugging is certainly easier than parenting when it comes to controlling the behavior of their children. These parents really know that ADD stands for “Adequate Dicipline Deficiency.”

But, alas! There are many parents out there who have been unable to find a doctor or a shrink who will write that invaluable Ritalin prescription. Wow! You poor saps have actually had to deal with your children being … children!

Well, maybe there’s hope. There’s a new disease on the horizon out there. It’s called ODD! Oppositional Defiance Disorder? With any luck, your child may have this nifty new disease! As a public service, here is some help diagnosing your very own child to see if they might have ODD! The symptoms are:

Arguing with adults. Losing temper. Angry or resentful of others. Actively defies adult’s request or rules. Negative attitude Blames others for their own mistakes misbehavior Seems touchy or easily annoyed by others Deliberately annoys others Acts spiteful or vindictive. The psychiatrists are telling us that if your child displays four or more of the above traits … you may be a winner! You may have a child with ODD! Now you don’t have to feel so left out when the neighborhood moms get together to discuss their children’s afflictions. Looking at that list again, I would suggest that if your child doesn’t display at least four of those traits, he’s probably in a coma on a respirator.

Now … the really good news! The Psychiatric Alliance of the Blue Ridge is studying an “investigational medication” that may help children with ODD! So, in the very near future you may not only be able to discuss your child’s hideous new disease, you may actually be able to DRUG him!

[Houmatt]

To say that mental health professionals have no credibility is naive.

Honey, really, you are way, way out of your league on this one.

I can name for you countless cases where mental health professionals have made gross misdiagnoses and destroyed people and their families for personal and financial gain.

Other than the obvious example of the American Psychological Association publishing in their journal the ridiculous claim children suffer no long term effects from sexual abuse, there was also the book The Courage To Heal. The book's authors, Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, make the astonishing claim that EVERYONE has been sexually abused. If you say you have not, you either have repressed memory or you are in denial. I cannot tell you how many lives have been destroyed by that worthless waste of trees that is not fit to line birdcages with.

[thoughtomator]

I don't accept that as a sensible answer at all. I grew up in this information age society, and I exhibited nearly every symptom that is listed for ADD. Somehow, without being drugged up, I ended up becoming a normal human being with excellent mathematical and language skills. The same is true for most of the people I grew up with.

Normal childhood is being diagnosed as a disease. Humanity has been declared abnormal and subject to forced medication.

How children act today has no relationship to farms and 12 hour workdays. It is clearly traceable to television, an educational system which fails to either teach or challenge, and an abdication of parental responsibility.

[GovernmentShrinker]

The ability to focus appropriately seems to be the issue. Many autistic kids never learn to speak or read or perform basic self-care tasks, but will focus for hours on end on something like opening and shutting a cabinet door. Interrupting them form such tasks is difficult (sometimes causing them to become violent) and doesn't result in shifting their focus to some normal/productive activity. Frankly, it is much easier to focus on a simple repetitive task than on a task that requires some active thought and making choices. I was diagnosed with ADD at age 37, and know this from personal experience, in addition to having read a lot of research about it. If my boss asked me to get out a phone book and count the number of last names with more than 5 letters on each page, I'd have no trouble concentrating for hours on the task, without the aid of any drugs. But ask me to do something that requires thought, and in which the train of thought is frequently broken by tiny obstacles and the need to make choices or get some outside information to proceed, and I have real difficulty, which is greatly helped by Ritalin. The most annoying thing is the time lag between when concentration is broken and when realization that it has been broken kicks in, and for me this is where Ritalin has a clear positive effect.

[r9etb]

I have long been saying ADD is just an excuse for bad behavior. And then Neal Boortz comes along and validates it.

If you're feeling validated by a Neal Boortz claim, that's a sure sign you need to do more research.

[TheWillardHotel]

> It took YEARS of practice and still takes
strong willed CONSTANT disipline...


Welcome to the real world. Life is a struggle. Get used to it.


ADD/ADHD is a horrible fraud.

[thoughtomator]

Do some research. The age limits for good reading and fluent foreign language acquisition are very well established.

Except there are plenty of people who have learned to read or acquired a foreign language later in life and have done very well. Scratch another rationalization for kiddie crack.

If you assert it to be true, then you produce the research to back the claim.

[GovernmentShrinker]

See my post #137. It's not just ADD that's more prevalent in boys.

[iranger]

"I agree that, in general, children watch way too much television We are also the same ones that rolled a weed and smoked it, why would we do that...who are truely the smarter creatures?"

Sorry, this is not my quote which you are attributing to me.

[kegler4]

"What the school doesn't tell the parent is that the child's school record follws him eternally. Prospective employers will all know that the kid was drugged in order to function. Special Ed kids are generally ineligible as far as honors classes go, and are stigmatized for their entire adulthood."

Sheesh, not where I come from. My employers have never seen my school record because state law forbids it. I took Ritalin as child in the 60s and was never turned down for a job. I also took honors classes. And my daughter, who took Ritalin for 3 years, is taking almost every honors class her school offers. So where do you get YOUR info?

[SauronOfMordor]

This very complex issue is unfortunately being dominated by nutty extremists on both sides. There IS such a thing as ADD, and it IS being massively pseudo-diagnosed by adults who are lazy and/or stand to make a profit from either selling the drug or selling "special education" services".

The local school tried to get us to Ritalinize my middle daughter. We took her out and homeschooled her instead. The problem instead turned out to be hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). A change in diet (cutting out refined flour and sugar at breakfast time, and putting in lots of protein) worked wonders. I have a feeling that a decent number of kids diagnosed as ADD might just be the victims of bad diet

[clamper1797]

either I'm a liar or you're an idiot ... I chose the latter

[GovernmentShrinker]

Who has learned a foreign language FLUENTLY and WITHOUT AN ACCENT later in life? Ever listen to Henry Kissinger speak English? He came here from Germany as an adolescent. Same thing with reading -- sure people can learn to read later, but they can never learn the effortless reading that early readers usually acquire, which enables one to read for relaxation and to skim quickly through vast amounts of complex material.

[iranger]

"who are truely the smarter creatures?"

I have no doubts. Furthermore, I'm partial to Ben Franklin's famous quote: "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

[sharktrager]

You bet that a spanking will cure ADD. It may in some cases, but not anywhere near all.

[Houmatt]

If you're feeling validated by a Neal Boortz claim, that's a sure sign you need to do more research.

I am not sure what you are insinuating there, but I never claimed Boortz was an expert. He just happened to say in a public forum something that I have felt for a long time. For another, albeit better known, figure like him to echo my sentiments of the farce that is ADD/ADDHD/ODD is not a bad thing.

[Zavien Doombringer]

true to that, it was a mistake...and I don't know how that got there....

[TheLion]

Bump for later!

[FourPeas]

I can assure you, there is no ADD, ADHD or ODD that a good old fashioned spanking cannot fix.

Were this the case, my son would have absolutely no difficulties concentrating. Sadly, it's not.

[Conservababe]

My problem with medical diagnosis of behavioral problems in children is the abundance of persons hired just for this purpose.

I say this because my state has a traveling team of 'who knows what' medical experts affiliated with the state universities.

They visit daycare and preschools frequently and ask for referrels to a child that might need evaluation.

One day a note was left for my daughter picking up my two year old grandson from the principle of the school which is a private Christian one. The note said that this child needed to be evaluated and that all paperwork would be confidential.

My daughter and son-in-law went immediately to this principle. When asked why she wanted a referrel, she said that our child was possibly autistic because he rocks from side to side while listening to music. She admitted no other problems or symptonms were exhibited by him. My son-in-law laid the form in front of her and she had to admit that she was 'misinformed' that the evaluation was private. If they had signed permission, the information was public knowledge and would follow him.

They refused. They took him to their own fine pediatrician. He laughed and said that these people wouldn't have a job unless they drummed up business somehow or somewhere, but it could be serious if they had not brought him in for a visit. Evidently, a parent can be prosecuted for medical neglect if they refuse testing.

The pediatrician said he was a fine, healthy boy and probably musically inclined.

People, be very careful

[kegler4]

"Everytime there is a thread relating to Ritalin, I like to add this little piece of info:

Lorna Luft, daughter of Judy Garland, wrote in her book, Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir, that Ritalin was the drug that caused her mother so many problems."

Yes, but this and some of the other replies about "zombies" conveniently overlooks the fact that every single drug out there, including aspirin, affects different people in different ways. And that's a medical fact. If Ritalin makes a person a zombie or completely changes the personality, it should NOT be taken. It did neither to either me or my daughter. And I was watching her closely.