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Just when you think you have reached the bottom of this problem, new information comes along. Last night I was privileged to attend a talk by Sheila Matthews-Gallo who founded AbleChild, an organization that advocates for child rights against forced medicalization. Why would such a thing be needed? As it turns out, many if not most kids in public schools today face this threat daily. They can be identified as having ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
It turns out that there is nothing proven chemically to constitute ADHD. It is entirely a diagnosis applied based on behavior as identified throughout a checklist questionnaire. The checklist is about fidgeting, forgetting, boredom, finishing tasks, various acting up, expressions of frustrations, and so on. In other words, what we have here is a list of all the signs you might expect when boys in particular are told to sit perfectly still at a desk for months and years and complete tasks assigned to them by some authority figure.
With this kind of diagnosis, you are likely to rope in a vast number of kids, particularly the exceptional ones and those once considered to be “gifted and talented.” As it turns out, there is a vast industry working today to pathologize perfectly normal behavioral traits. It hits boys in particular very hard because, in general, they mature more slowly than girls and tend toward behavioral resistance to environmental adaptivity relative to girls.
For more on this amazing reality, see “The ADHD Fraud,” an eye-opening book.
What could be the purpose of such a diagnosis? You guessed it: there are drugs for this supposed problem. They have various names: Ritalin (methylphenidate), Adderall (amphetamine), Dexmethylphenidate, Lisdexamfetamine, Clonidine, and Atomoxetine. Not even one of them has been proven to be a chemical fix for any biological abnormality. They are all behavioral-adjustment drugs; that is, psychotropic drugs; that is, narcotics for kids.
Millions of kids take them, as many as 13 percent of teens. The rate grows higher in the college population. Some one in three adults are taking psychiatric meds. It’s getting worse. It starts in school.
Listening to all of this, I found myself astounded. And yet, in some ways, it fits with everything else we know. We have an industry here that is in a tight working relationship with government institutions like public schools, plus regulators, plus medical authorities that are throwing drugs at people with the promise of miracles but with results that actually ruin lives.
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Archive (archive.today)
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Just when you think you have reached the bottom of this problem, new information comes along. Last night I was privileged to attend a talk by Sheila Matthews-Gallo who founded AbleChild, an organization that advocates for child rights against forced medicalization. Why would such a thing be needed? As it turns out, many if not most kids in public schools today face this threat daily. They can be identified as having ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
>It turns out that there is nothing proven chemically to constitute ADHD. It is entirely a diagnosis applied based on behavior as identified throughout a checklist questionnaire. The checklist is about fidgeting, forgetting, boredom, finishing tasks, various acting up, expressions of frustrations, and so on. In other words, what we have here is a list of all the signs you might expect when boys in particular are told to sit perfectly still at a desk for months and years and complete tasks assigned to them by some authority figure.
>With this kind of diagnosis, you are likely to rope in a vast number of kids, particularly the exceptional ones and those once considered to be “gifted and talented.” As it turns out, there is a vast industry working today to pathologize perfectly normal behavioral traits. It hits boys in particular very hard because, in general, they mature more slowly than girls and tend toward behavioral resistance to environmental adaptivity relative to girls.
>For more on this amazing reality, see “The ADHD Fraud,” an eye-opening book.
>What could be the purpose of such a diagnosis? You guessed it: there are drugs for this supposed problem. They have various names: Ritalin (methylphenidate), Adderall (amphetamine), Dexmethylphenidate, Lisdexamfetamine, Clonidine, and Atomoxetine. Not even one of them has been proven to be a chemical fix for any biological abnormality. They are all behavioral-adjustment drugs; that is, psychotropic drugs; that is, narcotics for kids.
>Millions of kids take them, as many as 13 percent of teens. The rate grows higher in the college population. Some one in three adults are taking psychiatric meds. It’s getting worse. It starts in school.
>Listening to all of this, I found myself astounded. And yet, in some ways, it fits with everything else we know. We have an industry here that is in a tight working relationship with government institutions like public schools, plus regulators, plus medical authorities that are throwing drugs at people with the promise of miracles but with results that actually ruin lives.
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