Posted on 12/15/2013 12:58:30 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
After more than 50 years leading the fight to legitimize attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Keith Conners could be celebrating.
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.”
The rise of A.D.H.D. diagnoses and prescriptions for stimulants over the years coincided with a remarkably successful two-decade campaign by pharmaceutical companies to publicize the syndrome and promote the pills to doctors, educators and parents. With the children’s market booming, the industry is now employing similar marketing techniques as it focuses on adult A.D.H.D., which could become even more profitable.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Most “diagnosed” with ADHD to not have it.
...its because they have a small video screen in their face and don’t go outside and PLAY anymore!!
A doctor once told me. (To the best of my recollection it was words to the effect of:) “Medicine is subject to the same popularity trends as fashion. Hemlines go up and down. Doctors diagnose trendy new things. For a while it was stylish, if you will, to perform (procedure to close off veins in the penis for better erections.) Now nobody does that. Did it help? Most likely not. But doctors did thousands of them and now nobody does it. You have to be aware of what’s stylish and trendy and evaluate what the doctor is saying with a jaundiced eye.”
Just listen to the Autism Speaks ads on the radio. Every few months they announce higher odds of a kid having it.
I'm surprised this made it into the New York Times. When you think of the lobbying power of all the industries that profit from this over-medication of patients, the ObamaCare mandates that require insurance coverage for all kinds of procedures and treatments really deserves another look.
bump for later
The War on Boys is evolving into the War on Men. Adderall is the weapon of mass destruction in this war. This article wants to blame the evil drug companies. They are only one of the culprits. Doctors, Psychologists, Counselors, Teachers, Administrators, and Parents are all culpable
Please don’t think that’s it.
We always had hyperactive kids. I was outside a lot as a kid, playing and doing what kids did. I would come home tired and ready to konk out.
Kids today don’t just have the electronics, no they are kept inside during what used to be recess. Schools have been turned into feminist centers, to hell with those infected with testosterone. They have medication for that now.
Was I less hyperactive because I went outside? No. The next day I needed physical activity again. Then, I got it. Today little boys don’t always get it.
Then little boys who were hyperactive were considered a probnlem, but also gifted. They were the ones who thought outside the box, imagineers as Disney would call them.
Today they are drugged into to stupor, so that they more closely and artificially mimic girl’s behavior. This is not to say girls are drugged or act as if in a stupor. They have more demeanor at an early age. The only way to get what seems like that into boys, is to drug them. And then you don’t wind up with the same thing at all.
So now the discoverer of ADHD has realized there’s a problem. And what did the guy think was going to happen in a society that wanted girls to achieve, and boys to perhaps achieve a little less, so there would be more room for women at the top?
This guy fell over a cliff right into the hands of the women’s movement. Today we have far fewer men in college than women. Excellent work there doctor.
You’ve really got to wonder if all this blossoming violence perpetrated by men across our society, is somehow related to all this ‘perfection’ we have managed to pump into our little boys, now turned troubled men.
the time frame for the victims of being drugged for hyperactivity...and the rash of crazy crime matches fairly closely.
being boxed in could indeed do a lot of damage to the developing minds...and attitudes of such people.
the human brain doesnt reach it’s full development until around age 25. If someones been drugged form age eight through 18....there are several years of development “under the influence”
A small amount of time with the iPad is actually therapeutic for my son. During the time he watches a movie (with the iPad on a solid surface as he jumps up and down the entire time) he can actually prevent his brain from flipping from idea to idea to idea to idea . . . The best way I’ve heard his condition explained is by the character Dr. Sheldon Cooper on the Big Bang Theory: He has an itch in his brain that can’t be scratched. The rest of his day is constant high energy movement. I even have him do jumping jacks during his reading lessons.
Agreed...
The combination of these two effects are causing a generation of males to grow up without masculine socialization. Gone are the days when young males got on their bikes, pedaled across town to a ball field and learned by experience how to deal with testing themselves against anyone and everyone who showed up and learning [quickly] how to handle disagreements.
Welcome to the age of metrosexuals who get trophies for showing up and kids who get bullied, don't know how to handle it and take revenge by shooting up the landscape, a classroom, or a theater.
You are so right. When my grandson seems to be “bouncing off the walls,” we go outside for a run around the block, several times if need be. It really calms him down.
And when he is done, he still has bright eyes.
Beware the glazed look...
Kids are overly stimulated these days and don’t know how to play the way we did. Lack of discipline contributes greatly.
After 60 years, I have come to the conclusion that (ideally) every boy should be raised on a farm. So good for you.
This is an old article….the guy says most adhd is lack of sleep in kids…they need 10 to 12 hours a night,,
ADD = drugs rather than discipline and self-control. Kids were not given drugs for being too active when I was in school, and they were better behaved, sometimes with the inducement of a few whacks with a paddle or rubber hose.
Spoiled kids usually grow up to be spoiled adults...
Not always but usually..
did I mention and also mostly democrats?..
and dumb as posts even sometimes with large I.Q’s...
This has me worried. VERY worried.
Nice catch. Thanks.
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