Free Republic

Nearly 1 million children in the United States are potentially misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because they are the youngest -- and most immature -- in their kindergarten class. These children are significantly more likely than their older classmates to be prescribed behavior-modifying stimulants such as Ritalin. Such inappropriate treatment is particularly worrisome because of the unknown impacts of long-term stimulant use on children's health, Elder said. It also wastes an estimated $320 million-$500 million a year on unnecessary medication. Elder said the "smoking gun" of the study is that ADHD diagnoses depend on a child's age relative...

A city hospital nearly destroyed a New Jersey woman's life and wrecked her marriage after misdiagnosing her with terminal HIV, hepatitis and herpes, according to a bombshell lawsuit. Maria Osorio, 54, of Passaic, said she saw an ad on TV offering a $15 mammogram at Harlem Hospital over Valentine's Day last February and decided to take advantage of the screening. When a nurse offered her a free instant cheek swab and blood test, too, she accepted. That's when she was told she had HIV. "It was horrible. I wanted to throw myself on the subway tracks," she said. The shocked...

The baby they said would never be born         SO SPECIAL: Catherine Kent and Kevin Gray with baby Leona-Lee. Proud parents Kevin Gray and Catherine Kent cradle the daughter they were told would never be born. Three months into Catherine's pregnancy, doctors told the 27-year-old that her baby had died inside her. Turning down surgical treatment to remove the baby, she spent a month carrying what she believed was a dead child until a check-up at Sunderland Royal Hospital revealed a mistake had been made and her baby was alive. Six months after the devastating news,...

ATLANTA, Georgia -- The celebrity was John Ritter. art.ritter.getty.jpg Actor John Ritter died in September 2003 from an aortic dissection, a commonly misdiagnosed condition. The actor died in 2003 of an aortic dissection -- a tearing of the major artery that comes out of the heart. His widow later settled a wrongful death lawsuit against a California hospital, alleging his condition had been misdiagnosed "at least twice." Experts who study malpractice cases and autopsy reports say certain diseases are misdiagnosed over and over again. It's worth knowing what they are so you won't be a victim. 1. Aortic dissection: Sometimes...

Fact: A doctor in this country interrupts a patient, on average, in the first 18 seconds of a visit. A prominent surgeon waited about a minute and a half before issuing his diagnosis to Jerome Groopman on his damaged hand. "He was dead wrong," says Groopman, who got four diagnoses from six surgeons. "And these are big names." Fact: More than 15 percent — some say more than 20 percent — of medical diagnoses are wrong. At least half result in serious injury or death. Groopman tells of a woman who saw close to 30 doctors for a constellation of...

Last of three articles John Zeber recently examined one of the nation's largest databases of psychiatric cases to evaluate how doctors diagnose schizophrenia, a disorder that often portends years of powerful brain-altering drugs, social ostracism and forced hospitalizations. Although schizophrenia has been shown to affect all ethnic groups at the same rate, the scientist found that blacks in the United States were more than four times as likely to be diagnosed with the disorder as whites. Hispanics were more than three times as likely to be diagnosed as whites. Zeber, who studies quality, cost and access issues for the U.S....

Doctors ignore tumor, tell man he's fat: [World News]: READING, England, March 15 : British doctors somehow missed finding a 55-pound tumor growing in a man's stomach, and instead told him he was obese, The Times of London reports. News of the missed diagnosis that spanned nearly 10 years came to light Monday when aeronautical engineer Trevor Smithson, 53, announced he was suing the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. He had first visited doctors there in 1994 complaining of a distended stomach.It wasn't until last year he went to London's Royal Marsden Hospital for help. Surgeons there removed the mass,...

The extended post-election public despair of disappointed Democrats has been nearly as remarkable as the Republican victory, its supposed proximate cause. Therapists, anxious to keep their couches warm, have rushed in to make up a self-serving syndrome for their clients to overcome, “Post Election Selection Trauma.” A nice bit of marketing, that. Most important is the acronym PEST. Turn the electoral mandate of George W. Bush into a public affliction, with overtones of vermin as the root cause. Throw in a hot button word like “selection” to get to the right four letters, dredging up memories of the 2000 Florida...

Roosevelt may not have suffered from polio, claim Texas doctors Associated Press DALLAS (AP) — Clinical evidence shows that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was probably misdiagnosed with paralyzing polio more than 80 years ago, researchers said in a new study released Friday. Texas doctors suggest the four-term president's paralysis was caused not by poliomyelitis but by Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disease that causes the immune system to attack the nervous system. "We feel from the clinical evidence, which is all that exists, that it's more likely that he had Guillain-Barre syndrome," Dr. Armond S. Goldman, emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University...