ADHD & Why It’s a “Fictitious” Disorder

[Deleted]

Years ago, if a kid was bored and didn’t listen well in class, he was considered lazy, a daydreamer or perhaps a bit rambunctious. These days, he’s labeled with a mental disorder.

In fact, the CDC says 6.4 million kids ages 4-17 have been “diagnosed with ADHD” since 2011. And that stat doesn’t even include the 198,000 kids under age five who are taking ADHD drugs. Besides that, I guarantee you, these numbers are a lot higher today – because every year the rates continue to skyrocket.

In a DER SPIEGEL interview with retired Harvard psychologist, Dr. Jerome Kagan, he explains why he is critical of “fuzzy diagnostic practices” and the “over-prescription of drugs such as Ritalin for behavioral problems in children.” When SPIEGEL asked Dr. Kagan if he actually thought ADHD was just an invention, he said –

“That’s correct; it is an invention. Every child who’s not doing well in school is sent to see a pediatrician, and the pediatrician says: “It’s ADHD; here’s Ritalin.” In fact, 90 percent of these kids don’t have an abnormal dopamine metabolism. The problem is, if a drug is available to doctors, they’ll make the corresponding diagnosis.”

Source

[AeneasBK]

Does this mean kids diagnosed with it in the 90's are okay? Or was it made up then too?

Side note: Ritalin is amazing. If you want to get shit done. Fuck, you could probably knock back some ritalin daily for a few years and wind up POTUS.

[Templar 331]

So if 90% don't have an abnormal dopamine metabolism then 10% do?

So how is ADHD "fictitious?"

[Ilir]

So if 90% don't have an abnormal dopamine metabolism then 10% do?

So how is ADHD "fictitious?"

Shhh logic is a mysterious thing to them.

[Nadiru]

So if 90% don't have an abnormal dopamine metabolism then 10% do?

So how is ADHD "fictitious?"

It's fictitious for 90% of people who are diagnosed with ADHD, by your own rationale. Giving those people PG-rated cocaine isn't going to improve their mental health.

[starlord]

doctors pushing meds on people who dont need them is what you get with privatized healthcare.

[caervek]

Years ago, if a kid was bored and didn’t listen well in class, he was considered lazy, a daydreamer or perhaps a bit rambunctious. These days, he’s labeled with a mental disorder.

That's because science has improved and made it possible to recognise/diagnose said disorders.

When SPIEGEL asked Dr. Kagan if he actually thought ADHD was just an invention, he said –

“That’s correct; it is an invention.

So he has no faith in medical science, what's his doctorate in philosophy? lol.

[Templar 331]

It's fictitious for 90% of people who are diagnosed with ADHD, by your own rationale. Giving those people PG-rated cocaine isn't going to improve their mental health.

Title implied the disorder in it's entirety was "fictitious." I don't doubt that most on corrective drugs are misdiagnosed but the disorder itself is real.

[Spectral]

doctors pushing meds on people who dont need them is what you get with privatized healthcare.

It strikes me as unlikely that this has much to do with privatization. Doctors aren't receiving payment for prescribing drugs. I think this has much more to do with a culture of medicalization and a psychology being a discipline that has a shaky relationship with science.

[Deleted]

It's not fictitious, it's "quantising" which means identifying, labelling and assigning properties to an abstraction in order to make sense of it, just like we do with everything. If we invented it and it persists then it's because it fulfils a necessity.

Also you can't capitalise on lazy, you have to make sound really spoopy to grab people's attention.

[Deleted]

It's more comforting believing your offspring is only temporarily sick rather than be aware that it is simply worse than his better peers. That's why excuses are still used as defense mechanism.

[Machismo]

I'm going to go ahead and side with thousands of scientists, and not a natural food blogger... mmmkay.

As for the title, it's completely disingenuous. The fear that a disorder is overdiagnosed and medicated, is not the same as it being fictitious in any way.

[starlord]

It strikes me as unlikely that this has much to do with privatization. Doctors aren't receiving payment for prescribing drugs. I think this has much more to do with a culture of medicalization and a psychology being a discipline that has a shaky relationship with science.

yes they do get $.

A ProPublica analysis has found that doctors who receive payments from the medical industry do indeed prescribe drugs differently on average than their colleagues who don't. And the more money they receive, the more brand-name medications they tend to prescribe.

We matched records on payments from pharmaceutical and medical device makers in 2014 with corresponding data on doctors' medication choices in Medicare's prescription drug program.

Doctors who got money from drug and device makers prescribed a higher percentage of brand-name drugs overall than doctors who didn't, our analysis showed. Even those who simply got meals from companies prescribed more brand-name drugs, on average.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-s...me-prescribing

[Spectral]

yes they do get $.


http://www.npr.org/sections/health-s...me-prescribing

This doesn't contradict what I wrote, you've misunderstood it.

[TriHard]

I will agree that many do get diagnosed with ADHD that are not supposed to be diagnosed that way, thus they receive ritalin which is performance enhancing for normal people. But ADHD is in no way fictitious.

That is why so many students at the age of 18-23 buy ritalin for their exams, because they're gonna perform way better than the next guy. I had a friend who used to sell ritalin pills to students that asked, they gave him 300 NOK (35 dollars) per pill. It's a fairly common issue in Norway.



Also, doctors > psychologist. Parents probably realize that ritalin is going to enhance their ability to focus and perform better in school but what they don't realize is that in the long run, they'll cause brain injury. And there is a ton of side effects to worry about as well.

[starlord]

This doesn't contradict what I wrote, you've misunderstood it.

says right there that they recieve payments in order to encourage them to prescribe certain drugs.

[Total Crica]

doctors pushing meds on people who dont need them is what you get with privatized healthcare.

By that logic, everything that is for profit will generate only evil things. Are you saying all profit needs to be done away with for all things?

[starlord]

By that logic, everything that is for profit will generate only evil things. Are you saying all profit needs to be done away with?

no, simply saying that when it comes to healthcare being privatized, money is more important than what is best for the patient. hence vital life saving drugs being price gouged, and doctors recieving payments from companies to promote their drugs.

[Total Crica]

no, simply saying that when it comes to healthcare being privatized, money is more important than what is best for the patient. hence vital life saving drugs being price gouged, and doctors receiving payments from companies to promote their drugs.

Money is always more important in all things that generate profit, though. So why is it only evil for healthcare to generate profit? Who will work in healthcare if it DOESN'T profit them? Are you going to work in healthcare for free?

[Spectral]

says right there that they recieve payments in order to encourage them to prescribe certain drugs.

This does not contradict the claim that they do not receive payments for prescribing drugs.

Being concerned about drug company promotions is understandable and reasonable. It's a complicated issue that runs into questions of what the best way for doctors to be informed about new products is, but it's not at all the same thing as actually receiving payment for prescribing a drug.