Tag Archives: ADD

The United States of Adderall

Since 1996 the annual amount of Ritalin type drugs approved for production by the DEA multiplied 4000 times to 50 million kilograms, and for Adderall 10000 times to 26 million kilograms. In more common terms, 83,776 tons of legal speed were approved for production in 2010 equaling more than half a pound for every man, woman and child in America.

The U.S. is a signatory to a 1972 United Nations treaty monitoring the production and sale of potentially addicting substances. The U.N.’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) based in Vienna, monitors the production of legal stimulants worldwide. INCB data shows that in 2009 the U.S., representing 4 percent of the world’s population, produced 88 percent of the world’s legal Ritalin type drugs. Canada uses a third per capita of prescription stimulants compared to the U.S. — Germany, one eighth, the U.K. one twelfth, Japan, one fiftieth.

Would Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn be diagnosed mentally ill and drugged?

Imagine if the beloved young characters in Mark Twain’s classic, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” lived today. Based on current psychiatric criteria, Tom and Huck could be designated mentally ill and prescribed mind-altering drugs. Quiet, listless and numb, their legendary adventures would be over.

Describing a day in school, Twain wrote: “The harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his ideas wandered.” His “heart ached to be free, or else to have something of interest to do to pass the dreary time.” That’s a text book so-called symptom of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). A teacher today could refer him to a psychiatrist who would dope him with stimulants. Yet like any typical boy, Tom had no trouble focusing attention on something he found interesting – like finding a hidden treasure.

Tom’s friend Huckleberry might fare worse. An avowed non-conformist, a psychiatric checklist could tag him with ODD – oppositional defiant disorder. And having run away from an abusive father, Huck would land in the hands of Child Protective Services who would sedate him on psychoactive drugs subsidized by government funds.

Although no brain scan, blood test or x-ray had been done, the psych doctors would claim the boys’ mental illness stemmed from a neurobiological disorder involving chemical imbalances in the brain, probably hereditary.

DSM 5 Will Further Inflate The ADD Bubble

We are already in the midst of a false epidemic of ADD. Rates in kids that were 3-5% when DSM IV was published in 1994 have now jumped to 10%. In part this came from changes in DSM IV, but most of the inflation was caused by a marketing blitz to practitioners that accompanied new on-patent drugs amplified by new regulations that also allowed direct to consumer advertising to parents and teachers. In a sensible world, DSM 5 would now offer much tighter criteria for ADD and much clearer advice on the steps needed in its differential diagnosis. This would push back ,however feebly, against the skilled and well financed drug company sell. DSM 5 should work hard to improve its text, not play carelessly with the ADD criteria in a way that may unleash a whole set of dreadful unintended consequences- unneeded medication, stigma, lowered expectations, misallocation of resources, and contribution to the illegal secondary market peddling stimulants for recreation or performance enhancement.

The DSM 5 child and adolescent work group has perversely gone just the other way. It proposes to make an already far too easy diagnosis much looser.

Psychiatric disease labeling of children exposed as scam by non-profit group

Child drugging has been a huge profitable market for Big Pharma, earning them $4.8 billion dollars a year. They have done everything in their power to convince the press, legislators and especially parents why children need to be put on drugs. They claim that ADD/ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, etc., are medical conditions, and consider them on par with cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. But in reality there is no actual evidence that proves that psychiatric disorders are indeed medical conditions. They simply diagnose a child by using a behavioral checklist.

There are 20 million children in the United States who have been diagnosed with some kind of psychiatric disorder and drugged for it. It’s practically an epidemic. Innocent children are being turned into patients for simply acting like kids.

Psychiatric disease labeling of children exposed as scam by non-profit group

Child drugging has been a huge profitable market for Big Pharma, earning them $4.8 billion dollars a year. They have done everything in their power to convince the press, legislators and especially parents why children need to be put on drugs. They claim that ADD/ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, etc., are medical conditions, and consider them on par with cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. But in reality there is no actual evidence that proves that psychiatric disorders are indeed medical conditions. They simply diagnose a child by using a behavioral checklist.

There are 20 million children in the United States who have been diagnosed with some kind of psychiatric disorder and drugged for it. It’s practically an epidemic. Innocent children are being turned into patients for simply acting like kids.