From depression to anxiety and ADHD, more of us now suffer from mental health problems and need pills to treat them — or so we’re told.
Boys will be boys. But when they are, their risk of being falsely diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) becomes increasingly high, according to a recent report by The New York Times (NYT).
According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control, a staggering 6.4 million American children between the ages of 4 and 17 have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), whose key symptoms are inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity—characteristics that most would consider typically childish behavior. High school boys, an age group particularly prone to childish antics and drifting attention spans, are particularly prone to being labeled as ADHD, with one out of every five high school boys diagnosed with the disorder.
More than a decade after a national scandal regarding the over-prescription of Ritalin and similar drugs to millions of American children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now reports a far higher rate of diagnosis than a decade ago.
An astounding 19 percent of high school-age boys – ages 14 to 17 – in the U.S. have been diagnosed with ADHD and about 10 percent are taking medication for it. Ten percent of high school-age girls have likewise been diagnosed.
Within the last two decades the field of psychiatry has mushroomed from a fringe body of Sigmund Freud admirers to a mainstream player in the field of medical pharmacology, largely because of an unseemly union between that profession and the drug industry, leading to the creation of many never before known disease states and profitable ways to exploit those alleged diseases with psychiatric services and drugs.