ADHD

ADHD is an invented category of psychiatry. It is possible to find statisical correlations between people with the label, and various factors including genetic abnormalities. This does not make “ADHD a genetic diseease”. Multiple studies have also shown correlation between age in class and an ADHD diagnosis, supporting the view that ‘ADHD’ is chiefly related to parent and teacher expectations. Because ADHD is not, in fact, a disease, there is no diagnostic test for it, such as identifying a virus in the blood stream of someone infected with measles is a diagnostic test. Diagnosis is thus made based on a behaviour checklist with heavy reliance on parent and teacher observations. In such a case it is not hard to see how whether or not a child “has ADHD” is determined more by the strength of desire of the parents to obtain a diagnosis than anything else. The reason there is a false pseudo-medical discourse about “disease” and “symptoms” is to sell drugs. The main drugs used to “treat” ADHD are stimulants. Stimulants do indeed improve concentration and so, if researchers try hard enough they can produce studies where parents will report improved behaviour, (which is falsely described as a “reduction in symptoms”). But there is no credible explanation of causal pathway. Most likely children dosed on stimulants concentrate slightly more in class in the day time and are shattered on a stimulant come down in the evening, and thus run about less at home, leading both teachers and parents to see an “improvment”. There are surprisingly few studies done on assessing long-term harms. Such is the story of ADHD. This paper, while written a few years ago, provides a definitive critique of the ADHD narrative in the UK.