ADHD is a hoax perpetrated by the psychiatric-pharmaceutical alliance. There is no biological condition ‘ADHD’. Some children are, it is true, more impulsive and less able to concentrate than others. This may be due to a whole myriad of reasons. A key factor, it turns out, is simply that in any one school class there may be children who are one year younger than others. Multiple studies have shown that these children are more likely to be “diagnosed” as ‘ADHD’. Other studies link cohorts of ‘ADHD children’ statistically to genetic malformations. I don’t for one moment doubt these studies; but all they say is that in some cases of impulsivity there may be a link to genetic issues. The links are not especially strong. In terms of “treatment” for this fake condition, even though the evidence, even from studies obviously designed to favour drugging fail to produce convincing evidence for drugging over behavioural interventions, it seems that drugging remains the “treatment” option of choice. All of the drugs carry substantial risks, for very little benefit. Most “benefits”, on analysis, turn out not to be actual medical benefits at all, but modification of behaviours which are inconvenient for adults. ADHD misappropriates medical language of symptoms and treatment for its programme of behaviour modification by drugs. In my paper I contend that it is likely that the main action of efficacy of the drugs is that they exhaust children and thus make them more subdued. This, entirely negative, even cruel, effect is then presented as a “reduction in symptoms”.
Some years ago I wrote a paper analysing the ADHD narrative in the UK. I looked at some of the key studies used to promote false claims about ADHD. I analysed the official NICE paper on ADHD, produced by a leading ADHD psychiatrist and found it full of manipulations and subterfuge. I haven’t followed more recent developments but I don’t think anything essential has changed, except a) there is a new movement for adults to get themselves ‘diagnosed’ as ‘ADHD’ which, at least gives them subsidised and legal access to stimulant drugs and b) a massive increase in children being ‘diagnosed’. This latter probably reflects i) a change in social attitudes towards being labelled ‘special needs’, ii) social security benefits are payable for ‘ADHD’ as well as special benefits in schools *. Together both developments represent an extraordinary success story for pharma marketing.
* According to today’s Daily Mail benefits spending on ADHD “has shot up from just £700,000 a year in 2013 to an astonishing £292 million today, a rise of more than 41,000 per cent.” [1] It is worth pointing out that even if we accepted something called ‘ADHD’ as being a real condition, in most cases it is no more than a very mild disability. It doesn’t, for example, require specialist equipment. People with an ADHD diagnosis (except those who also have moderate or profound learning difficulties, which is a separate matter) do not require specialist care. Indeed it is not even clear why any benefits at all are paid for ADHD.
Notes
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14118861/Keir-Starmer-benefits-welfare-country-working.html