Does ADHD — Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder — really exist?
It’s well known that private clinics have a relaxed attitude towards diagnosing ADHD, something which has become increasingly common.
Part of the reason may be because private clinics can make a lot of money from diagnosing private fee-paying patients with what was once a condition confined to children who had difficulty in paying attention in class. The problem is that ADHD seems to be contagious, now spreading into adult populations. Some clinics, contracted to manage the overflow from an overloaded NHS are willing to prescribe powerful stimulant drugs.
The problem is… the ADHD treatment programme is based on two false assumptions. The first — ADHD exists, and the second — there is a testable diagnosis, which in truth, there isn’t.
The ADHD lobby has become powerful. Part of the reason for this is that it’s cheaper to prescribe a few overpriced pills than it is to send patients for psychotherapy. Officially, ADHD can’t be cured, only ‘treated’. Thus the ‘industry’ creates patients who will be reliant on lifelong prescriptions.
As for the drug companies, they are only too happy to fete doctors with lavish perks. For example, in 2012, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was fined almost £2 billion after admitting bribing doctors and encouraging the prescription of unsuitable antidepressants to children. GSK treated doctors to lavish holidays in Bermuda, Jamaica and California. All the doctors have to do in return is keep writing prescriptions.
Parents (and some teachers) are also to blame. Parents want their child’s problems to have a medical cause rather than admit their little darling is simply lazy and disinterested. Some parents even welcome an ADHD diagnosis because it means their wonderful offspring is ‘special’. Parents often also get financial benefits from the state if their child has ADHD.
ADHD ‘sufferers’ are only too happy to take the pills that relieve them of any responsibility for their bad behaviour. The NHS website provides a convenient list of behavioural symptoms — all of which can with a little practice be imitated on demand:
- having a short attention span or being easily distracted
- making careless mistakes, for example, in schoolwork
- being forgetful or losing things
- being unable to stick to tasks that are tedious or time-consuming
- appearing to be unable to listen to or carry out instruction
- being unable to sit still, especially in calm or quiet surroundings
- constant fidgeting or excessive talking
- being unable to wait their turn
- acting without thinking
- interrupting other’s conversations
Hands up all those who have not indulged themselves in some of these behaviours at some time in their lives…
One of the problems with diagnosing ADHD is that it covers such a broad range of common behaviours, including children who are just wilful and obstinate caused by bad parenting, or are lazy because their school or teachers are as disinterested as they are, or because they are being taught that they are the wrong gender.
ADHD represents a huge convenience for everyone concerned — children, parents, schools, health services — because it provides an easy and convenient solution to a complex problem. It shuts down debate on the subject. ADHD means it’s not our kid’s addiction to their phones and social media, or their disinterested parents… no! It’s ADHD! Just keep giving us more pills!
Making sure your kids get the attention they need and deserve and making sure they get proper sleep and enough outdoor activities is the tried and tested solution that’s been around for centuries. Lifelong prescriptions are not the answer.
The comparatively small minority of children that actually do have something wrong with them are fed drugs that in reality are nothing more than a chemical cosh, while their real problems are ignored because it’s cheaper and more convenient to give them drugs. Because of this insanity, our children remain untreated and an ADHD diagnosis excuses parents — and teachers, and the government — responsibility.
Hundreds of thousands of children in the UK, some as young as five, are being ‘medicated’ for ADHD with methylphenidate, a drug similar to amphetamines. In America, the number is between six and seven million, many of whom are four years old, are being given actual amphetamines. These drugs are illegal in any other circumstances. And now we have all these pills, medical research into ADHD has ceased. Amphetamines are a stimulant and aphrodisiac known to have bad long-term side-effects. Among methylphenidate’s sideeffects are tachycardia (a fast heart rate), palpitations, headaches, nausea, insomnia, anxiety, weight loss and abdominal pain.
In 1998, America’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) held a ‘Consensus Conference’ on ADHD in an effort to agree exactly what constitutes ADHD and how to treat it. Since the conference, the information has mysteriously disappeared from the NIH’s own website, but the actual wording of the NIH statement was:
“We do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there is no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction. Further research to establish the validity of the disorder continues to be a problem”.
Since the conference, a less direct wording has been substituted:
“…as of yet, there is no independent valid test for ADHD. Although research has suggested a central nervous system basis for ADHD, further research is necessary to firmly establish ADHD as a brain disorder.’
So why then, do doctors continue to prescribe potent drugs, which act physically on the brain, to supposed sufferers???
Since 1998, some bright spark, probably working for one of the big pharmaceutical companies, came up with the stroke of genius that adults, too, can be included in the belief that a pill will make their lives more bearable.