Why would Eisenberg claim that a condition we’ve come to know so well is mainly fictitious? While numerous have said that Eisenberg’s statement is extremely exaggerated, it ends up that various doctors are discovering definitive proof that ADHD is being “over-diagnosed” due to unreliable diagnostic techniques.
Attention deficit disorder, or ADHD, “is a prime example of fictitious illness,” said Leon Eisenberg, the “scientific dad of ADHD,” shortly prior to he passed away at the age of 87 in 2009.
As Jerome Kagan, a leading specialist in child development states: ” Let’s go back 50 years. We have a 7-year-old kid who is tired in school and disrupts classes. Back then, he was called lazy. Today, he is said to struggle with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) … Every kid who’s not doing well in school is sent to see a pediatrician, and the pediatrician says: “It’s ADHD; here’s Ritalin.” In truth, 90 percent of these 5.4 million kids don’t have an irregular dopamine metabolism. The issue is, if a drug is available to doctors, they’ll make the matching medical diagnosis.”
Lisa Cosgrove, an American psychologist, highlights in her research study “Financial Ties between DSM-IV Panel Members and the Pharmaceutical Industry” that 100 percent of members on the panels of ‘Mood Disorders’ and ‘Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders’ have ties to pharmaceutical business. The assistant director of the Pediatric Psychopharmacology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who had more than $1 million in incomes from drug companies from 2000 to 2007, is just one example.
And, when we take a look at the quantity of loan the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent in 2004 on sales promo (24 percent of sales) versus what does it cost? they invested in investigating and establishing their drugs (13.4 percent), it becomes apparent that selling their drugs is even more essential than the drug itself.
Today in the U.S., one from every 10 young boys aged 10 years old takes some type of medication for ADHD per day. And as this number continues to increase, those with stakes in the pharmaceutical industry continue to earn money.
So, we could ask, are these drugs even safe? Negative effects noted on antidepressant black-box warnings are as follows: confusion, hallucinations, hostility, suicidal ideation, loss of awareness, manic reactions, feeling drunk, misconceptions, bloodthirsty ideation, alcohol abuse, among others.
Would you ever provide your kids these drugs? Do you think anyone well-informed would?