On 15 July, the Evening Show on Danish national TV, funded by taxpayers, had invited a patient who was happy for her ADHD diagnosis and felt the drug she took had changed her life, and a psychiatrist, Anne Philipsen.
It was a “feeling good together” performance with no criticism whatsoever, but with numerous false statements by Philipsen. She said that we know that 5% of the population have ADHD; that you are born with ADHD and die with ADHD; no one outgrows ADHD when they mature; if people stop with their drug, the symptoms will return; and huge overweight is related to untreated ADHD.
Moreover, she said that in 80% of people with untreated ADHD, this results in one or more disorders, e.g. depression which can cause suicide, anxiety, stress, OCD, overeating, abuse of drugs and alcohol, food, gambling, everything, and accidents.
The worst part was when Philipsen said that a “very, very good Danish study” had shown that patients with an ADHD diagnosis die five years earlier if they do not receive medication.
Since this is extremely unlikely and I couldn’t find any such study, I wrote to the clinic where Philipsen works and asked where I could find it. Her practice manager replied that the source was S. Kooij, Adult ADHD: Diagnostic Assessment and Treatment, 2022.
I replied that it is a book and asked where the Danish study was published. I sent two reminders, but Philipsen did not reply. I therefore sent a complaint to Danish TV, which issued a correction on 23 September:
“It has not been possible for the editors to provide the necessary documentation for statements in the broadcast on 15 July this year. In the ‘Evening Show’ on 15 July 2024, one of the topics was ‘life with ADHD’, where the psychiatrist in the study points out that a ‘very fine Danish study’ concludes that children who do not receive ADHD medication live five years shorter than those receiving medication. It has not been possible for the editors to provide the necessary documentation for the precise statement afterwards, which is why the viewer is left with a false impression.
Correction: There is no evidence for making such an unequivocal statement and/or referring to a Danish study. Other experts point out that a Swedish study shows that correct medication can reduce the risk of premature death.
However, certain fundamental methodological caveats are made in the study, which means that one cannot exclusively conclude that the reduction in the risk of premature death is due to the medication. The study was conducted on the basis of 150,000 Swedish patients with ADHD receiving medical treatment for the disease. Read more here. The study is also discussed in ‘Ugeskrift for Læger’ here.”
Before they issued a correction, I had warned Danish TV that the Swedish study is unreliable:
“The article cannot even be used as evidence that you live shorter with an ADHD diagnosis if you do not receive ADHD medication. The methods are far too uncertain for that. I won’t bother you with the details, but will just mention that the authors themselves draw attention to it:
‘Several limitations should be considered. First, due to the observational nature, these results cannot conclusively establish causal effects of ADHD medication treatment on mortality risk because unmeasured confounders, such as lifestyle factors, could contribute to the associations.’
In plain Danish: The two groups are not comparable at all. Those who do not take medicine have a worse prognosis than those who do as the doctor says. This has been proven in countless studies, and they therefore live longer. It is a very elementary source of error that advanced statistical methods cannot adjust for, even if the authors tried hard.
‘It is also crucial to recognize that the treatment for ADHD involves more than just taking medication; it often includes various aspects of care, including social engagement and support. These nonmedication components may also affect the treatment outcomes. Therefore, the observed lower mortality may not be entirely accounted for by the medication per se.’
You care more for those who are on drugs and come more often for control visits at the doctor’s office.”
In the Danish Medical Association Journal, the Swedish study was unduly praised by child and adolescent psychiatrist Per Hove Thomsen, who is on industry payroll and also believes that depression drugs protect children against suicide even though they double the risk.
Thomsen claimed that ADHD drugs effectively reduce core symptoms of ADHD and lower the risk of crime and involvement in traffic accidents, which is not correct. He furthermore opined that “The study has great clinical significance, as we know that compliance with medical treatment among ADHD patients is low. The study emphasises the necessity of well-planned psychoeducation and help for retention in the medical treatment.”
The pervasive lies in psychiatry are just overwhelming, which the Evening Show illustrated.
Dear Dr. Gotsche, yes to all that you’ve written.
I don’t understand why, though, when you look at the DSM criteria for ADHD, which pretty much applies to every single one of us at some point in our lives, why ADHD continues to exist as a diagnosis. Especially taking into account the risks of not only the meds but also the derailing of a person’s self-perception and therefore their life, once they’re convinced by a doctor that they have ADHD or have self-diagnosed themselves.
And I’m just wondering if this statement – ‘she said that in 80% of people with untreated ADHD, this results in one or more disorders, e.g. depression which can cause suicide, anxiety, stress, OCD, overeating, abuse of drugs and alcohol, food, gambling, everything, and accidents’ with its inclusion of the word ‘everything’ was intentional or a Freudian slip. Taking into account that so many diagnoses are either so vague or so all-encompassing that it’s a fairly easy task to find one to suit one’s needs, ‘everything’ seems appropriate.
I don’t understand how even applying ‘advanced statistical methods’ to data can end up saying anything other than ‘some people do, some people don’t; sometimes yes, sometimes no’ with greater percentages on one side than on the other. It’s nice and neat to be able to put things into categories but when you apply that type of thinking to an individual’s life, it strikes me it’s limited and limiting. And causes most of the nightmare we call the mental health system.
I know this is naive of me but when I look at the damage caused by using the scientific method in areas of human behaviour – e.g. this particular psychiatrist obviously studied psychology in all its various permutations, believed a whole bunch of research, rats & stats etc. – I wonder how on earth intelligent people can believe this stuff and act accordingly. Especially when that ‘acting accordingly’ allows for forced medications, forced hospitalisation, people’s lives being ruined by spending their entire lives in the mental health system when, in most cases, what’s happening within them is usually a totally normal response to life’s awfulness, is transient, will pass in time if treated well.
With respect, Karen Adler
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What’s really awful is that none of those things that “untreated ADHD” supposedly leads to are changed by stimulant “treatment!”
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“The pervasive lies in psychiatry are just overwhelming,” yes they are. As a former marketing major I was taught false advertising is illegal. If we lived in a world where the rule of law was abided by, I think pretty much all big Pharma advertisers of psych drugs and psychiatrists spewing their “chemical imbalance” lies, and other lies, should be arrested for false advertising.
Although, in reality, any “medical professional” who prescribes the antidepressants and/or antipsychotics should probably be arrested for worse crimes against humanity, given how dangerous and deadly the psych drugs actually are … and since all doctors were all taught in med school about anticholinergic toxidrome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome
Although oddly, but conveniently for the psychiatric industry, anticholinergic toxidrome is not even mentioned in their “invalid” DSM “bible.”
Thank you, as always, for speaking the truth, Dr. Peter.
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Ref: ‘Is Psychiatry A Crime Against Society’? Professor Peter C. Gotzsche. 2024.
Page 150.
“The public expects a medical specialty to be an honest purveyor of scientific findings about the benefits and harms of its interventions, and if the trial results tell of treatments that WORSEN* long term out-comes, then the medical speciality must inform the public about it and rethink its practices”.
* (In italics in published text).
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I’ve noticed that when ADHD is the discussion, the discussion is generally rife with falsehoods in every direction. And how could it not be? ADHD is no longer an ‘individual’s particular’ challenges surrounding attention-for a million different reasons, it’s a runaway depoliticized narrative whole societies have internalized as an actual medical and scientific reality; rather than, for example, a ‘syndrome’ with a myriad of causes, influences, factors, misnomers, attributional errors, solutions, advantages, etc., etc. When I think of ADHD and peoples attempts to understand and or navigate their particular scenarios of attention-behavioral related challenges, I am reminded of a poignant scene in a movie that depicted people in Mid Evil Europe desperately seeking “indulgences” from the Catholic Church, thus granting them salvation (ergo meaning, ontic and existential peace of mind, deliverance, etc.). I make this rather outlandish comparison because I regard todays mental health experts and the ‘uncritically misinformed professionals’ (teachers, et al) who obtusely prop up the ADHD narrative, effectively peddling the same level of BS the Catholic Church peddled 500 years ago.
The ADHD narrative has ballooned so far from its origin story, and morphed into a runaway cultural phenomenon, that this abysmal 4 letter acronym means everything and nothing at the same time. It’s weaponized in marginalized homes and communities as a disciplinary tool, advantageously leveraged in secure and privileged homes and communities, glorified in public spaces like the Evening Show Dr. Gotzsche depicts here, and valorized by a myriad unlikely disparate sectors/actors whose revisionist reframing’s are gratuitously unmoored from critical thinking and the very fundamental attributions associated with ADHD itself (the list is long here, but one example is the diagnosing of Albert Einstein and many other historical luminaries as ADHD).
Well, as someone who was recklessly and egregiously diagnosed ADHD 57 years ago, I know firsthand that pills don’t fix anything, however they do make some people feel better or otherwise give the diagnosing persons’ a sense of having improved various social conditions. As someone who experienced the gratuitous maleficent use of the ADHD narrative over half a century ago, I sure hope what was systematically ignored and abetted through my ADHD maldiagnosis, isn’t being systematically ignored and abetted “at scale” by todays exponential diagnosing of ADHD… For if it is remotely similar, there may be a nasty collision up ahead.
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Thomsen claimed that ADHD drugs effectively reduce core symptoms of ADHD and lower the risk of crime and involvement in traffic accidents, which is not correct. He furthermore opined that “The study has great clinical significance, as we know that compliance with medical treatment among ADHD patients is low. The study emphasises the necessity of well-planned psychoeducation and help for retention in the medical treatment.”
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The phrase “help for retention is the medical treatment” is unsettling. I’m worried that Thomsen is hinting at compulsory prescription.
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“Reduce the core symptoms” is code for “doesn’t make any difference in long-term outcomes.” In “ADHD”, “reducing the core symptoms” simply means making the person less fidgety and more willing to sit through dull or unmotivating exercises. Stimulants, of course, will do this for anyone who takes them. While this might be viewed as helpful for some who take the stimulants, the idea that this is somehow a “treatment” for a “disorder” is delusional.
There is some evidence that accidents may be reduced, but crime involvement is not reduced by stimulants according to my research. They CERTAINLY do not die 5 years earlier on the average!!!
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