ADHD

A former pharma executive has broken ranks with the industry in a new book by reporting how multiple psychiatrists, schools, and his desperate hopes pressed him to allow higher and higher doses of antipsychotic medications. The result: his 15-year-old son's death from Seroquel.

In former times, children who were routinely inattentive and impulsive were considered to be in need of training and discipline. By and large, school teachers and parents provided this. In fact, the training was usually provided before the matter even became an issue. Today these children are spuriously and arbitrarily labeled as ill, and are given pills. At the present time the pharma-psychiatric system is being widely exposed as the spurious, destructive, disempowering fraud that it is. Organized psychiatry is responding to these criticisms not by cleaning up its act, but instead by increasing its lobbying activity in the political arena.

Canadian researchers systematically reviewed all randomized controlled trials of second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) and placebo in the treatment of disruptive behavior disorders in children, finding...

“No, cortisol in hair can’t ‘reveal future mental health risk’ in children.” HealthNewsReview gives a low rating to a recent story in the Guardian that reported that cortisol levels in children’s hair might be a useful mental health screening tool.

From Curious Mind Magazine: Jerome Kagan, one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, believes that the diagnosis of ADHD is a mere...

A recent New York Times front-page story about ADHD care gone awry concluded with disturbing quotes from a an information session that was held in Norfolk, VA last October. “ADD and Loving It?!” was sponsored by Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD)—the leading advocacy group for ADHD. The story raises questions our country’s love affair with ADHD by detailing the tragic death of an aspiring medical student from the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area who became addicted to ADHD drugs.

Greater perceptions of discrimination during adolescence are linked to more depressive and internalizing symptoms.

About 65% of preschool children who were diagnosed with ADHD and given stimulant drugs were still taking those drugs six years later.

At the risk of stating the obvious, ADHD is not an illness. Rather, it is an unreliable and disempowering label for a loose collection of arbitrarily chosen and vaguely defined behaviors. ADHD has been avidly promoted as an illness by pharma-psychiatry for the purpose of selling stimulant drugs. In which endeavor, they have been phenomenally successful, but, as in other areas of psychiatry, the hoax is unraveling.

In just two decades, pointing out the pseudoscience of the DSM has gone from being an “extremist slur of radical anti-psychiatrists” to a mainstream proposition from the former chairs of both the DSM-3 and DSM-4 taskforces and the director of NIMH. In addition to the pathologizing of normal behaviors, another explanation for the epidemic — the adverse effects of psychiatric medications — is also evolving from radical to mainstream, thanks primarily to the efforts of Robert Whitaker and his book Anatomy of an Epidemic. While diagnostic expansionism and Big Pharma certainly deserve a large share of the blame for this epidemic, there is another reason.

Race often determines whether school punishment or therapy and drugs will be used to address children’s problem behaviors.

The American public has come to view ADHD drug treatment as a rather benign option for common behavioral and academic issues. A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that 14% of American children receive a diagnosis of ADHD before the end of childhood. Rates of diagnosis and treatment vary by geographic region. In some communities rates of treatment are much higher than the national average. By most any reasonable measure, the number of children who are medicated under the guise of ADHD is out of bounds. Current levels of ADHD drug treatment are unsafe for individuals and society.

University of Toronto and Princeton University researchers take to Bloomberg View to discuss the findings from their large-scale, long-term study of ADHD and medicating...

The Mental Health Review blog discusses several studies comparing neurofeedback to placebo for ‘ADHD.’ “Many parents are being told that neurofeedback will ‘cure’ ‘ADHD’...

The Melbourne Herald Sun reports that "The prescription of some atypical antipsychotics has more than doubled . . . Psychiatrist Dr George Halasz who has been vocal about...

Two experts—a leading neuroscientist studying OCD, and a psychiatrist specializing in OCD treatment—question whether expensive brain imaging research has added anything to the treatment of OCD.

A YouTube video called “Drugs for Kids” takes a rather tongue-in-cheek approach to the overmedication and overdiagnosis of kids. Studies reveal a correlation between how young...

Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (Tf-CBT) is effective at reducing the symptoms associated with PTSD in children and adolescents, according to a new trial out...

At Alternet, Jay Syrmopoulos of The Free Thought Project discusses new research on the use of medical marijuana as a treatment for ADHD within the context of the ongoing debate over the validity of the ADHD diagnosis.

I urge parents, doctors, educators and everyone concerned with the well-being of children to take a look at the debate on ADHD presented in the Times. The series of articles makes it clear that the hard line separating ADHD-like behavior from normal childhood reactions to environmental stress or normal developmental phases is beginning to soften. The number of ADHD diagnoses in the United Sates has exploded by 300 percent since 1983.

Over the past twenty years, the number of prescriptions for atypical antipsychotics written to children and young adults between four and eighteen has increased...

Lancet Psychiatry, a UK-based medical journal, recently published a study that concluded brain scans showed that individuals diagnosed with ADHD had smaller brains. That conclusion is belied by the study data. The journal needs to retract this study. UPDATE: Lancet Psychiatry (online) has published letters critical of the study, and the authors' response, and a correction.

Consumer Reports, looking at an analysis of more than 400 studies of ADHD medications, concludes that the apparent benefits of the drugs wear off...

8% of major league baseball players have been diagnosed with ADHD (double the rate in the general population) and prescribed stimulants; medications which are...

For Philly.com, staff writer Stacey Burling reports on the PolicyLab analysis of psychiatric drug use among Pennsylvania children on Medicaid.  “Many children in foster...