Quote From: tammy_anneADD/ADHD is a controversial topic in that some contend that it does not exsist and some contend that it does. The reson it is so controversial is that they have not done enough research, to determine the exact causes of, what the medical profession terms, Attention deficit disorder.
What the scientist have been able to determine thus far in their research is,that ADD is nerobiological in basis, and possibly genetics.
They have also concluded that Hyper activity in children may be a result of excessive slow wave or theta activity in the brain.
They have also found that children that have been properly diagnosed with ADD/ADHD have lower levels of lower levels of Dopamine, a nerotransmitter involved with the mental and emotional functioning.
Neroimaging has also shown that there are differences between children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD most significanlty in the pre frontal cortex.
They have found that children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD have smaller brains most notably in the pre frontal cortex, and cerebellum.
These children also dispaly maladative behaviors that clearly show they are not functioning on a level of a child who is developing normaly.
These scientists, Doctors, and researchers clearly see that there is an abnormality, an abnormality is present.
I certainly am not going to write out a thesis, these are just some of the facts, that they have been able to determine.
Proof is being demanded, well they are working on it. that does not change the fact that there is an abnormality and that it is serious, and is affecting the quality of life of many individuals and families.
The first case of ADD was medically diagnosed way back in 1902, this is not a new issue, it has only recently within the past few years had more recognition becaue of the media.
Saying something does not exist because someone not convinced is foolish.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
- Herbert Spencer
If these men and women stop the research and turn their backs, saying there is not a problem, many children and familys will suffer for that foolish notion that if we ignor it it does not exist.
Do I think that there is no potential of misdiagnosing, over medicating, or unethical practices by some professionals. Absolutly not, but that does not change the fact that many of these professionals are practicing ethicaly, and doing much needed research, and treating and diagnosing their patients correctly.
Trying to beat scientific facts and research into submission with religious connotation is ridiculous. Making a broad statement that individuals don't need medication to restore them to a state of health, because the one saying it is healthy, is misguided
You are blessed that you are healthy and have no need for medications, however for many many individuals they are not so blessed. You can not use your own health and well being as an example as to why ill individuals should not take medication.
I most certainly am open to a healthy debate, but arguing and debating are two very diferent things.
Possibly, may be, all are phrases that seem to crop up a lot with this argument for these so-called diseases.
It can be stated, categorically, that no DSM condition/psychiatric entity is an actual disease and, this being the case there is not only justification for withholding drugs, there exists no medical justification for giving one. More importantly, nowhere in the medical-scientific literature of the world is there an article describing a characteristic, confirming physical abnormality making any single psychiatric entity/condition a disease. Anyone saying any psychological or psychiatric entity is a disorder/disease/chemical imbalance of the brain or body is lying or is ignorant of science. The burden of proof, in medicine, lies with the professional saying a disease is present, that medical treatment is needed, not with those asking for proof. Those who would treat must tell the truth regarding such things to meet the right to informed consent of the patient/family/guardian.
Throughout Medical Dispatch: What’s Normal? The difficulty of diagnosing bipolar disorder in children (Jerome Groopman, The New Yorker, April 9, 2007) we encounter suggestions that bipolar disorder, ADHD, and all psychiatric conditions/diagnoses, are actual diseases having confirming gross, microscopic or chemical abnormalities. We read: “serious psychiatric illness,” ‘“hugely familial,”’ “bipolar disease, particularly its biological basis,” and other such fictions.
Moreover, psychiatrists speak of “chemical imbalances” and of psychiatric disorders as diseases “as surely as diabetes, cancer, and epilepsy.”
Groopman is a professor of medicine at Harvard, from whence so much psychiatric “disease” diagnosis and “treatment” emanates. He knows as well as I, a neurologist, that all physicians—psychiatrists included, go to medical school primarily to learn of (1) all things normal (anatomy, microscopy, physiology and chemistry), (2) all things abnormal (pathology, disease), and, (3) how to tell the difference.
Groopman and the professors of psychiatry he interviewed--Hyman, Biederman, Wozniac (Harvard), Papolos, Geller, and others, know perfectly well, that despite contrived illusions of neurology, biology and disease in psychiatry, there are no such things, only subjective symptoms.
Four-year-old Rebecca Riley of Hull, Massachusetts, was said to have died from clonidine, administered by her parents--both charged with murder. However, the clonidine was part of a drug “cocktail” prescribed by the child psychiatrist who so implausibly diagnosed her with BD and ADHD at 2 ½ years of age, prescribing Seroquel and Depakote in addition to the clonidine—none deemed “safe and effective” for children her age. What of the culpability of all who contrived to make this normal, disease-free child into a “patient” and then poison her, for profit? What of the 364 deaths in Georgia’s state mental hospitals from January, 2002 through mid-December 2006.
In Congressional testimony, in 2003, pediatrician, William B. Carey testified that 17% of US schoolchildren--8.5 million--were on one or more psychiatric drugs. Calling psychiatric conditions “diseases” making “patients” of millions of normals, nationwide, and drugging them, is the biggest healthcare fraud in history.
