Decoding Psychiatric Propaganda
http://groups.msn.com/psychbusters
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Ritalin Nation
Telegraph, UK
Filed: 16/10/2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/16/nadhd116.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/16/ixnewstop.html
<Excerpt>There are no medical tests for ADHD and adults are evaluated
on a range of factors, including their childhood behavioural history
and questionnaires asking if they suffer from restlessness, lack of
organisation and poor time management. Or, as critics of the growing
ADHD "industry" put it, reasonably normal behaviour.
Professor Peter Hill, an adolescent psychiatrist and ADHD specialist,
believes that the explosion in the number of adults seeking medical
treatment for these "symptoms" is in danger of changing the view of the
condition. "Most of my patients do not continue their symptoms into
adulthood, and very few require medication beyond adolescence," he
says.
"ADHD is a developmental condition that gets better as you get older
and I think it is terribly important to stress that. The American
concept is to see it as something that never goes away, but I do not
think that is the case and I have seen no evidence to support that
theory."
Others in the medical profession go even farther, expressing deep
scepticism about the very existence of ADHD as a medical condition.
Some liken the rise of Ritalin to that of Prozac, the wonder drug of
the 1980s and 1990s that was supposed to bring medicated peace to
millions of depressed minds. Only later did studies link the drug to
suicide and violence, charges that Eli Lilly, its manufacturer,
continues to reject.
Dr Sami Timimi, an adolescent psychiatrist based in Lincolnshire and a
campaigner against the use of drugs for behavioural disorders, says the
medical treatment of anti-social behaviour is "a scandal", with adult
ADHD fast becoming a "new social health fad".
"During the 1990s, we saw melancholy and the normal ups and downs of
everyday life increasingly diagnosed as clinical depression, and taking
Prozac was considered a trendy and easy way of dealing with emotions
like unhappiness and anxiety," he says.
"If Ritalin, which is chemically similar to speed, continues to be
prescribed for adults who feel they are a bit disorganised, it will
become a lifestyle drug for perfectly healthy adults who want an extra
hand with the growing demands of daily life.
"ADHD does not exist in children and certainly doesn't exist in adults.
Mood swings, forgetfulness and disorganisation are common behavioural
patterns in every human being and it is ludicrous that they are now
being diagnosed as symptoms for a medical condition."
Dr Timimi believes that an increased awareness and acceptance of adult
ADHD provides some doctors with the opportunity to raise their profile
and help them secure funding from drugs companies eager to get a
foothold in the British market.
"This so-called condition is new territory for psychiatrists who can
make a name for themselves through labelling and medicating people's
problems, instead of investigating the real root causes and considering
alternative treatment, such as therapy," he says. "Doctors who
prescribe drugs in these situations give scientific legitimacy for
pharmacological solutions to life's normal stresses, and research
grants from drug companies are more likely to go to those doctors than
to the sceptical clinicians."
Dr Timimi believes that not enough people are aware of the potential
health risks and side-effects associated with Ritalin, which include
insomnia, psychosis and loss of appetite.
Although little research has been carried out into the drug's long-term
effects, a recent report in America found that Ritalin may cause
lasting changes to the brain. In the study, carried out by the Harvard
Medical School, healthy rats given the drug in their infancy were found
to have a reduced sense of pleasure and were more prone to signs of
despair during adulthood.<End>
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Decoding Psychiatric Propaganda
http://groups.msn.com/psychbusters