Jeff’s A.D.D. Mind

It’s All In Your Head: The Logic of the A.D.D. Deniers

 

We’ve got Holocaust deniers and global warming deniers so it’s not surprising that we have A.D.D. deniers.

The A.D.D. deniers follow an interesting logic:

The “Invention” of A.D.D. by the drug companies.

1. Premise 1: Drug companies create drugs.
2. Premise 2: Drug companies need a disease that will be “cured” by the drug.
3. Premise 3: Drug companies find a bundle of annoying behaviors.
4. Premise 4: Drug companies bundle the annoying behaviors into a “package” by giving it a name, such as A.D.D.
5. Conclusion: Drug companies have created a market by “inventing” a disease which, coincidentally, is “cured” by the drug they already have in hand.

Now they need the public to accept this new disease as being real and, of course, to accept the “cure” that the drug companies have. So, here’s the next argument.

The “Adoption” of the drug companies’ definition of A.D.D. by the psychiatric community.

1. Premise 1: Psychiatric community composed of sycophants.
2. Premise 2: Psychiatrists adopt the drug company definition of A.D.D.
3. Conclusion: Psychiatrists find A.D.D. everywhere using this definition. They prescribe the “cure” discovered by the drug companies.

Of course there are teeny tiny nuggets of truth buried in these arguments. You’ve got the effect of good ‘ol labeling theory from Sociology 101. You’ve got the tenuous symbiotic relationship between the drug manufacturing and drug dispensing community. You’ve got the shift in the psychiatric community to more pharmacologically-based “cures”¹ which almost always entails drugs.

However, despite these tiny nuggets of truth, none of this necessarily means that A.D.D. doesn’t exist. Ask anyone who has lived with A.D.D. for 20, 30, or 40 years (or more!) and who didn’t know they had it, what it was like to finally be able to explain a whole constellation of behaviors. Ask them about their daily struggles - with or without drugs. How can anyone deny the similar experiences of so many A.D.D. people?

So, what is it that these “deniers” are so afraid of that they refuse to see what everyone else sees? Are they afraid of the reductionistic nature of explaining psychical phenomena in physical biological terms? Are they afraid to admit that sometimes willpower does not conquer all?² I’m not sure what their fears are but it’s something. Hopefully the drug companies will come up with a cure for their “disease.”

Some choice quotes from the A.D.D. deniers:
“They made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive–termed them a ‘disease.’”
See: http://www.adhdfraud.org/

“I’m possibly the only person involved in the ‘ADHD debate’ that I know of who has no first-hand experience of the problem whatsoever. For me, the subject is entirely to do with ideas and beliefs and how they compare with my own experiences and whatever facts I’m able to discover.”
See: http://www.adhd-report.com/letter.html

“Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is a fake disease created by boring out-of-touch leaders who are pissed off that kids aren’t listening to them.”
See: http://www.wcool.com/mo96/0226.html

“ADD is a ‘mood’ in which someone has a difficult time staying focused.”
See: http://www.wcool.com/add.html

“The Great A.D.D. Hoax”
See: http://keirsey.com/addhoax.html

YouTube - Audio from Michael Savage Radio Show - ADD/OCD are a hoax.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C29OuQ9dmiU

[Updated on Aug 6, 2007 @ 15:09]

And now…the alternate view.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a real disease linked to changes in production of the brain chemical dopamine, two new reports suggest.

See: Brain Studies Show ADHD Is Real Disease
[Updated again on Aug 23, 2007]

__________________

1. As opposed to the traditional Freudian “talking cure.” [↩]
2. Have they taken too many Dale Carnegie courses? [↩]

Jeff posted this article under A.D.D.-A.D.H.D. Fraud on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 11:22 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site. Here's the Permalink. View Technorati Linkbacks.