Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Drugging Of The American Boy

esquire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 106 posts

Re: The Drugging Of The American Boy

#71

Post by buzaga41 »

joesmo wrote: post #61

ADHD isn't real. It didn't exist in many previous generations. Surely, the behavior of children hasn't changed much over the last few generations so how come this "disease" didn't exist previous to the current couple of generations and how come it still doesn't exist in many places on the planet? Could foreign kids somehow be better? Of course not. As the article points out, this is a ploy by pharmaceutical companies…

Watch out for the downvotes bomb, this is real taboo topic these days...

But yeah, I'm with you, I'm yet to find any convincing evidence ADHD exists and I think the consequences of this unscientific+dogma approach is a damn tragedy. All the pain and suffering that it causes, the pressure and agony parents go through because, obviously, they want the best for their child, this is not quantified(I bet the money is though)

I'm curious to what will history say about this.

I was a problem child and it makes me cringe that I could have been put on this kind of shit since young, it's absurd.

Re: The Drugging Of The American Boy

#73

Post by rsync »

torkins wrote: post #27
foolinaround wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ADHD is very treatable, but untreated, it can easily lead to other comorbidities that are much more difficult to treat (such as depression) This claim needs citation. The overall point is that the cost of the false positive overweighs the cost of the false negative

Which article did you read? Not only was there no discussion of the cost of false negatives, there was very little treatment of the actual cost of false positives, just a nebulous assertion that its bad for kids to be on pills. I would say the point of the article is here is a list of reasons why it might be over-diagnosed, some people on both sides of that, 50% puffed up with human interest pap about the Boy Whisper…

"... of the actual cost of false positives, just a nebulous assertion that its bad for kids to be on pills."

It's bad for kids to be on pills.

Re: The Drugging Of The American Boy

#74

Post by buzaga41 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #67
joesmo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, ADHD used to be called "being a child," and still is in most parts of the world.

Similarly, ergot poisoning used to be called "witchcraft". Anyone with half a brain should understand that Big Pharma is just trying to cover up the existence of witches. Clearly all this "medical" stuff is bullshit, especially anything that has anything to do with the mind. Oh, and brain damage from syphilis is another interesting one. Once upon a time we still understood that some people just go crazy with age. Now…

Ok, so ergot poisoning is comparable to `being a child`? I conclude you think of `being a child` and it's symptoms negative but science just haven't caught up to prove that `being a child` is actually a manifestation of some serious shit going on inwards yet, I'm with you.

Re: The Drugging Of The American Boy

#75

Post by rsync »

joesmo wrote: post #65
sliverstorm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PTSD didn't exist in previous generations either. Well, except it did- but our name/diagnosis has changed. Shell shocked, battle fatigue, combat exhaustion, stress response, hysteria, ...

Likewise, ADHD used to be called "being a child," and still is in most parts of the world.

"Likewise, ADHD used to be called "being a child," and still is in most parts of the world."

I think it's more nuanced than that. Specifically, "being a child" in a very sedentary, physically restrictive world.

Strong, healthy, young males should not be driven in a car to sit at a desk for 8 hours and then driven home to sit in front of a TV. That describes a fair portion of first world male children and it is (obviously) a recipe for pathology.

Re: The Drugging Of The American Boy

#76

Post by aianus »

amirmc wrote: post #18
joeyo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if it's that black and white. Roughly 25% of deaths in the US are due to heart disease. Should we not intervene because heart disease is part of the normal range?

I agree that it's probably not that black and white but a comparison with heart disease isn't a fair one. The grandparent post does make a point. If such a large proportion of the population has a 'condition' is it really a condition or perhaps just how we (as a species) are? Especially in the case of something that's psychiatric/psychological. For example, I've heard estimates that around 10% of the population is ho…

Being gay or left-handed doesn't inherently impact your quality of life. Not being able to concentrate on anything does. So even if it were part of the normal range we should work on fixing it, like we do for myopia.

Re: The Drugging Of The American Boy

#77

Post by com2kid »

dalke wrote: post #26
com2kid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are these structural differences used in diagnosis? Unfortunately testing costs money, I've rarely to never heard of it being used, but my sole experience is in helping people on ADHD support forums.

When you say it is a "fact that there are large structural brain differences", which differences did you mean? I may be focusing on the wrong thing. What I've found (brain size) doesn't have a clear enough difference to be used as part of diagnosis. For example, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2859218/ notes that head circumference and cross-sectional MRI measurements of brain size show that children diag…

Not the entire brain, just the portions that deal with self control! This is actually where the "Hyperactive" part of ADHD comes from, normally the parts of the brain that control motor skills and the parts that allow for self control grow in tandem, for children with ADHD, their motor skills outpace their self control. Their executive functioning eventually catches up, thus the myth of "children grow out of ADHD" came to be, since the "H" disappears, unfortunately the rest of the problems remain.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120730094822.ht...

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=ADHD&Template=/Cont...

Re: The Drugging Of The American Boy

#78

Post by com2kid »

mattchew wrote: post #40
com2kid wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. As I've stated before, either ADHD is real, or psychologists have found the world's best predictive test for auto accidents. People with untreated ADHD have 3x the likelihood of being in an auto accident. 56% rate of substance abuse. Think about that for a moment. 56%. Holy shit. These are the people who instead of getting help, were told that they are "lazy" and "needed to get up off their asses." Except…

I'd like to read more about the structural brain differences, if you've got links.

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=ADHD&Template=/Cont...

http://www.kennedykrieger.org/overview/news/brain-imaging-st...

Really a search for "adhd brain development" yields plenty of results. :)

Re: The Drugging Of The American Boy

#79

Post by com2kid »

foolinaround wrote: post #21
chimeracoder wrote: post #10

Instead of just talking about the dangers of a false positive, let's talk about the dangers of false negatives - of ignoring ADHD in children who do actually have it. ADHD is very treatable, but untreated, it can easily lead to other comorbidities that are much more difficult to treat (such as depression) The most dangerous part of this is that it seems to imply ADHD is over-diagnosed in men (boys), when it's just as…

> ADHD is very treatable, but untreated, it can easily lead to other comorbidities that are much more difficult to treat (such as depression) This claim needs citation. The overall point is that the cost of the false positive overweighs the cost of the false negative

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/adhd/comorbid-depression-and...

Is 13% to 27% sufficiently co-morbid for you?

That is just one of the first results for "adhd depression". I've seen studies with cited numbers far higher than that for people who are untreated.

Re: The Drugging Of The American Boy

#80

Post by com2kid »

buzaga41 wrote: post #71
joesmo wrote: post #61

ADHD isn't real. It didn't exist in many previous generations. Surely, the behavior of children hasn't changed much over the last few generations so how come this "disease" didn't exist previous to the current couple of generations and how come it still doesn't exist in many places on the planet? Could foreign kids somehow be better? Of course not. As the article points out, this is a ploy by pharmaceutical companies…

Watch out for the downvotes bomb, this is real taboo topic these days... But yeah, I'm with you, I'm yet to find any convincing evidence ADHD exists and I think the consequences of this unscientific+dogma approach is a damn tragedy. All the pain and suffering that it causes, the pressure and agony parents go through because, obviously, they want the best for their child, this is not quantified(I bet the money is thou…

Read the other posts in this thread.

People diagnosed with ADHD are three times more likely to be in a car accident. 56& of people diagnosed with adhd who are untreated have substance abuse problems.

Either ADHD is real, or psychologists have found the world's best car insurance filter.

Then there is evidence of structural brain differences,

http://www.kennedykrieger.org/overview/news/brain-imaging-st...

I've seen multiple adults who grew up in previous generations where ADHD was just "being lazy" who have spent their entire life depressed, knowing that they never lived up to their potential because they quite literally could not focus.

It isn't a lack of willpower, it is a physical lack of ability. The fact that the physical lacking is in a missing neurotransmitter doesn't make it any less real.

Post reply on HN