Using fake medicine to treat a fake disease... I know I've been blowing hard about Attention Deficit Disorder a lot lately, but it just keeps popping up in the news in new (and ever more absurd) ways...
If you've been reading the Daily Dose (or my newsletter) for any length of time at all, you already know how I feel about this "disorder." Why just last month, I opined that for the most part, ADD is a scam promoted by drug makers to peddle more of their poisons to both kids and adults. Once again, I'll tell you: In my opinion, true ADD is virtually nonexistent. What does exist, however, is normal childhood "rambunctiousness." That's what ADD used to be called. And we didn't treat it with drugs - we treated it with a slap on the wrist (Oh, horrors!), or a spell on a stool in the corner. But try getting away with these things today, teachers and parents, and you'll have a mile's worth of picketers outside your front door chanting... "We've no use... We've no use... We've no use for child abuse!" But somebody has finally come up with a sensible idea about how to "treat" this fake disease - with FAKE DRUGS! That's right, a University of North Carolina-affiliated study has shown that a significant percentage (40% or more) of kids diagnosed with ADHD maintained control over their symptoms just as well when treated with a combination of drugs and placebos as they did when subjected to the full dosage of medication. What's this mean?
Well to me, it means that for a whole lot of kids popping pills out there, ADD is a fallacy - something they've been convinced (by parents, teachers, doctors, etc.) they suffer from. And because they've been brainwashed into believing there's something wrong with them, they behave better during "treatment" to gain the approval of those who've programmed them to believe it... (How's that for psychobabble - and I'm not even a psychologist!) What other conclusion can I come to when the ILLUSION of treatment is just as effective as actual manipulation of brain chemistry with psychotropic substances? Bottom line: If you've got a rambunctious kid (or grandkid), try treating his or her "disorder" the old-fashioned way - with discipline, tolerance, and love - not by saddling them with a lifelong inferiority complex, not to mention a drug dependency. ************************************** The latest chapter in the depressing antidepressant drama You've heard me ranting about the side effects of antidepressants... You've listened to me rail against the over-diagnosis of ADD and the like... You've even heard me sound the alarm about drug companies using creative ways (including bribes, bogus articles, and deceptive research) to convince doctors to prescribe antidepressants and other medications for unauthorized uses... But you've never heard me do ALL THREE OF THESE THINGS AT ONCE! Until now - get this: Our very own National Institute of Health (the organization that's SUPPOSED to be watch-dogging the FDA and drug companies on our behalf) has just given the drug giants a key piece of ammunition they can use to cross-promote their risky and expensive antidepressants! Here's the scoop: According to the NIH's research, certain antidepressants may help to generate new brain cells (neurons) in the hippocampus, a region of the brain important to memory and learning, but only recently discovered to be involved with depression. What's this mean? It means that if the research holds true, the drug companies will make sure that our brainwashed mainstream doctors will not only be recommending antidepressants for made-up diseases like ADD, but they'll also be cramming them down our throats for everything from dementia to memory loss to stroke recovery... I wonder how long it'll be before they're prescribing them to people with lower IQ's than they'd like to have? Don't laugh - that's what it's coming to... Seeing all the angles - without "smart pills,"
William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
