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The Relentless Diseasing Of America's Children

October 8, 2024
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In 2009, pediatrician Bose Ravenel and I co-authored The Diseasing of America’s Children (Thomas Nelson), our largely vain attempt to blow the whistle on America’s ADHD industry. Largely vain because, as we discovered, very few folks want to hear the truth about the most profitable of all the bogus diagnoses ever pulled out of thin air by the mental health professions. Even though reviewers on Amazon give it a 4.5, it sold poorly, a testament to the power of lies, especially when they’re dispensed by people with impressive titles and capital letters after their names.

In the last month, without purposefully looking, I’ve come across at least two dozen online and print articles on ADHD (including so-called “Adult ADHD), all of which claim it is a brain-based disease that involves something the ADHD Establishment calls “brain differences” and/or biochemical abnormalities of some sort. All of the articles in question advance the notion that ADHD can be successfully treated with a broad-spectrum therapeutic plan that includes medication.

After all, it makes perfect sense that a “disease” defined by abnormal physiological variables calls for medication that promises to re-set those variables, however temporary the re-set may be. Right?

Yes, right. The problem, however, is that no consistent body of evidence verifies that ADHD symptoms (short attention span, difficulties with concentration and task completion, impulsivity, disorganized thinking and behavior) are the consequence of faulty biology and qualify, therefore, as a disease. When brain trauma is obvious or provable, the biology/ADHD symptoms connection can be verified, in which case the diagnosis is not ADHD…it’s brain trauma.

In basic terms, the notion that ADHD symptoms stem from faulty biology is a lie, the purpose of which is to sell psychiatric medication. When a lie makes a certain influential group lots of money, the group in question is highly motivated to sustain the lie. Simple as that.

“But John!” a reader exclaims. “My child’s behavior and school performance both improved dramatically when he began taking ADHD medication!”

Parental reports to that effect are fairly common. Furthermore, the parents in question are no doubt telling the truth. What is being suppressed is the FACT that no ADHD medicine has ever reliably outperformed placebos in controlled clinical trials. Put another way, ADHD medications work no better than bicarbonate of soda in pill form. That is why the FDA employs one set of standards when evaluating drugs designed to treat verifiable diseases (e.g., leukemia, hypertension) and a completely different set of standards concerning drugs designed to treat psychiatric diagnoses. If they used the same standards, no psychiatric drug would reach the marketplace.

In summary, psychiatric drugs don’t consistently outperform placebos, meaning their efficacy is only slightly higher than a placebo’s. The placebo effect is real. ADHD drugs sometimes “work.” No contradiction there.

The mental health professional community insists that psychiatric diagnoses listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) represent actual disease states, yet they desperately want the FDA to treat them as if they are NOT actual disease states. It’s a bait-and-switch of sorts, which should tell you that there’s something fishy going on there.

Applying Occam’s Razor, one should conclude that ADHD is not an actual disease. It is merely an arbitrary set of behaviors. On that basis, any group of behaviors can be called a disease and given a diagnostic label. Ten-year-old Judy frequently spills liquids, forgets to turn out lights, often acts put out when her parents tell her to do something, and frequently claims to smell things other people cannot smell. Judy has Non-compliant Sensory Discoordination Disorder or NSDD! Her father had similar problems as a child, so NSDD must be heritable. As such, it must involve brain-based abnormalities, so let’s try her on 50 milligrams of Lysergic Acid per day. That sound mocking, I realize; nonetheless, it describes the completely unscientific process by which behavioral habits are turned into psychiatric diagnoses, which are then marketed to the public such that Big Pharma is guaranteed a humongous cut of the spoils.

The retired director of clinical research for a well-known drug company told me that the lies perpetuated by a collusion of Big Pharma and Big Mental Health are “a scandal waiting to burst wide open.”

The sooner, the better.

The Relentless Diseasing Of America's Children

2,215 Views | 7 Replies | Last: 1 mo ago by gfkdzdds
drgrcevich
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I'm an elder, ministry leader, child psychiatrist and med school professor. I appreciate the way this site advocates for Biblical orthodoxy. With that said, this post is floridly untruthful!

People ask me why mental health is so stigmatized in the church. It doesn't help when Christian websites spew lies like these. We have HUNDREDS of controlled studies showing that ADHD medications are significantly more effective than placebos in kids. In fact, the differences in response in studies of ADHD medications are more dramatic than those seen with any other category of psychotropics prescribed to kids.

ADHD is real. We have irrefutable data from neuroimaging, neuropsychological and genetic studies that this is a disabling condition for many. Are culture, screens and our educational system contributing to a rise in ADHD diagnosis, especially in young adults? Sure. Are some kids and adults inappropriately diagnosed as a result of sloppy and superficial evaluations? Absolutely. The problem with Christian websites posting stuff like this is that families impacted by ADHD experience more difficulty finding Biblically-based churches prepared and willing to welcome them to worship and Christian schools fail to recognize the need for the kids affected to have a place to learn where both academic and spiritual needs can be addressed.

We in the church undermine our witness to the world when we deny the reality of mental health conditions that greatly impact the lives of our friends and neighbors simply because the professionals and disciplines responsible for characterizing these conditions hold contempt for our faith and reject God's standards of right and wrong. We're better than this.
Dr. G
AKOne
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A drug called Ritalin popped up about 40 years ago. It was widely known as a "cure in need of a disease." Within a decade the number of school-age children diagnosed with ADD was astonishing. How could such a serious and widespread "disease" gone unnoticed for centuries? Suddenly ADD, now ADHD, by the mid 1990's became an epidemic with 25% and more children diagnosed. At the time teachers in the schools were expressing concern. This new disease quickly infected the church. A pill to deal with difficult children and poor parenting, how easy is that? We are in the age of the quick-fix.

Let's ignore what God's Word says regarding the sinful nature of children and the duty of parents. And, let's not even talk about diet. What are kid's consuming? Does that even matter? What about children coming home to empty houses? Where are the moms? Of course they are working to help pay for a house that is likely more than they need. Who then is raising children, government schools, daycare, after school programs? These are only a few areas to consider regarding child behavior.

Sadly, these past decades we taught children, now adults to look to big pharma for quick fixes to solve all their problems. Today, there is likely a drug addict in every house. Life in a fallen world is not simple. We have become prideful, thinking we know better. We now put our faith in our modern technology/experts and ignore what God's says about rising children.

40 years ago many of us saw the beginning of this explosion, drugged kids. It was and is today disheartening, is to see Christians just following the world. Even those Christians with Dr. in front of their name.
T Butler
AKOne
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Big pharma's drive for profit knows no limit. So, convince the FDA to change its standard definition. Recent example is the COVID vaccine. Big pharma needed to call something that was not a vaccine a vaccine, to persuade people it was safe and necessary. Dutifully the FDA changed the standard. My point, this kind of "smoke and mirrors" been going on for a while now as Mr. Rosemond points out.

Dr. G please provide one, just one, controlled study not funding or influenced by big pharma to prove your point. The fact is, there were no studies to prove ADHD was a disease before the drugs where being prescribed in the 1980's or 90's. Many articles where written early on calling out this charade. It was easy to see who the promoters were. Just follow the money.

Does Big Pharma really care about the long term drug effects on kids? What is amazing, is how many folks in the medical field have drank the Big Pharma Kool-Aid.
T Butler
Mitchell_Danielson
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Some citations for the claims in the article would be good.
disciple06@gmail.com
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Mitchell_Danielson said:

Some citations for the claims in the article would be good.
Yes. With such a controversial topic I am shocked that there are no citations at all. Nothing.
How can we the reader know if this is truth from Clear Truth Media if there is nothing backing up these claims.
As a pastor I can't do that in the pulpit, why can CTM do that on the web?
Andy D.
Jamie Bambrick
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Staff
For those asking for citations, this is taken from John's book, The Diseasing of America's Children, written with well-known pediatrician Bose Ravenel, and all citations can be found there. I'll try and get more specifics from him!
gfkdzdds
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My profession involved working with 40-45 children a day. When Mom brought them in, often at 3 years of age, you could tell which children were going to be "diagnosed" at 6 with ADHD. The mother or father had no control over them and these children were often openly defiant of their parent. I would make a note in their chart and, unfortunately, especially with boys, I was usually correct. By the time they were in first grade they were on Ritilin and then when they hit their teen years there was often a move to hard core psychotropic drugs to mange their behavior.
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