Adult ADD Strengths

Tom Cruise’s kooky comments on depression, psychiatry, ADHD and medications have created a lot of press for his film, war of the worlds. See Part 1, Part 2 and another one here.

They’ve also created a backlash against him and the movie he’s promoting. Probably by the people he’s been victimizing or those who know them or treat them. Someone has created an online petition to boycott the war of the worlds film he’s starring in. It’s addressed to Steven Spielberg.

Here’s scientology’s official site. Sometimes I believe the official version is not enough so here’s a few other people’s take on of what Tom Cruise is trying to sell us.

The German press isn’t as afraid of Tom Cruise as the American media seem to be. Link to Der Spiegel article via Defamer

Cruise:.. In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. It’s called Narconon.

SPIEGEL: That’s not correct. Yours is never mentioned among the recognized detox programs. Independent experts warn against it because it is rooted in pseudo science.

Cruise: You don’t understand what I am saying. It’s a statistically proven fact that there is only one successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. Period.

Here’s some of Tom Cruise’s comments on psychiatry and ritalin during his interview on the today show with Matt Laurer.

You can see the conventional version + video here, but I think this photo illustrated version is more interesting.

TOM CRUISE: No, you see. Here’s the problem. You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do… There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance.”

TOM CRUISE: Matt. Matt, Matt, you don’t even– you’re glib. You don’t even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, okay? That’s what I’ve done. Then you go and you say where’s– where’s the medical test? Where’s the blood test that says how much Ritalin you’re supposed to get?

I saw Batman Begins tonight, great movie, actual acting, dialog and plot. Bit of a rare treat lately, especially compared to the latest star wars movie, Revenge of the Sith through wooden, painful, amateurish dialog. Action scenes were great, but George Lucas made it really hard for me to suspend disbelief with the horrible dialog, a first year film student could probably do better dialog. Maybe George is so captivated by CGI, he’s forgotten how to tell a story. Here’s one blogger’s hilarious take on it, via Shawn at YourMacLife

Revenge of the Sith: A Plot Summary. I saw Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith yesterday, and figured I’d share my pain.

As I said I’d do in a previous post, Here’s the contact information for the Minister of Health in BC and the provincial drug plan. I hope to get the contact info from other provinces soon.

So if you live in BC and think that BC Pharmacare should cover the long term ADD medications like Strattera and Concerta that last 8-12 hours and are prescribed more often than short term meds that last 2-3 hours in the US (Ritalin, Dexedrine), like the Ontario and Quebec provincial drug plans do, here are the people you should contact to make that happen.

The American Medical Association, agreed yesterday to study whether consumer drug advertising leads to unnecessary prescriptions, potentially harming patients and driving up health costs.

Several psychiatrists’ groups with representatives at the A.M.A. meeting raised the idea of a ban on advertising of new drugs for at least a few months after they go on sale. This is so doctors could evaluate medications before patients start asking for them, and spot serious side effects.

The heat is turning up on the drug companies. Last year $3.8 billion was spent advertising their products.

Pfizer chairman and CEO said that he’ll be submitting Ads to the FDA for preview. Last week Bristol-Myers Squibb became the first major drug firm to not advertise their new drugs to consumers in a product’s first year on the market. Some people say that’s not enough.

Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reporters, said it would like to see laws requiring that pharmaceutical firms publicly post all drug study results, instead of only those that demonstrate positive outcomes. It said it also would like requirements that ads discuss the risks associated with drugs as well as the benefits when they depict people frolicking on beaches or running symptom-free through pollen-filled meadows.

This gem is from Bella Online

True story: I know a reference librarian who was in the habit of reading while walking. One day, she was walking the two blocks to her house during her lunch break while reading a new book. She was so completely focused on the words she was reading that she tripped on the sidewalk, landing in a heap right there on Ash Street.

Fortunately, this happened in front of the fire station, and the paramedics came to her aid immediately. Unfortunately, in addition to her badly-bruised ego, she broke not one but both arms.

The book she was reading? “Coping With Attention Deficit Disorder”
You can’t make up this stuff!