The percentage of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder children in the US who have been taking stimulant medication between 1997 and 2002 hasn’t changed, according to data collected by the federal government and summarized in the April 2006 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry.
It was a representative national survey (post deleted http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=40778&nfid=crss) that included more than 7,000 children in each of the 5 years.
Oh my God, the sky is not falling, the number of kids on ADD stimulant meds hasn’t changed in half a decade!!!
Two groups are in Great Danger over this information!!!
1. The ignorant self righteous opinion columnists condemning ADD as something that doesn’t exist other than a drug company conspiracy and loudly proclaim, without providing that strange type of information known as evidence, that there’s “too many kids doped up on meds and parents just need to beat their children more”.
2. The people who write even more self-righteous judgmental letters to the editors stating the same opinions.
Both groups are known to pass judgments of the validity of ADD as a real condition and self righteously proclaim that they know best about what treatment methods should be given to people with ADD
Both groups usually consist of people who haven’t read any real research on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or done any reading about the subject by anyone remotely known as an expert on ADHD, but they do have an opinion on ADD that they pulled out their lower regions. We all pull out those types of opinions from time to time, but most of us remember where the source of such opinions originated from.
What will they do without such a convenient target to attack?
Granted the data is only up to 2002 but still, 5 years straight. In some ways it’s probably a problem that it’s not higher, since I believe that ADD is under, over and misdiagnosed, but more often underdiagnosed, especially in adults (85% of adults with ADD aren’t diagnosed). With gradual greater public, school and medical awareness of ADD over this period of time, a lack of increase in the percentage of children taking ADHD stimulant medications likely means that children with ADD aren’t getting adequately diagnosed and treated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD meds are a part of treatment but they’re only one part, not the whole answer).
Should you come across those two subtypes and want to respond, in addition to this article, you might consider using some of the responses I suggest in my two blog posts Does ADD Really Exist? How to Answer this Question, Part 1 or prehaps show them my followup post showing clinicial evidence of ADHD as a real condition