Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 11:26:53 +1100
From: Darren Smith <darren.smith-AT-unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: ADD the new onanism?


Jon,
It is interesting to note the change (in psycological practice) from
electro-shock therapy to psychoanalysis and, now, chemincal therapy
(pharmacological management). The latter involve continual and on-going
treatment or 'monitoring'. ECT on the otherhand required less monitoring
and generally 'worked' on the basis of one-off treatment. Chemical therapy
is very interesting because not only does it guarantee a normalisation but
it also guarantees the pharmaceutical corporations a source of continuing
wealth.



At 05:28 1/12/98 PST, you wrote:
>
>A week ago, a panel of experts met in Washington DC to hammer out a 
>consensus on one of the most extraordinary drug phenomena of our 
>time--the massive surge in the use of Ritalin to treat children with 
>attention deficit disorder and the related attention deficit 
>hyperactivity disorder. 
>The statistics are staggering. Since 1990, the number of American 
>children and adults thought to be taking drugs for these conditions has 
>leapt sevenfold and now stands at around 4 million. In some schools, 15 
>per cent of children are diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD, and regular 
>Ritalin handouts have become a daily feature of classroom life. And 
>while other countries have yet to embrace the drug with quite such 
>enthusiasm, some are heading the same way. In Britain, the number of 
>Ritalin prescriptions is doubling every year. 
>Unfortunately, the panel was on a hiding to nothing. For the bleak truth 
>is that there is no consensus about Ritalin--nor even about the clinical 
>validity of the conditions it is prescribed for. Ask a dozen 
>psychiatrists and you'll get a dozen different opinions about the 
>Ritalin explosion and sharply contrasting views on whether the drug is 
>being prescribed too freely. 
>Search the Internet and you'll come across thousands of sites offering 
>parents and teachers conflicting advice. Newspaper and magazine articles 
>tell of parents and children whose lives were apparently transformed by 
>the drug--as well as other families who fought on without it, and 
>eventually saw their seemingly uncontrollable children triumph. 
>Feelings run high, but solid, unequivocal data that can cut through the 
>mass of personal testimony and prejudice are few and far between. 
>Ritalin is, after all, an amphetamine-like stimulant which can be abused 
>at high doses. And despite decades of research, nobody really 
>understands what causes ADD or ADHD. There are some results that suggest 
>certain genes may predispose children to the conditions, but the link is 
>far from conclusive. And while brain imaging studies indicate that 
>children with ADHD may have sluggish frontal lobes, this does not help 
>much because frontal lobes are involved in so many aspects of behaviour 
>and learning. 
>As a result, we are left without blood tests or brain scans that can 
>provide unequivocal evidence. Diagnosis must rely entirely on 
>assessments of behaviour. And the problem here is that many of the 
>symptoms--such as restlessness and impulsiveness--are found to some 
>extent in all young children. 
>What makes the explosive growth in the use of Ritalin even more 
>problematic is that while the drug clearly calms hyperactive children 
>down and makes them easier to deal with, there is no evidence that it 
>helps them achieve more at school. In studies that monitored children in 
>the US for up to 14 months, for example, the drug made little or no 
>difference to either academic performance or social skills. 
>Such findings will be grist to the mill for Ritalin's gainsayers, who 
>have long argued that the drug simply makes children docile, while 
>creating the risk of long-term damage to brain chemistry. The way they 
>see it, the people who really benefit from Ritalin are the teachers, 
>parents and other children in the classroom, not the children who are 
>actually taking the risks. 
>Many critics go further still, arguing that ADD and ADHD are bogus 
>conditions that mask emerging cultural problems. Certainly, the world is 
>awash with information and distractions for children, and while parents' 
>aspirations for their offspring have never been higher, many have little 
>time and energy to spend nurturing them. Most children probably have 
>fewer opportunities to let off steam than their parents did. And in the 
>climate of the past decade, nobody should be surprised if people have 
>become more willing to blame emotional problems on brain chemistry and 
>genes rather than, say, poor parenting and schooling. 
>Such factors may help to explain the suddenness of the ADD epidemic, but 
>they cannot be the whole story. A couple of decades ago, many doctors 
>were reluctant to accept that young children could suffer from 
>depression. Today that view seems absurd. 
>Ritalin is not a miracle substance that will transform the fortunes of 
>every hyperactive, fidgety kid on the block. But nor is it a crude 
>chemical cosh that guilt-ridden parents and teachers are using in place 
>of counselling and discipline to control what is really nothing more 
>than youthful exuberance and boisterousness. For some children, the drug 
>can be a godsend. The problem is knowing which ones to give it to, and 
>where to draw the line in doling it out. 
>               From New Scientist, 28 November 1998
>
>
>It seems that the strategic importance of power investing children's 
>bodies remains, only the tactics change. I'll expand on this later if 
>people are interested.
>
>Jon.
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
>