Post by Amtram on Nov 25, 2014 13:41:35 GMT -5
An excellent response to a terrible article.
The article combined some of journalists' favorite clickbait ADHD topics, denial of the existence of ADHD and fearmongering about the dangers of medications. Throw in the idea that this is somehow turning boys into sissies, and watch the page hits pile up.
I know I've linked to Gina Pera's blog on this, but here you can also see a ton of facebook comments in all their ignorant glory. Enjoy.
When a headline features the word “drugging,” the report about ADHD that follows will not be well-balanced. Such was the case with Esquire’s recent salvo into the topic, “The Drugging of the American Boy.”
Esquire joins The New York Times in treating one of the most well-researched and documented conditions in medical history as a piñata. Bash ADHD and all the goodies fall out. Web traffic soars.The immense anti-psychiatry blogosphere races to showcase the latest proof that they’ve been right all along. Esquire actually calls this piece a “blockbuster investigation” — just in case the ASME judges missed it.
Lost in the shuffle: Accurate reporting on a critically important public health issue affecting millions of Americans.
Esquire joins The New York Times in treating one of the most well-researched and documented conditions in medical history as a piñata. Bash ADHD and all the goodies fall out. Web traffic soars.The immense anti-psychiatry blogosphere races to showcase the latest proof that they’ve been right all along. Esquire actually calls this piece a “blockbuster investigation” — just in case the ASME judges missed it.
Lost in the shuffle: Accurate reporting on a critically important public health issue affecting millions of Americans.
The article combined some of journalists' favorite clickbait ADHD topics, denial of the existence of ADHD and fearmongering about the dangers of medications. Throw in the idea that this is somehow turning boys into sissies, and watch the page hits pile up.
At last count, 10,000 published studies substantiate ADHD as a valid diagnosis, with many of them demonstrating the efficacy of stimulant medications but many others studying behavioral approaches. I cannot emphasize this enough: There is no controversy about ADHD among the thousands of researchers and clinicians worldwide or the millions of people who have embraced the diagnosis because it is the first thing that has made sense of their lives and offered a better path. Over roughly 10,000 words, Mr. D’Agostino plucks the low-hanging fruit from anti-psychiatry blogs and ideological conspiracy lunatics to come up with the following:
The Feminists dominating our nation’s schools are obsessed with emasculating our boys, simply for not being girls.
Complicit is Big Pharma, which has co-opted the medical establishment into chemically imprisoning young males with highly addictive pills.
The Establishment metes out harsh punishments to mavericks who dare say, “Hey, let’s be careful before cramming mind-altering drugs down innocent boys’ throats.”
Only one man, Esquire reports, bravely says, “Stop drugging our boys!” He learned about ADHD not by studying it (that’s obviously the girly way) but by having it himself. (Never mind that what he describes is not necessarily ADHD.) His cure? Bombarding our “intense” boys with a steady diet of praise—and never, ever criticizing or punishing them. Forget that “intense” is not even an accurate diagnostic criterion for ADHD. And never mind that overpraising is likely the last thing you want to do with the “intense” kids whose ADHD is complicated by the not-infrequent co-existing conditions of oppositional defiance and conduct disorder—not unless you want to create narcissistic sociopaths.
That man at the center of Esquire’s article is a counterculture figure with no academic or professional training in the field: Howard Glasser, the Queens-based author of 101 Reasons to Avoid Ritalin Like the Plague. In addition to waxing poetic about his unproven approach (actual ADHD experts must provide peer-reviewed proof of their claims) the magazine provides him with a platform to answer reader questions about ADHD. Unfortunately, only readers with Facebook accounts could comment on the story. While a few adults with ADHD did so, many more wrote to me privately, saying they did not want to risk divulging their diagnosis publicly and in such a hostile venue.
The Feminists dominating our nation’s schools are obsessed with emasculating our boys, simply for not being girls.
Complicit is Big Pharma, which has co-opted the medical establishment into chemically imprisoning young males with highly addictive pills.
The Establishment metes out harsh punishments to mavericks who dare say, “Hey, let’s be careful before cramming mind-altering drugs down innocent boys’ throats.”
Only one man, Esquire reports, bravely says, “Stop drugging our boys!” He learned about ADHD not by studying it (that’s obviously the girly way) but by having it himself. (Never mind that what he describes is not necessarily ADHD.) His cure? Bombarding our “intense” boys with a steady diet of praise—and never, ever criticizing or punishing them. Forget that “intense” is not even an accurate diagnostic criterion for ADHD. And never mind that overpraising is likely the last thing you want to do with the “intense” kids whose ADHD is complicated by the not-infrequent co-existing conditions of oppositional defiance and conduct disorder—not unless you want to create narcissistic sociopaths.
That man at the center of Esquire’s article is a counterculture figure with no academic or professional training in the field: Howard Glasser, the Queens-based author of 101 Reasons to Avoid Ritalin Like the Plague. In addition to waxing poetic about his unproven approach (actual ADHD experts must provide peer-reviewed proof of their claims) the magazine provides him with a platform to answer reader questions about ADHD. Unfortunately, only readers with Facebook accounts could comment on the story. While a few adults with ADHD did so, many more wrote to me privately, saying they did not want to risk divulging their diagnosis publicly and in such a hostile venue.
I know I've linked to Gina Pera's blog on this, but here you can also see a ton of facebook comments in all their ignorant glory. Enjoy.