Post by Amtram on Apr 19, 2014 19:57:39 GMT -5
Just read another article by an "authority" about how ADHD doesn't exist. Dr. Bruce Perry is, indeed, an authority, but he's an authority on PTSD, which is not ADHD. But he seems to believe that they have the same etiology and therefore can respond to the same treatments - i.e., medications are bad, mmkay?
A major ADHD magazine just wrote a paean to Dr. Daniel Amen, who charges patients $4,000 for a PET scan, which cannot diagnose ADHD, and has made up his own set of ADHD "diagnoses" so he can justify using the PET scan to determine what medication to prescribe.
I'm sick up to here with Gabor-Mate, whose entire strategy is to figure out how all his patients' experiences are just like his and explain how ADHD is therefore exactly the same for all of us (hint: we were OK until our parents didn't love us. . .) He also has this idea that epigenetics is magic and is happening in the brain throughout our lifetimes, but that's because he cherry-picks from studies without reading them all the way through or learning anything factual about neuroanatomy.
People who research animals, no matter how good their research is, cannot say that their findings apply perfectly to humans. We know that we are not just giant versions of rats or even primates. There are many complex confounding factors, and animal research is only a preliminary to human trials.
People who do not prescribe medications to people with psychiatric or neurobehavioral conditions are not the best informed about whether or not they work - or whether they're overprescribed or the condition is overdiagnosed.
And anyone who's selling an "alternative" treatment is not worth listening to at all. You might as well get a diagnosis from your hairdresser or auto mechanic - they had to work harder to get their licenses than a homeopath or an acupuncturist.
/rant.
A major ADHD magazine just wrote a paean to Dr. Daniel Amen, who charges patients $4,000 for a PET scan, which cannot diagnose ADHD, and has made up his own set of ADHD "diagnoses" so he can justify using the PET scan to determine what medication to prescribe.
I'm sick up to here with Gabor-Mate, whose entire strategy is to figure out how all his patients' experiences are just like his and explain how ADHD is therefore exactly the same for all of us (hint: we were OK until our parents didn't love us. . .) He also has this idea that epigenetics is magic and is happening in the brain throughout our lifetimes, but that's because he cherry-picks from studies without reading them all the way through or learning anything factual about neuroanatomy.
People who research animals, no matter how good their research is, cannot say that their findings apply perfectly to humans. We know that we are not just giant versions of rats or even primates. There are many complex confounding factors, and animal research is only a preliminary to human trials.
People who do not prescribe medications to people with psychiatric or neurobehavioral conditions are not the best informed about whether or not they work - or whether they're overprescribed or the condition is overdiagnosed.
And anyone who's selling an "alternative" treatment is not worth listening to at all. You might as well get a diagnosis from your hairdresser or auto mechanic - they had to work harder to get their licenses than a homeopath or an acupuncturist.
/rant.