ADHD: What Is Not Said

A few days ago I met a mother and her daughter of about 12 or 13 years old in the elevator. We know each other by sight. The mother, between indignant and satisfied, explained by phone: “I already said that it was not normal. It is not normal for this girl to complain about everything, that she is always angry, constantly protests and that nothing suits her. The doctor has told us that he has ADHD and that he needs to take some pills. Let’s see if we can be calm now ”.

When she hung up, we said hello and I couldn’t resist. I asked her if they had done a physical test to diagnose her, to which she replied: “No, but it’s not necessary, you can see that this is not normal.”

What the mother does not know, what no one has explained to her, is everything behind this TDHA label and, above all, behind these pills.

Is ADHD medication essential?

What has happened is that, while we were entangled in discussions about whether ADHD was a real or an invented disease, a huge and very serious goal has been sneaked into us: the medication that is prescribed to, supposedly, combat it is an amphetamine.

The Ritalin or Concerta compounds, with their different varieties, are “derivatives” of amphetamines.

The results obtained from them are the same as were achieved when, in times past, students one is chutaban anfeta to concentrate during exam times, or when some workers took them to endless hold days work, or even when used as weight loss method because it increased the will not to eat.

It was the discovery of the adverse effects that these types of substances caused on the circulatory system and the heart, as well as physical and psychological addiction, which led the health authorities to ban them.

Why are amphetamines still prescribed?

One might think, reading the above, that anyway, if the drug is prescribed by a professional, that guarantees that good use is being made of it. However, things are not so simple.

The pharmaceutical industry is still a conglomerate of companies that seeks to obtain the maximum possible profits and, although they have to pass a sanitary control, this can be done by hiding part of the truth and presenting the results that are most favorable to obtain the authorization of a drug.

This is precisely what has been coming to light with respect to the studies carried out on methylphenidate, the basic component of medications against ADHD, and its related psychostimulants.

Although the laboratories responsible for marketing it themselves, followed up over several years of this treatment in children and adolescents, they chose to present the result of 14 months, where it was shown that the ingestion of the medication reduced the symptoms of ADHD. in front of the group that did not take it.

What they did not say, and which has been proven by numerous subsequent investigations, is that after 3, 6 and 8 years of treatment, the children had not only not improved but had worsened compared to the initial problems. They were also affected, in a very significant way, their sizes and weights. However, the drug Ritalin had already been approved.

From these first studies, American psychiatry, especially children, began to be interested in these “magic pills” that solved a series of clinical cases that they did not know where to place or how to treat. Studies on the short and long-term effects of these drugs have multiplied everywhere and, not only were the previous bad data confirmed, but it has been shown in all of them that they generate problems in the cardiovascular system, increase in blood pressure and heart rate. The direct effect of psychostimulants can even trigger sudden death.

The other side: the study of contraindications

In Spain, those who have been most concerned with and concerned with the physical and psychological contraindications of this type of medication against ADHD have been the Spanish Association of Neuropsychiatry (AEN), the “No, Thank you” platform, the Spanish Agency for Medicines, psychiatrists contrary to these treatments, the European Medicines Agency and the Pharmacovigilance Bulletin of Catalonia.

On their websites, newsletters and books you can find the dangers and physiological damages that these substances create with the detailed analysis of all the research that has been carried out over time. They confirm that in the medium and long term not only do they not cure (since there is nothing to cure), but that the behaviors that were intended to be solved return more virulent.

Over the years, there is greater school failure and greater psychosocial problems, making it necessary to add school and psychological reinforcements, etc.

In short, with psychostimulants not only has the supposed brain deficit suffered by those diagnosed with ADHD not been cured, but in puberty and adolescence, despite continuing with the medication, conflictive behaviors worsen and psychophysical sequelae are manifest with more force.

How is ADHD diagnosed?

Beyond all the controversy about the medication, the big question is: Why, if the causes of ADHD are organic, the diagnostic tests are not?

It would not occur to anyone in their right mind to accept that a professional, with only a few questions about a person’s memory or reasoning, without doing any radiological or similar tests, would diagnose and medicate them for a disease with brain damage such as Alzheimer’s. Nor would it be the case with encephalitis or any other real damage to the brain.

But it turns out that TDHA, which its advocates say is due to injury to the brain, is being diagnosed without any kind of organic test. This is surprising, if not suspicious, to say the least . In contrast, in this case there are only a few questions about the behavior of the child or adolescent, to label someone with that diagnosis.

• This magic game with diagnosis came from an English pediatrician, Dr. Still. The fallacy about the cause was the following: if the children with meningitis, epilepsy or brain tumors presented aggressive, antisocial, irascibility, etc. behaviors, that meant that the children who presented those same behaviors must have minimal brain dysfunction, although it is not known. I could detect it anywhere.
• At that time the ban on “biological diseases” was opened, supposed brain lesions that are not verified with any type of physiological test, but are measured by a few behaviors of the subjects, without any further confirmation, although the medications prescriptions go directly to the brain.
• Starting in 1952, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM) collected these traits of children as “organic brain syndrome” and made it correspond to a treatment with amphetamines, benzadrine.
• In 1980, and with Ritalin authorized, this Manual identifies Attention Deficit Disorder, ADHD, as a disease whose main axes are hyperactivity, inattention and impulsivity. The school world fell under this new version and the “bubble” began to inflate.
• And so it continues, in each revision of the Manual the behaviors for someone to be diagnosed with ADHD, and therefore with a brain injury, are reduced. And they are becoming more vague and totally open to the subjective interpretation of the person who diagnoses them.

Current diagnostic criteria

For example, currently, to be diagnosed with attention deficit, it is enough for the child to perform “more than normal”, without specifying what would be normal, six behaviors such as:

• Doesn’t usually pay attention to details
• You find it difficult to organize tasks
• Loses objects frequently (pencils, books, toys)
• Is distracted by any irrelevant stimuli, or
• He is careless in his daily life.

Do you lose things often? Do you like to run and jump? Do you find it difficult to organize yourself? How many children would answer yes? I would do it…

For hyperactivity they are:

• You tend to move your hands and feet excessively
• Tends to talk excessively
• It is hard for him to wait his turn
• Has difficulty playing quiet games
• They tend to run or jump excessively …

If we add to this that these diagnostic protocols have come to be used by other professionals who are not mental health professionals, but teachers, social workers, pedagogues, etc., it is not necessary to be a lynx to understand that under these criteria a bunch of kids and teens.

This is what is being done but is not being said. There is an exorbitant increase in so-called “mentally ill” ADHD, medicated with amphetamines, with the dangerous psychophysiological and social consequences that they entail.

The consequences of the protocols for ADHD … are suffered by children

Returning to our mother and daughter from the beginning, we could say that they are a model of how things are being carried out. There are no organic or diagnostic tests, or prevention of effects on the neuronal and cardiovascular systems and, obviously, those involved are not being informed of the limits and dangers of these pills.

The TDHA has become a mixed bag where to include any type of unpleasant behavior for someone, without measuring the damage they can cause.

Before we say goodbye, I look at her and see the girl with her head down, probably feeling guilty. And it would be, as if she sensed that what the grown-ups had cooked would not be exactly good for her.