Reply to S/O - not agreeing on ADHD Medication

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[quote=Anonymous]This thread might be too far gone to have a discussion but...

I like the following article on Huffington Post from Dr. Diller. He isn't anti-medication - he is a psychiatrist who prescribes ADHD meds - but he is concerned at the rate at which medication is being prescribed. Personally, I am much more anti-medication than he is but I am willing to keep an open mind to the idea that there are some kids who truly benefit from medication. As a mental health professional myself, I do see how the field has changed in the last two decades and worry about the influence that the pharmaceutical industry has over all of us.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-diller/united-states-of-adderall_b_980238.html
some highlights from the article:

"Since the 1980 publication of American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatry, Edition III (DSM-III), more and more Americans have been willing to interpret children's under-performance and misbehavior as ADHD/ADD. As more and more people have accepted the idea of a "chemical imbalance" (never proven but only inferred by the response to drugs like Prozac and Adderall), the stigma of psychiatric diagnosis and use of psychiatric drugs in children has declined. "

"While American organized psychiatry reintroduced the biology/genetics/chemical imbalance view of mental illness in 1980, the pharmaceutical industry grabbed this conceptual football and ran with it. Since the mid-1980s, [b]the drug companies have been arguably the single biggest influence on America's thinking about children's mental health and illness -- by virtue of their financial clout to fund research and medical professional education (which in turn informs the education of other mental health and educational professionals), [/b]advertise first to physicians and then directly to parents, and offer free samples (vouchers, in this case, for amphetamine, a controlled substance)."
...
"I also believe there are no conspiracies to drug the children of America. Rather, a number of economic "invisible hands" work together to make children and families less able to cope and Adderall an attractive, efficient solution."

"I welcome readers' comments. I am not denying the existence of ADHD/ADD or the value of Adderall for the particular child or adult using it. I am not presuming I "know" for certain why we are the "United States of Adderall." But [b]I worry less about our children's chemical imbalances than their living imbalances, which may contribute to the ADHD/Adderall epidemic.[/b]"
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