If people with ADHD need, for example, better nutrition and are being given drugs instead, they may currently be getting harmed.
Given how much the three psychiatrists I've worked with have tested my health, inquired about my diet, given instructions about alcohol consumption, sent me for extensive blood tests, tracked my weight and blood pressure, I feel perhaps this isn't the case at all.
Maybe the experts have expertise. And maybe your anecdotal experience and my very different anecdotal experience are not medical proof of anything.
I was a mom trying to do right by my kids. That's it. I think I did right by my kids.
I spent a lot of time on parent support groups talking to mostly other moms who often disagreed with the well paid experts writing their kids off and making a pretty penny in the process.
Our entire medical system makes its money off of ongoing treatment, not off of actually fixing anything. And you might pause and wonder for a minute about that inherent conflict of interest before fanboying your experts any further.
But it is not true to say that every single case is the same.
Making universal statements about the nature of ADHD and universal statements about available treatments can deter people from seeking and receiving help that would work for them.
Experts are more likely to diagnose correctly than layfolk. No single error changes that fact. Insofar as people are deterred from seeking expert attention, the net effect is harmful.
Attributing the differences in our experiences to a uniform medical conspiracy against the public doesn't bear on whether treatments work or not for different cases.
My parents cared too. Nobody told them about ADHD, because it just wasn't a commonly-known thing in that time and place. I was smart enough to stumble forward through school, with their love and heartbreak and the dedication of many frustrated teachers. But I would've done a lot better with just a little treatment. And I find it hard not to take personally the idea that others should be discouraged from seeking help from a professional.
Attributing the differences in our experiences to a uniform medical conspiracy against the public doesn't bear on whether treatments work or not for different cases.
Accusing me of wildly overreacting is not a good way to help in such a situation. It just puts out the fire with gasoline.
Criticising an industry as having inherent conflict of interest is not remotely a conspiracy theory.
I think I am done here. This is a really tiresome pattern on HN of late where two or more people gang up on me and use bad faith tactics and then I get downvoted etc. It's a no win situation for me and seems entirely unrelated to whatever point I have tried to make.
But I'm as prototypical of a case as it comes. I went straight from college dropout to an A-grade distinguished student with medication.
1) If medication doesn't work, don't berate me with conspiracy theories.
2) Several companies offer free medication programs for ADHD. Did you try that? Or are you just projecting your anti-medication decision onto others?
3) Or your kid doesn't have ADHD, see #1
It isn't a conspiracy theory and I am not anti medication. I was being attacked by someone taking my remarks very personally and twisting them out of shape, which appears to also be what you are doing.
My point is that some kids benefit more from a nutritional approach than from medication. That doesn't mean medication does nothing. But it does mean that it is possible that some people would benefit more from other approaches and may not get the opportunity to learn that if the first thing done is medication.
It isn't saying drugs do nothing. It isn't saying you should never take drugs or you are bad or wrong for taking drugs. It is saying that if a nutritional deficiency is a factor, drugs won't fix that. Nutrition will. In fact, many drugs are known to deplete nutrients and thereby can make things worse over the long run.