The Wall Street Journal recently published a letter from a gentleman who, apparently speaking from personal experience, claimed that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is real, then extolled the benefits of the stimulant medications typically prescribed when the diagnosis is made. Effectively, said gentleman parroted the false narrative peddled by Big Pharma and Big Mental Health — meaning, he is mistaken.
First and foremost, ADHD is not “real” in the same sense as leukemia or diabetes. The latter can be objectively verified and measured. Not so with ADHD. It is a concept, nothing more. No test will reliably identify it. The diagnostic criteria are entirely subjective. Therefore, a person diagnosed as “having” ADHD does not “have” more than a diagnosis.
Practitioners and spokespersons for BP and BMH often refer to the “ADHD gene,” a theoretical entity that supposedly causes either “brain differences” or a “biochemical imbalance.” With apologies to individuals who have swallowed and are emotionally invested in these canards, no body of credible, replicated science has established a cause-and-effect relationship between any biological variable and the behaviors associated with an ADHD diagnosis.
