alt Hacker NewsOne should not question the seriousness of ADHD or the benefits of an appropriate treatment plan.
One should question the rate of which it is diagnosed, and who is getting diagnosed.
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One should ask if the benefits outweigh the costs regardless of arbitrary thresholds for diagnosis.
ADHD medications are generally safe, and many objections to their use appear to stem more from normative objections to medicating attention and behaviour than from evidence-based concerns about patient welfare.
My anecdata as a college aged kid on ADHD meds with friends who want a stimulant prescription:
Psychs will put you on an SSRI first, and then atomoxetine (non-stim ADHD med) before prescribing the good stuff.
The kids who want to party and/or study harder don’t take the stuff that doesn’t get you high. The kids that are struggling with basic stuff bear with it, and usually follow up to me with surprise that the non-stimulant is actually helping them.
Of course, we usually do graduate to the good stuff. So I understand the sentiment, and often question my own reliance on the drugs.
> One should question the rate of which it is diagnosed, and who is getting diagnosed.
The medical consensus after multiple enquiries in the UK has come to:
1. The rate of diagnosis is far too low (the evidence of this being we're catching people as adults who should've been caught as children).
2. Our diagnostic criteria aren't inclusive enough (we have historically missed inattentive presenting ADHD, we have historically missed ADHD presenting in women)
These results are politically unpalatable so the enquiry is I think currently being run for the third time, but signs point to ADHD overdiagnosis being a hoax/fake news/whatever you call it.