DR. BAUGHMAN RESPONDS TO ADHD SPECIALIST–ONE WHO MAKES LIVING OFF ADHD

JSVAAETS@aol.com wrote:

> As a specialist in ADHD on Long Island in NY, I find your web information
> a disappointment.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
As one making your living at the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD, I
can understand your disappointment with me, who finds no scientific proof of
it's existence in the medical/scientific literature. I am a neurologist, I
am responsible for knowing whether or not it is a neurological disease, as
most in mental health say and believe, which does not make it so]

> I wonder at which juncture you opted to tune off to a decade of empirical
> data supporting the neuroanatomical/genetic basis of ADHD

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
the sheer duration/volume of the literature is not proof. There is
no proof of an abnormality, they are physically, mentally normal. Nor do
psychologists diagnose actual brain diseases]

> Perhaps, you should examine the efficacy of psychostimulant medications
> over the last several decades.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
having all of the ADHD subjects of this
research told and believing they have something abnormal about their brain
invalidates the research, biasing it, fatally, in favor of medical
interventions]

> Of course, I do not advocate medicine as a sole
> intervention.  I believe that it should be part of a package which includes
> school-based support, parent training, and psychotherapy.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
When teachers
and parents are adequate to their roles and do not believe that the
behaviors of so-called ADHD are other than normal, mental health and
psychiatric drugs are rarely, if ever, needed or resorted to]

> I also work in a school system and, as a Clinical and School Psychologist
>and lecturer, I feel the pain of these children and parents.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
telling
parent and children themselves they are diseased--abnormal, when they have
thought since birth they were normal and when they are normal, is horribly
disorienting, and painful]

> When parents read information like yours, they
> are thoroughly misdirected and you add to their sorrow and confusion.  By
> the way, I have conduced thousands of sessions with ADHD adults, children
> and teenagers.  I still have not observed one "Ritalin or Adderall
> addict." - Joseph S. Volpe, Ph.D.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
your experience is anecdotal. I
refer you to the ongoing, prospective follow-up study of Nadine Lambert at
UC Berkeley who presented, as did I at the 1998, NIH, ADHD, Consensus
Conference. She finds, all with school-age exposure to such drugs to have a
later and life-time increase in smoking and use of all stimulant
medications, cocaine included. Do not take any of this personally, I
assure you, it is not.]