Here's a copy of a letter I sent the producers of 60 Minutes today:
Morley Safer ran a toothless piece on Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) on the Sunday, December 5th edition of 60 Minutes, and to say that I was disappointed with the tabloid-style coverage is an understatement -- it's certainly a lot lower standard than I'm accustomed to from 60 Minutes.
Safer started out with the premise that Adult ADD is the latest cause celebre for overly self-absorbed adults looking for a pat explanation for why their lives are disorderly and chaotic, and gee, who's isn't? And pharmaceutical companies, of course, are feeding into this insecurity by pushing drugs that, up to now, have mainly been prescribed for kids.
Safer says that "the disorder isn't just for kids any more" without ever sufficiently providing answers as to why that's the case; he leaves us to infer that it's mostly the drug companies that are to blame here.
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan says, "Anybody who possibly could be put on medication as a child has been." That seems to imply that we're dealing with a stagnant population. Caplan apparently avoids the fact that we're continuing to have new kids all the time, some of whom will eventually require treatment. He also doesn't mention that there are large sectors of the youth population in poor areas (inner cities, for example) who need these drugs and don't get them.
I don't doubt that pharmas see adults diagnosed with ADD as a burgeoning lucrative market for their products, but that hardly negates the existence of the disorder. As an adult diabetic, for example, I'm grateful for the continued development of new drugs to help me combat my condition, and they certainly aid me in having a healthier, happier life. Am I supposed to see conspiracies every time new drugs are invented or a new use is found for them?
Also, where's any discussion about how this has come about? Outside of a pat, "it's been around for as long as there have been people" from psychiatrist Dr. Edward Hallowell, precious little effort is made to understand exactly what ADD/ADHD is. There was no discussion of how the disorder has come to be understood by modern medicine or the medical establishment's continued evolution in understanding the environmental, chemical, neurological and genetic factors that may contribute to this problem.
It was Safer's own snide comments that really raised my hackles, though. At one point he showed a person in a swing at the CHADD conference, for example, and then said it's "presumably for ADD swingers," ha ha. In fact, therapeutic swings like the one show during the broadcast are commonly recommended for people with Sensory Integration Dysfunction, autism, and a host of other illnesses that are often talked about in conjunction with ADD and ADHD -- hence the presence of the device at the CHADD show.
Safer didn't bother to discuss the science behind the diagnosis of adult ADD, nor did he talk at all about alternative therapies that don't involve prescribing medication. Instead, we're left with a sensationalistic story about another case of how the big, bad drug companies are feeding off public fear and insecurity.
As the parent of two kids with ADD/ADHD and the spouse of someone who's been diagnosed with it too, I don't have a lot of tolerance for people who don't think it's a "real" mental illness, or think that people are just trying to cop out of responsibility by blaming their disorganization on ADD or ADHD. I've had enough of those conversations to last a lifetime with people who are, by most other measures, rational, cogent and intelligent.
This is a real issue that creates real problems for its victims. For every success story about someone who's developed coping skills to handle their own ADD, they are countless examples of "underachievers" who never reach their full potential because they haven't received the medical treatment or mental health assistance they need.
There is a pervasive cultural attitude that unless you exhibit obvious outward, physical signs of illness, it has to be "in your head" and therefore, less real -- just ask any woman who's had a (usually male) OB/GYN scoff at them when they tell them how bad their PMS symptoms are. It's positively Victorian.
Safer's depiction of this as an attempt to simply create "a drug-riddled behavioral utopia" is patently irresponsible. I've seen how positive the results can be for the people in my own family who suffer from ADD/ADHD when you combine drug therapy, behavior modification and the assistance of a mental health professional.
No one is saying pills are the only answer, or the answer best-suited for everyone. But for some of us, they help to solve the problem, and they make life better.
