Profile

unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Unixronin

December 2012

S M T W T F S
      1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031     

Most Popular Tags

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 07:21 am (UTC)
Well, really, that's not a problem of the medication.

Technically?

No, of course not.

But it is a failure of the system that's dispensing those medications, leaving that system's credibility strained when other claims are made.

It's the same issue right now with Ritalyn and Adderol with kids. One of my at-the-time-coworker's kid was sent to the doctor because he couldn't sit still and pay attention during reading. (Math he was great, everything but reading he was stellar.) You can guess where I'm going - Ritalyn within 5 minutes of the doctor walking in the office.

The kid had never even been tested for dyslexia. (Failure on multiple levels, and I hold the parents in particular scorn, especially when at least I and my boss (who had identical symptoms when he was that age - and has dyslexia) insisted that a dyslexia test was well overdue.

Nope. Drugged him up, and he was sitting still, all right.

What percentage of kids have been on "ADD" and "ADHD" drugs now?

Not the fault of Ritalyn, or Adderol at all. I think they have a place. Just as antidepressants and the other mental drugs do. But the brain is the least understood organ we've got. (Even the organs and systems that are "well understood" still have a lot of "Wow. Wonder why THAT's happening" issues.) We're currently mucking around it with damn near the sophistication of tropical witch doctors trying to find cures.

(And like the witch doctors, or "native healers" I suppose is PC now, cures and palliatives (or poisons and other useful compounds) can be discovered and isolated that way. It is a method. But it's not scientific - and it's a nit of mine when non-science tries to take the scientific mantle.)

Reply

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
(will be screened if not validated)
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting

If you are unable to use this captcha for any reason, please contact us by email at support@dreamwidth.org