Name the traits of the youngest person in a class. Unless they are extraordinary, they will be shy, perhaps even withdrawn from a group who is 6/9/12 months in advance of their physical and mental coordination. They won't plug themselves into the main activities, perhaps even appearing to be a little slow at catching on.
What is the solution? Why, drugs obviously. That child, according to two studies released and analyzed this week by USA Today, will be labeled as being unfit to manage without drugs:
Nearly 1 million children may have been misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, not because they have real behavior problems, but because they're the youngest kids in their kindergarten class, researchers say.
Kids who are the youngest in their grades are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest children, according to a study out today from Michigan State University, given exclusively to USA TODAY. A second study, by researchers at North Carolina State University and elsewhere, came to similar conclusions. Both are scheduled for publication in the Journal of Health Economics.
While USA Today embarrassingly tries to spin the story from the perspective of their advertisers, we are interested in the truth. We are interested in the liabilities to society. We are interested in the financial implications of all those drug companies, who have an important place in combatting real diseases, suddenly find themselves liable for billions in reparations because they participated in the fraud that led to millions of young kids having the traumatic effects of drugs inflicted upon them at an early age. Move over Catholic Church.
This is not a good week for drug companies. Scientific American described studies which show that the sledgehammer approach that drug companies take in handling physical issues can have horrible consequences:
... users have voiced concerns that the drugs elicit unexpected cognitive side effects, such as memory loss, fuzzy thinking and learning difficulties. Hundreds of people have registered complaints with MedWatch, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s adverse drug reaction database, but few studies have been done and the results are inconclusive. Nevertheless, many experts are starting to believe that a small percentage of the population is at risk, and they are calling for increased public awareness of the possible cognitive side effects of statins—symptoms that may be misdiagnosed as dementia in the aging patients who take them.
Fat and the Brain
It is not crazy to connect cholesterol-modifying drugs with cognition; after all, one quarter of the body’s cholesterol is found in the brain. Cholesterol is a waxy substance that, among other things, provides structure to the body’s cell membranes. High levels of cholesterol in the blood create a risk for heart disease, because the molecules that transport cholesterol can damage arteries and cause blockages. In the brain, however, cholesterol plays a crucial role in the formation of neuronal connections—the vital links that underlie memory and learning. Quick thinking and rapid reaction times depend on cholesterol, too, because the waxy molecules are the building blocks of the sheaths that insulate neurons and speed up electrical transmissions. “We can’t understand how a drug that affects such an important pathway would not have adverse reactions,” says Ralph Edwards, former director of the World Health Organization’s drug-monitoring center in Uppsala, Sweden.
from the September 2010 Scientific American Mind
It's Not Dementia, It's Your Heart Medication – Why cholesterol drugs might affect memory
At first glance one thinks: Let's cut BigPharma some slack, they're saving the lives of people who would otherwise be 6 feet under. But on examination, one continuously finds doctors in bed with BigAg, making commercials for smoking or staying silent on drugged-up animals and less than wholesome food.
It is not just that the United States citizens pay more of their income to the insurance/medical system, it is that it is the least efficient at actually finding and handling the problems in the society. Great games are played to shift the focus onto "litigious lawyers" without mentioning the internal corporate calculations which treat human death and suffering as an unavoidable consequence of the quarterly profit statement, with an organized methodology of stonewalling, bribes, and distorted secret agreements. Great games are played to bribe the doctors and press to hide the dots that could otherwise be connected by an intelligent population.
Perhaps we speak to quickly, to brand commercials that pay for popular cultural entertainment as bribes. Perhaps we are just overwhelmed by the thought of a million kids getting drugged because they just happen to be the youngest in the class.
References: Research links pesticides with ADHD in children
Senator Grassley Seeks Data From Drugmakers on Treatment of Whistleblowers
