there are freakout posts every hour or so on r/adhd. desperate plans to amass a huge petition of signatures, or challenge it legally with a class act. lawsuit, but mostly a lot of despair and disbelief. also some blaming of the so-called undeserved adderall users that are allegedly the official reason for the shortage...and something about tiktok users.
it's bad and capitalism is certainly the reason why. i'd like to understand the nuance of it more though if anyone had some good leftist takes on it.
i don't really have a good take on it, but i've got a good conspiracy theory
the shortage is because of an increase in demand in the precursors and manufacturing chains for the military in Ukraine.
I don't really understand why so many people, particularly (but not exclusively) in the US, would need amphetamines to function 'properly'. I find it difficult to buy that there's a 'natural' reason and that it isn't just a kind of Brave New World socio-environmental issue causing a psychosomatic response in people that gets labelled as ADHD or similar. I don't mean to be callous or dismissive or imply there isn't an issue for people, but I know a few people with such a diagnosis and I'm pretty sure if I'd had their upbringing/life circumstances I'd find it difficult to concentrate too.
Not really sure what you are getting at, but of course there are socio-environmental factors with adhd. I don't think anyone is out there claiming there is anything natural about it. It's a conditions - conditioning feedback loop. If I wasn't forced to work 40 hours a week or become homeless, I wouldn't have found out I need to take amphetamines in order to hold a job. If my parents didn't both need to work all the time and could have afforded child-care, there's a good chance I wouldn't have so trouble functioning.
:I-was-saying:
ADHD, like autism, has a host of genetic and environmental causative factors, i.e. it's both nature and nurture.
Hmm, well I stand corrected and I'm glad I logged in to see this discussion my comment created. Not sure what I was even thinking because I knew it was partly genetic, but I was possibly referring to the treatment with amphetamines.
It was mostly an observation, but I suppose if I were getting at anything it'd be that if there's any possible way, even if greatly difficult, to avoid taking the substance and also avoiding homelessness then that'd be vastly preferable. Absent of any societal assistance in that, unfortunately and unfairly it requires the individual to attempt to find a way on their own or to attempt to organise such assistance. I'm not necessarily sure its a consequence or that there's a direct causative link with overworked absent parents though, since that has been a factor elsewhere/when seemingly without the solution being amphetamine prescription and usage.
edit: I would say that the doctors who diagnose and prescribe it are effectively claiming that there's something natural about it - its treated as a strictly physical condition with a physical solution in that case, with no attempt to address the cause(s) or enquire about them or alleviate them.
That's half true. AD(H)D is a developmental disorder, meaning that it isn't something you're born with (like for example some types of cancer that can "run in the family"), but it's caused by your surroundings during (early) childhood. Those surroundings make it so that the process of bonding with your caregivers is disturbed, which effects the development of your prefrontal cortex. The thing is: once you've got a prefrontal cortex which hasn't developped properly, you're stuck with it. It cannot be cured, but the effects can be remedied by taking medication.
I you want to adress the causes, you need to make sure that every child is brought up is a loving and caring environment, and that their parents all have the means to spend a lot of time with their children. If both parents work 40h a week, a lot of people's bonding proces during childhood goes awry, and you will have a lot of people developmental disorders simply because of the fact that developing children don't receive the attention and constant care that they intrinsically need. But even if you fix that, you'll still have shitty parents (for example: people who think that beating their children is sometimes permitted, people with anger issues, alcoholics and so forth) and the problem still isn't resolved entirely.
If you're really interested in the subject, I'd advise you to read " Scattered Minds" by Gabor Mate.
well that was very interesting and brand new information to me, so thank you. perhaps I will check out that book you've suggested.
thanks for the clarification. Is it really the case that a particular part of the brain can't change after the developmental period, or redevelop for want of a better term? That feels somewhat concerning in principle as a model for how our brains work, like doesn't it have implications for a whole range of societal and individual problems? I guess the ideas of lifelong education/learning and also rehabilitation are impacted by this structural issue presumably? I'm not disagreeing, I'm sure you know more than I do about this, but it is worrying if a bad childhood means lifelong substance use by necessity, if you see what I mean. Presumably good for drug manufacturers though!
Take this with a lot of salt. As far as i know the general consensus is that there is a strong biological component to adhd. They idea that it's a development disorder is fringe at best.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3763932/
That's interesting. Out of curiosity from this thread I found a more recent paper that seemingly had difficulty finding a genetic cause (but not association), and concluded that any cause was possibly environmental or possibly 'omnigenic'. Its this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6477889/ if you want to have a look. Its interesting that heritability conclusions are different when relying on self-assessment vs parent or clinician assessments.
From the paper you linked, I checked to see what the classification was - because I was wondering if it was described as a developmental disorder or not:
"ADHD is a behavioural syndrome characterised by the presence of developmentally inappropriate levels of hyperactive, impulsive and inattentive behaviours"
That to me is a remarkable definition, I'm sure you'll understand better, but isn't it equivalent to saying ADHD is a description of somebody who acts younger than they are supposed to? I guess I'm asking, since you seem like somebody who might know, how is it concluded or determined that a person's activity levels, impulsivity, and attention span is 'inappropriate'?
I suppose from that and other definitions I've read it seems to me that you can say of ADHD sufferers - these people aren't acting grown up enough for wage slavery so we give them amphetamines to calm them down?
The diagnostic criteria and the "cutoff points" for most psychopathologies are subjective. It often comes down to the question of "is this behavior negatively impacting the person's life?" If the answer is "yes", then it's a mental illness which may benefit from treatment. If it's "no", then it isn't. Therefore I think it's entirely possible that some diagnoses would change if we significantly changed our way of life and work under full communism. However, many diagnoses would also not change, because ADHD affects more than just performance in school and work; it also affects hygiene, personal relationships, and even our ability to enjoy hobbies and leisure activities. I was put on ADHD medication because my girlfriend and best friend gave me an intervention, even though I was doing fine at work at the time.
Everything has a genetic component, but sometimes it is trivial to refer to it. Whether it is expressed or not is a consequence of environmental conditions.
There certainly are people who manage to handle their AD(H)D symptoms without medication. But many can't and, if they're not diagnosed, it means a life of academic failure, being fired at every job and a resulting low self-esteem or depression. In general, I can't imagine how someone with AD(H)D manages to go trough college, or function at a job (which requires task-initiation and prolonged focus) without medication.
Idk what the causes are but people with adhd react to stimulants in a completely different way than people who don't have adhd. It's easy to measure, it's consistent. There are tons of funny annecdotes of people doing coke at parties and getting really calm and focused and thinking "oh i guess i have adhd"
It's not just "difficulty concentrating". It's a whole constellation of symptoms related to motivation, task initiation, executive function. Adhd doesn't make people " distracted" in some abstract way. Our brains aren't producing the right chemical responses to stimulus that allow normal people to sustain interest in a task.
ok, thanks for explaining. I said 'difficulty concentrating' because its another way of saying attention deficit. Isn't it to be expected that difficulty concentrating, or attention deficit, will necessarily involve issues with motivation, task initiation, and executive function since those things are all required for attention?
Personally, interacting with various people who have been diagnosed with ADHD, I find it very difficult to notice a difference between them and any other person except in that they're more socially expressive of how (understandably) bored they are by what I'm saying or what they're/we're doing. Of course I'm no expert in the criteria for such a diagnosis, this is just my subjective perception of these people.
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