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.
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.