Increase in Swedish girls taking ADHD drugs
Published: 10 Jan 13 07:58 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/45530/20130110/
The number of Swedish girls given medicine to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has increased much more rapidly compared to their male peers.
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During the same period, the number of boys who are given drugs to help deal with their symptoms has gone up by 160 percent.
Some observers have welcomed the news that the number of girls being treated has more than doubled since 2006, believing it proves there is an increased awareness of the disorder among girls.
Doctors are becoming less likely to overlook ADHD symptoms in their young female patients.
Girls with ADHD don't act up as much and it is a well-known problem that they are underdiagnosed, explained pediatric psychiatrist Kerstin Malmberg to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper on Thursday.
She thinks the increase will keep going as the girls catch up to the boys.
In total, Swedish girls still only make up one fourth of the total number of ADHD diagnoses in the country.
In June 2012, there were also reports that more young children were being diagnosed.
A review compared figures to 2006, when only 179 children under seven were prescribed drugs to treat ADHD.
But by 2011, that figure had ballooned to 551 children taking medication such as Ritalin, Concertina and Strattera, according to figures from Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen).
In Stockholm, the number of young children on ADHD drugs has increased five-fold in the past five years, from 11 to 53, making it the region in the country with the greatest increase.
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The main reason why some children seem to have problems concentrating or doing as they're told, is probably because they have encountered no discipline at home or in school, due to Sweden's treatment of children as 'mini-adults' rather than children. That, and also the culture of excessive TV and computer games which no doubt numbs their brain and turns them into disengaged zombies.
There was a mother recently who whinged and whined in the Swedish media because it had taken her 3½ years to get her son diagnosed with ADHD. The doctors probablyfinally gave in to get rid of her. It was obvious that she was the one who was in dire need of a diagnosis, not her poor son.
Numbing the healthy developing brain of a growing child with drugs just to make life easier for the parents should be prohibited.
See for example the fuzz in Belgian media two months ago (Professor: "ADHD is a figment", Knack.be november 2012)
How is this possible while the brains of young children are being treated against a disease?
I as a layman started wondering and asked several psychiatrists in The Netherlands: in what hospital can ADHD be shown with a brain scan? The answer I received was: it isn't possible to show the existence of ADHD in the brains and I heard different types of lame excuses why it wasn't possible or needed.
I am not able to see into the brains of these girls, but it is very likely that they are being mislead by a false science that is based on the erroneous idea that life is accidental, that the human mind is the result of a chemical process in the brains.
The physical can't be the source of itself, this logic proofs that the core of psychiatry is invalid.
While so many doctors and professors are accusing psychiatry of fraud, I believe they should not be allowed to touch the brains of children.
Over the years I have noticed that children have been getting more and more hyperactive and some doctors are now beginning to suspect that all these wireless technologies may well be contributing to behavioural changes in children (and adults)'
Doctors on Germany as far back as 2002 thought that certain diseases seemed to be increasing- headaches, anxiety and hyperactivity - and they thought that microwaves from mobile phone technologies may be the cause. Last year they have got together again and wrote the new Freiburger Appeal emphasising their fears.
If governments come clean and advise people to use these technologies with care - turn the gadget off when not in use, and use the landline at home and turn it off at night it might reduce the symptoms.
Read the Freiburger appeal to find out more.
Outside Sweden, it is often used as an example of sensible use of mobile technologies and it supposed to one country that accepts that some people are affected by microwaves.