Post by Admin on May 6, 2024 12:28:40 GMT
How Danish Journalism Misleads About Psychiatry
Multiple errors in a Danish newspaper article about adult ADHD.
By Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD -April 30, 2024
www.madinamerica.com/2024/04/how-danish-journalism-misleads-about-psychiatry/
An article in a Danish newspaper from 14 April was very frustrating to read but was typical for the totally uncritical way journalists deal with issues in psychiatry. It was about the fact that significantly more middle-aged and older people receive an ADHD diagnosis today than earlier. This, the readers were supposed to think, was a good thing.
The article says that children do not outgrow their ADHD diagnosis. However, research shows that many children do this. And 50% more children born in December are treated with ADHD medication than those born in January in the same school class, which is simply because they are more immature.
The article says that people get an explanation for their problems when they receive an ADHD diagnosis. But the diagnosis doesn’t explain anything. It is just a name for a behaviour that lies at one end of a normal distribution for behaviour. Poul behaves in such a way that we choose to call it ADHD. Then we can’t say that ADHD is the reason why Poul behaves like he does. This is circular evidence, also called a tautology.
For the same reason, one cannot have ADHD, which the article claimed. We can have a car or a dog, but not ADHD. It’s not something that exists in nature that can attack us like bacteria can. It’s just a name for a certain behaviour.
It is therefore also misleading to say that 2-3% of middle-aged and older people “live with ADHD.” You can live with a cancer, which really exists, but “living with ADHD” just means living with yourself, which we all do, so this is also an empty statement.
The article mentions that ADHD has a genetic element. Surely, our children resemble ourselves to some extent in the way they behave, but that does not mean that we can find the “disease” (which is not a disease) in the genes. Genetic association studies have not proven anything, and it is not true either that people with ADHD have smaller brains than others, as it was claimed in much touted Lancet article.
The article notes that a named person, diagnosed at age 58, has clearly noticed the effect of the medicine against ADHD. It regulates her mood and behaviour and dampens her many emotional outbursts. Well, this is not exactly what was reported in the randomised trials, but science by anecdotes is very popular among journalists, just as it is among alternative practitioners.
I wrote a short comment to the newspaper, which I expected them to publish, as the article contained factual errors. But oh no! The debate editor wrote to me that they, unfortunately, could not publish it, as the article I referred to did not contain factual errors. “Your appeal is based on your views – and that is of course perfectly fine, but there is no question of erroneous facts on our part – all arguments and statements can be substantiated. But journalist Tea Krogh Sørensen would like to talk to you for a follow-up article about the debate around diagnoses, so I would encourage you to contact her by email.”
I wrote to Tea that I found it “very disappointing that the debate editor writes that there are no errors in the article, when objectively there are errors. It has nothing to do with my ‘views,’ and what I write has nothing to do with opinions, but is based on facts, and there are also logical fallacies (tautologies). I assume you got the information you bring in the article from a psychiatrist.”
We spoke on the phone and when I checked her sources, they confirmed that some children outgrow their diagnosis. So, her article was not correct. The only exception was the patient organisation MIND.
My talk with Tea led nowhere. I tried to convince her that she needed to be critical and not just accept what she was told by leading psychiatrists, and I offered her an easy example. The FDA, based on a meta-analysis of 100,000 patients who had participated in placebo-controlled trials, warns against using depression drugs in children because they increase their risk of suicide. At the same time, leading psychiatrists in Denmark, e.g. professors Poul Videbech and Lars Kessing, claim that the drugs protect children against suicide.
Tea was unable to understand my argument. She said something about different views, and other types of evidence, and when I said randomised trials were the best evidence we have and asked her if she believed more in psychiatrists than in drug regulators, I came nowhere.
Tea said she wanted to interview me, but I shall decline. It can only go wrong. When I explain such simple things to lay people, some of them having no education at all, they always understand me. But journalists? They must be among those with the lowest intelligence of all trades. There are some excellent ones, but my collaboration with average journalists have been intensely frustrating.
***
Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.
Multiple errors in a Danish newspaper article about adult ADHD.
By Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD -April 30, 2024
www.madinamerica.com/2024/04/how-danish-journalism-misleads-about-psychiatry/
An article in a Danish newspaper from 14 April was very frustrating to read but was typical for the totally uncritical way journalists deal with issues in psychiatry. It was about the fact that significantly more middle-aged and older people receive an ADHD diagnosis today than earlier. This, the readers were supposed to think, was a good thing.
The article says that children do not outgrow their ADHD diagnosis. However, research shows that many children do this. And 50% more children born in December are treated with ADHD medication than those born in January in the same school class, which is simply because they are more immature.
The article says that people get an explanation for their problems when they receive an ADHD diagnosis. But the diagnosis doesn’t explain anything. It is just a name for a behaviour that lies at one end of a normal distribution for behaviour. Poul behaves in such a way that we choose to call it ADHD. Then we can’t say that ADHD is the reason why Poul behaves like he does. This is circular evidence, also called a tautology.
For the same reason, one cannot have ADHD, which the article claimed. We can have a car or a dog, but not ADHD. It’s not something that exists in nature that can attack us like bacteria can. It’s just a name for a certain behaviour.
It is therefore also misleading to say that 2-3% of middle-aged and older people “live with ADHD.” You can live with a cancer, which really exists, but “living with ADHD” just means living with yourself, which we all do, so this is also an empty statement.
The article mentions that ADHD has a genetic element. Surely, our children resemble ourselves to some extent in the way they behave, but that does not mean that we can find the “disease” (which is not a disease) in the genes. Genetic association studies have not proven anything, and it is not true either that people with ADHD have smaller brains than others, as it was claimed in much touted Lancet article.
The article notes that a named person, diagnosed at age 58, has clearly noticed the effect of the medicine against ADHD. It regulates her mood and behaviour and dampens her many emotional outbursts. Well, this is not exactly what was reported in the randomised trials, but science by anecdotes is very popular among journalists, just as it is among alternative practitioners.
I wrote a short comment to the newspaper, which I expected them to publish, as the article contained factual errors. But oh no! The debate editor wrote to me that they, unfortunately, could not publish it, as the article I referred to did not contain factual errors. “Your appeal is based on your views – and that is of course perfectly fine, but there is no question of erroneous facts on our part – all arguments and statements can be substantiated. But journalist Tea Krogh Sørensen would like to talk to you for a follow-up article about the debate around diagnoses, so I would encourage you to contact her by email.”
I wrote to Tea that I found it “very disappointing that the debate editor writes that there are no errors in the article, when objectively there are errors. It has nothing to do with my ‘views,’ and what I write has nothing to do with opinions, but is based on facts, and there are also logical fallacies (tautologies). I assume you got the information you bring in the article from a psychiatrist.”
We spoke on the phone and when I checked her sources, they confirmed that some children outgrow their diagnosis. So, her article was not correct. The only exception was the patient organisation MIND.
My talk with Tea led nowhere. I tried to convince her that she needed to be critical and not just accept what she was told by leading psychiatrists, and I offered her an easy example. The FDA, based on a meta-analysis of 100,000 patients who had participated in placebo-controlled trials, warns against using depression drugs in children because they increase their risk of suicide. At the same time, leading psychiatrists in Denmark, e.g. professors Poul Videbech and Lars Kessing, claim that the drugs protect children against suicide.
Tea was unable to understand my argument. She said something about different views, and other types of evidence, and when I said randomised trials were the best evidence we have and asked her if she believed more in psychiatrists than in drug regulators, I came nowhere.
Tea said she wanted to interview me, but I shall decline. It can only go wrong. When I explain such simple things to lay people, some of them having no education at all, they always understand me. But journalists? They must be among those with the lowest intelligence of all trades. There are some excellent ones, but my collaboration with average journalists have been intensely frustrating.
***
Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.