The premier issue of a spin off publication of Scientific American, "Scientific American Mind" published an article entitled "Informing the ADHD Debate".

I greatly enjoyed the article, and was particularly appreciative of the authors bringing certain facts to light regarding the myths and misapprehensions of medicating the "disorder". Namely the studies done by Harvard University showing that chemical dependency risk among ADDers was not increased by medication but was, in fact, reduced by three fourths.

I was however, disappointed in the fact that while the article cites the MTA study it misrepresented the results in such a way as to suggest behavioral therapy could be a substitute for medication. In the end the authors suggest the joint approach, which I fully endorse myself, but the manner in which the information was presented omitted the fact that the children in the study, who did, in fact, benefit from behavioral therapy were shown to have lost that benefit immediately upon the cessation of said therapy and performed no differently than they had before intervention.

As we all know, "The pills don't give you the skills", and lifestyle modification is one of the major keys to coping with ADHD. This modification is often best achieved through behavioral modification therapy on an ongoing basis. "Ongoing basis" and "lifestyle" are the key words here though. So while the article gets a definite two thumbs up from me for the good it will do "informing the debate", it still did not, in my opinion, go as far as it could and ended up actually muddying the waters a bit.