Philadelphia Inquirer
By Dan Gottlieb. Many children with symptoms of attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) actually suffer from a more prosaic malady: lack of sleep.
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http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/living/health/7852459.htm

More "blame the parents" and society crap. Granted there is likely some miss-diagnosis happening from time to time, but this guy makes it sound like an epidemic! I've got a theory - the rate of ADHD diagnosis is higher now because of all the people that got missed years ago - like me.

I think he has a valid point - we are the country of quick fixes.

But I don't think anybody "jumped" to the conclusion (on this forum) that they or their child has AD/HD. I know I didn't.

It took us 2 years to diagnose my daughter. In the meantime, she kept falling further behind in school. Fortunately, we did catch it early enough with her.

But we weren't "treating the symptoms". We went looking for the underlying cause.

As with anything, the hypochondriacs will latch on to it at some point.

I agree that lack of sleep can mimic AD/HD and it also makes it worse. This is why MD's and other professionals need to do a through evaluation for AD/HD.

Yes, the drug companies have made a whole lot of money of off AD/HD. So does the drug companies who make cold medication. They didn't invent the common cold though...

Look at all the money that is being made off of Viagra and other similar medications. I don't think the invented erectile dysfunction but they are making a whole lot of money off of it too.