The Dog That Barked

ADHD: A Warning Unheeded

Breaking news alert. We interrupt regularly scheduled programming. Every TV station in America cuts to a podium at the White House. Dr. Fauci is at the microphone. He is flanked by President Biden and former President Trump. He is reading a joint statement: “We are here together today to warn the American people of a crisis. The three of us – the president who initiated Operation Warp Speed to fast-track mRNA vaccines, the president who did the most to stigmatize the unvaccinated in the name of public health, and of course, me, Dr. Fauci, the face of the coronavirus response in America – have unwittingly created a monster. After reviewing the latest evidence, our consciences compel us to speak. We want the American people to know we were wrong. The mRNA vaccines are not safe and effective. They are ineffective and dangerous. These vaccines are a national disaster of dangerous proportions.”

Ok, so that’s fake news. And this is not a post about vaccines. Just bear with me. What if something like that did happen? What if the people most closely identified with creating and popularizing covid vaccines had a change of heart and publicly denounced their life’s work? Do you think that would lead to a drop in public confidence in the vaccines? I can’t imagine any other outcome. No matter how much your personal doctor or your local Pfizer rep insisted that no, nothing has changed, there is no damaging new evidence, if Fauci himself came out strongly against covid vaccination, the credibility of the whole endeavor would almost certainly collapse beyond repair.

Again, this isn’t a post about vaccines, I am just trying to present the most dramatic hypothetical I can. You could picture others: Mike Lindell coming out against the benefits of a good night’s sleep, Vince Lombardi saying winning doesn’t matter as long as you enjoy yourself out there, Leonardo DiCaprio singing the praises of marriage.

I am writing this today to inform you that, when it comes to ADHD, all of the above has already happened.

The ADHD diagnosis and its treatment were almost singlehandedly invented by one brilliant researcher, Dr. Keith Conners. I say “almost” because he had a famous mentor, Dr. Leon Eisenberg, who helped the young Conners get recognition for his early work.

Let’s start with Eisenberg. One of the most influential psychiatrists of the 20th century, he was quick to regret his role in promulgating the ADHD diagnosis and soon distanced himself from Conners’ use of stimulants in children (Eisenberg wisely distrusted the subjective judgments of teachers on what was going on inside a child’s mind, and asked whether it was the teachers, and not the children, who needed psychiatric help). Eisenberg further denounced both the influence of Big Pharma and the “dreadful” childhood ADHD diagnostic process shortly before his death.

As towering a figure as Eisenberg is, however, he is peripheral to the story. The real driving force behind ADHD was always Conners. He devoted his entire career to it and is universally acknowledged as “the Father of ADHD.” He created the diagnostic criteria, pioneered the use of stimulants, and spent decades traveling the country popularizing his ideas and training other doctors in how to diagnose and treat ADHD. And then, towards the end of his life, he finally took a step back and saw he had created a monster. He realized, painfully, that he had been an unwitting pawn of Big Pharma. He encountered, too late, the horrible stories of minds ruined, lives destroyed, by the medicines he popularized. He ended his career not promoting ADHD, but denouncing it with passion, apologizing for his work on behalf of pharmaceutical companies and calling the state of ADHD in America “a national disaster of dangerous proportions.”

Yes, a national disaster. Unlike my introduction, that was not from a hypothetical conference, but a very real one. You can read Conners’ whole tragic story in former New York Times reporter Alan Schwarz’s fascinating book ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic.   

To repeat: the Tony Fauci, the Deborah Birx, the Mike Lindell of ADHD is on record, at length, passionately denouncing the industry he created. Yet chances are this may be the first time you’ve ever heard about it – even if one of your own children is on the very ADHD treatment he pioneered! Isn’t that incredible? Is that not covered under principles of ‘informed consent’? “Oh, by the way, the doctor who invented your child’s treatment went on to renounce his life’s work and warn the world about the catastrophic dangers of this medicine. So do you want to try the chewable or a tablet?”

Think about what it means that we have such a prominent medical mea culpa, from just a few years ago (Conners’ “national disaster” speech was from 2013, Schwarz’s book from 2016), and nothing happened. The billion dollar ADHD pharmaceutical industry didn’t pause for a moment, but continues to grow every year. What does that tell you about your doctor? What does it tell you about the media? What does it tell you about other contemporary medical controversies?

No, Fauci will never denounce himself. But if he ever did, there seem to be powerful forces at play to ensure that as few people as possible find out about it. We are not faced with Sherlock Holmes’ famous case of the guard dog that didn’t bark. We now live in a world where the poor guard dogs are barking their little doggy heads off, while the security company bosses are doing everything they can to muffle the noise.