Talking about about “overdiagnosis” without addressing underdiagnosis is, frankly, scientific and clinical malpractice. Untreated ADHD, which is underdiagnosed

Talking about about “overdiagnosis” without addressing underdiagnosis is, frankly, scientific and clinical malpractice. Untreated ADHD, which is underdiagnosed in adults (especially in women) can be a debilitating condition and there's ample evidence about this from peer-reviewed medical journals (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4195639/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4195639/, among others). Self-medication with effective medication isn’t even really possible because amphetamines aren't regular prescription drugs -- they're controlled substances, so diagnosis tends to be a necessary condition to get access to effective meds. The “overdiagnosis” moral panic leads to parents not being OK with the idea of their children being diagnosed with ADHD or shudder be on effective medication like adderall or ritalin, or people (of all ages) thinking/internalizing the idea that they can’t ~~really~~ have ADHD and that they’re just “lazy” or “flaky” or “apathetic” or whatever other shitty terms are used for people with executive dysfunction. It also makes doctors more suspicious of people seeking treatment ("if it’s overdiagnosed it must be rare, so some of the people I see as a doctor have to be be faking it, by pigeonhole principle"), which actually causes harm to people who need access to medical care -- finding a doctor who’s OK prescribing is such a pain when you’re ADHD and have run out of meds. I've had enough bad experiences with psychiatrists for a lifetime and I've absolutely no inclination to defend psychiatrists, their clinical practice, or their DSM. There indeed are people who are diagnosed with ADHD who don’t have it / don’t benefit from medication. However, the “overdiagnosis” meme (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/17709814/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/17709814/) and other forms of ADHD denialism cause real harm to people who actually end up needing critical access to controlled substances which are impossible to legally get without the appropriate diagnosis. Regardless of how psychiatrists draw the lines of diagnosis, there's plenty of evidence that there actually do exist plenty of people with chronic and debilitating attention / executive function dysfunction that do experience amelioration when they take a regular dose of stimulants. Furthermore, this isn't a straightforward discussion about the effectiveness of some given pharmaceutical -- this is a moral panic that explicitly seeks to use the criminal law to curtail access to medication, regardless if it has been shown safe and effective: > The Drug Enforcement Agency is doing its best to contain the epidemic