Dr. Mary Ann Block,
Author, No More ADHD

"Let me clear this up right now. ADHD is not like diabetes and [the stimulant used for it] is not like insulin. Diabetes is a real medical condition that can be objectively diagnosed. ADHD is an invented label with no objective, valid means of identification. Insulin is a natural hormone produced by the body and it is essential for life. [This stimulant] is a chemically derived amphetamine-like drug that is not necessary for life. Diabetes is an insulin deficiency. Attention and behavioral problems are not a [stimulant] deficiency."

• Psychiatrists deceitfully argue that ADHD requires "medication" in the same way that diabetes requires insulin treatment; they further argue that to deny children such "medication" would be like denying insulin to a diabetic. The analogy is psychiatry serving and false.

• Psychiatric drugs do not treat mental disorders in the same way as insulin treats diabetes. "What is implied in this statement is that psychotherapeutic drugs correct known chemical deficiencies (or excesses, or other instances), in the same way that insulin does. This analogy is repeated over and over again, not only in promotional material...and in articles published in professional journals, but, judging from reports from patients, every day in offices of psychiatrists and other physicians," wrote Elliot Valenstein, Ph.D., biopsychologist and author of Blaming the Brain.¹³

• Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, says that doctors tell patients they need to take a serotonin booster "like a diabetic takes insulin." But "even in diabetes, when something is known about the physiology, only about 10% of patients have conditions severe enough to require insulin. For the rest, their less severe diabetes can often be managed with milder agents, diet, and lifestyle changes. What if doctors tried to make all diabetics dependent on insulin?"¹⁴