No Brain Tests for Disorders

"‘Chemical imbalance…it’s a shorthand term really, it’s probably drug industry derived… We don’t have tests because to do it, you’d probably have to take a chunk of brain out of someone — not a good idea.’"

—Dr. Mark Graff, Chair of the Committee of Public Affairs for the American Psychiatric Association. July, 2005.

"Historically, ADD has been a kids’ problem. In the 1960s, when it was known as ‘hyperactivity,’ it was a popular diagnosis—the drug Ritalin, then as now, was the prescription of choice. No matter what it’s called, a diagnosis of this problem usually implies some type of overactivity or inattention. But because ADD is so vaguely defined, even for a psychiatric disorder, it is tailor-made for bogus claims. There are, as the American Psychiatric Association’s latest diagnostic manual concedes, ‘no laboratory tests that have been established as diagnostic’ for ‘Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.’"

—Richard E. Vatz, Professor Towson State University, “Attention Deficit Delirium,” The Wall Street Journal, July 27, 1994.