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Comment by iliiilliili | Hacker News Reader

Ten years ago it was ADD, now it's autism. Psychiatry is bullshit, and the pharmaceutical industry it drives is dangerous.

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I am not aware of any pharmaceutical treatments for autism. (Nor is Google.)

If autism is indeed being over-diagnosed, this is not due to pressure from Big Pharma.

Careful of your generalizations.

I have aspergers. Give me money.

That's not how it works.

We are the medical industry and have codified the diagnosis of aspergers to be far encompassing and include people who have absolutely no real impact on their lives, but we've convinced them it is a problem and now we're going to provide them with a pharmaceutical and psychiatric therapy to help them "cope" with it -- GIVE US MONEY.

Aspies are not systematically medicated. Few are ever medicated. Sometimes, medications not specifically indicated for Asperger's, such as antipsychotics and antidepressants, are used to treat extreme symptoms. These would be given whether the symptom came with a diagnosis of Asperger's or not, and usually are not consistently maintained at a high dosage long-term.

There is no "Asperger's pill". I only wish someone could come up with one.

What are these pharmaceutical and psychiatric therapies given to people with Asperger's syndrome?

Please delete your incorrect statements that there exists a pharmaceutical treatment for autism.

Why was this being downvoted?

Because 90% of geeks have /self-diagnosed/ themselves as having aspergers and they take any criticism of it as a personal attack on them and their "illness".

Don't worry, something else will come along that is way more trendy in a few years and these same people will move on to claiming they have that, instead.

(Obviously not claiming autism itself is not real and not a legitimate and difficult problem to deal with. I shouldn't have to disclaim this, but I'm obviously talking about the Slashdot type crowd that has convinced themselves that because they are detail oriented and are sometimes awkward in crowds, they have aspergers and constantly talk about it.)

Or you could just chalk it up to the fact that the post was a "shoot from the hip" post that was channelling a bunch of rage against Big Pharma and psychiatry while containing very little in the way of facts. Not only that, but Big Pharma has no horse in the race as there is no drug to sell here.

I have been professionally diagnosed as having Asperger's, and I downvoted it because it was a shitty, uninformed, insulting comment. Exactly the same reason I've downvoted your comments.

The remaining 10% of geeks who have more sense than that, have been diagnosed by their friends and or families. It can be used as a stick to control them, so I can see why it provokes a reaction.

Because people assume it's an insubstantial conspiracy. I have plenty of friends and family who work in medicine and they'll readily admit that there are fad disorders closely preceded or followed by a pharmaceutical to treat them.

Because it is flamebait.

I dunno, or care, but it's funny, there was an article posted here recently that was titled almost exactly `psychiatry is bullshit' and that got to the front page. It's not a conspiracy, it's incompetent doctors readily prescribing dangerous drugs to children for make believe illnesses. This has happened since the birth of medicine and will continue to do so.

Autism is not bullshit.

Deleted comment

The GP says in another comment that trying to treat autism is bullshit.

> I think there is good reason to be skeptical of psychiatry.

I think there is good reason to be skeptical when not presented with proof. I'm sorry, but the GP is asserting things purely based on his uninformed opinion.

The fact that it's considered an illness and needs a cure or special treatment is, though. I was actually diagnosed with Aspergers as a child (whether it was accurately done so or not, I don't care), and the thing that has had the most negative impact on my life wasn't the Autism, but the diagnosis itself. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, getting told something is wrong with you. And with things like ADD the `treatment' was almost always much worse than the condition itself.

Your personal experience is meaningless. Autism and Aspergers are not the same for everyone. The fact that you are typing this is proof enough. But when you suggest that autistics who stim by slamming their head into a wall don't need special treatment, it's clear you don't understand the full ramifications of what you are suggesting.

Autism is a spectrum. It's not one thing.

> And with things like ADD the `treatment' was almost always much worse than the condition itself.

As someone who was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and is currently taking medication, I can assure you, that's not the case.

While I completely disagree with the (what I hope are troll) comments such as the one you're replying to, one nit-pick: you call him out for judging everything on a single case, then do the same with ADD/ADHD medication. The fact that it works for you doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't "almost always much worse than the condition itself", just as the fact that he thinks he was misdiagnosed doesn't necessarily mean all diagnoses are incorrect / not worth doing.

> you call him out for judging everything on a single case, then do the same with ADD/ADHD medication

My apologies. I read the line as:

"And with things like ADD the `treatment' was always much worse than the condition itself."

And missed or ignored the almost part. The statement read too much as a statement condemning all treatment as worse, which is not what is said.

So, I wasn't hypocritical, just sloppy in my reading. =)

Why does everyone always bring up the one kid they saw on YouTube banging his head on a wall as an example of autism?

I've seen my son do it.

But you're clearly a troll.

I've worked as a neuro tech for several years and have encountered a lot of autistic, ADHD, and epileptic children. The common age of the autistic patients for us was around 2 years old, but we dealt with them up to adult age.

I'm here to tell you that you are spouting harmful nonsense, and that there are definitely children that have a qualitative difference from their peers as described by 'autism'.

Overdiagnosis may be an issue, but that doesn't make it bullshit. Deal with the overdiagnosis on its own merits - but don't just start inventing stuff to simply make yourself feel better, because your misinformation can prevent others from getting appropriate assistance.

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