Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD

PsychologyToday

In the United States, at least 9% of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5%. How come the epidemic of ADHD—which has become firmly established in the United States—has almost completely passed over children in France?

French child psychiatrists, on the other hand, view ADHD as a medical condition that has psycho-social and situational causes. Instead of treating children’s focusing and behavioral problems with drugs, French doctors prefer to look for the underlying issue that is causing the child distress—not in the child’s brain but in the child’s social context. They then choose to treat the underlying social context problem with psychotherapy or family counseling. This is a very different way of seeing things from the American tendency to attribute all symptoms to a biological dysfunction such as a chemical imbalance in the child’s brain.

To the extent that French clinicians are successful at finding and repairing what has gone awry in the child’s social context, fewer children qualify for the ADHD diagnosis. Moreover, the definition of ADHD is not as broad as in the American system, which, in my view, tends to “pathologize” much of what is normal childhood behavior. The DSM specifically does not consider underlying causes. It thus leads clinicians to give the ADHD diagnosis to a much larger number of symptomatic children, while also encouraging them to treat those children with pharmaceuticals.

The French holistic, psycho-social approach also allows for considering nutritional causes for ADHD-type symptoms—specifically the fact that the behavior of some children is worsened after eating foods with artificial colors, certain preservatives, and/or allergens. Clinicians who work with troubled children in this country—not to mention parents of many ADHD kids—are well aware that dietary interventions can sometimes help a child’s problem. In the United States, the strict focus on pharmaceutical treatment of ADHD, however, encourages clinicians to ignore the influence of dietary factors on children’s behavior.

Flashback: President Obama Targeted Gibson Guitars, Boeing on Ideological Grounds

Breitbart

Even mainstream media outlets are running story upon story about President Barack Obama’s possible ties to the government grabbing a wire service’s phone records and the IRS bullying conservative groups.

Those who have been paying attention to the New Media shouldn’t be surprised by these headlines. In fact, here are two examples where the Obama administration appeared to use an ideological cudgel to bash both conservatives and free market principles.

On Aug. 24, 2011, the Department of Justice sent armed agents into the Gibson Guitar factor in Memphis “confiscating half a million dollars worth of guitar making material is an alleged violation of environmental standards.”

 

Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz is a conservative, and his company eventually settled rather than take matters to court.

Nashville-based Gibson agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty, forfeit claims to about $262,000 worth of wood seized by federal agents and contribute $50,000 to theNational Fish and Wildlife Foundation to promote the conservation of protected tree species.

We felt compelled to settle as the costs of proving our case at trial would have cost millions of dollars and taken a very long time to resolve,” CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said in a statement late Monday night….

“We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted, and a matter that could have been addressed with a simple contact a caring human being representing the government,” he said in his statement.

Just a few weeks later, the Obama administration squared off against Boeing for daring to set roots in a “right to work” state.

In a faltering economy, the aerospace titan opened a $750 million factory in South Carolina and hired thousands of workers to build the world’s most fuel-efficient commercial jet…. the National Labor Relations Board has accused Boeing of opening its South Carolina shop in a “right-to-work” state to retaliate against union worker strikes at its main manufacturing base in the Seattle area.

An Obama appointee is now asking a judge to order Boeing to relocate all 787 Dreamliner production to Washington state — a move that’s feeding the GOP narrative that Obama’s Big Government is meddling with job creation, just as the first plane nears its first commercial flight.

The NLRB complaint against Boeing was eventually dropped, but not before the union got a pretty compensation package as a parting gift.

Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates called it a prime example of regulatory overreach by the Obama administration, arguing that federal officials should not be telling companies where they can or cannot build factories. Congress held hearings and demanded thousands of pages of documents.

Two More Schools Join Rankings Hall of Shame

TaxProf

Robert Morse (Director of Data Research for U.S. News & World Report), Updates to 2 Schools’ 2013 Best Colleges Ranks:

Two schools – University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and York College of Pennsylvania – recently advised U.S. News that they submitted inflated data that were used in the 2013 Best Colleges rankings, resulting in their numerical ranks being higher than they otherwise might have been. In both cases, the same incorrect data were also reported to many other parties including the U.S. Department of Education.

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, a Texas school in the Regional Universities (West) rankings category, advised U.S. News that it reported an acceptance rate (which accounts for 1.5% of the overall ranking) of 27.4%, rather than the actual 89.1% rate.

York College, a Pennsylvania school in the Regional Universities (North) rankings category, advised U.S. News that it reported average SAT scores (which account for 7.5% of the overall ranking) of 545 (math) and 532 (critical reading), rather than the actual 527 (math) and 516 (critical reading) SAT scores. York College admitted that it has been misreporting SAT scores for more than a decade.

Other members of the Rankings Hall of Shame:  Bucknell, Claremont McKenna, Emory, George Washington, Illinois, Tulane, and Villanova.

Did The IRS Try To Swing Election To Obama?

IBO

The inspector general’s report on the IRS targeting of conservatives makes it seem like a case of bureaucratic bumbling. But the more we learn, the more it looks like a concerted effort to hobble Obama’s political foes.

‘Inappropriate criteria,” “insufficient oversight” and “lack of managerial review.” That’s what led the IRS to target hundreds of conservative groups for intrusive, costly and lengthy scrutiny during their application for tax-exempt status, according to the IG report released on Tuesday.

In other words, it wasn’t a politically motivated attack on conservative groups during a presidential campaign. It was just a case of some bad wording and a lack of good bosses.

Except that, as details of the IRS scandal emerge, it’s increasingly giving the appearance of a wide-scale effort to tilt the playing field against conservative activist groups who might have been helpful to Republican candidates in the 2012 election, while at the same time coddling liberal groups helpful to Obama.

Consider what we now know the IRS did:

• Gave preferential treatment to liberal groups. On Tuesday, USA Today reported that while the IRS was hounding conservative groups and holding up their applications for tax-exempt status, it was quickly ushering liberal groups with names like “Progress Florida” and “Missourians Organizing for Reform” through the process.

Made unusual document requests. Not only did the IRS target conservative groups for extra scrutiny, it also asked for massive amounts of information that it couldn’t possibly need to determine tax-exempt status.Among them: donor names, blog posts, transcripts of radio interviews, resumes of top officers, board minutes and summaries of material passed out at meetings.

Some groups were asked about connections to other conservative groups or individuals.

Georgia Tech Takes MOOCs to the Next Level

Outstanding news!

Georgia Tech announced yesterday that it is teaming up with Udacity, one of the leading providers of massively open online education, to offer a full graduate program in computer science. For a mere $7,000 dollars—or 1/6 the cost of the equivalent program offered on campus—students who meet the prerequisites can fulfill the requirements of a master’s degree entirely through open courseware.

This is a big deal. As the Washington Post notes, even MOOC-friendly colleges like Stanford, Harvard, and San Jose State have been reluctant to actually grant credentials for their online courses, preferring to use them as a teaching aids rather than as the foundation of a program. There have been the usual concerns about quality control, as well as worries that an all-MOOC degree could dilute the value of Georgia Tech’s traditional degrees, but Georgia Tech claims it has taken these concerns into account:

Notably, the university said it hoped to admit anyone who meets its admissions requirement, which it emphasized remain stringent. It estimated it could eventually enroll 10,000 students in the program, in a field facing a shortage of workers. That’s nearly half the size of the whole student body on Georgia Tech’s Atlanta campus.

“We’re turning down people that are probably capable. We just can’t handle them,” said Rafael Bras, Georgia Tech’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, who said current demand for the program outstrips supply by 10 to 1. “We’re now reaching out to the world through a different medium. There’s a lot of people out there that will have this great opportunity.”

At $7,000 per student and with these kinds of enrollment numbers, this may be not just a boon for students but a good way of significantly widening Georgia Tech’s student base: 10,000 is a lot of students, and the open nature of MOOCs makes it relatively simple to scale up without dramatically expanding staff or administrative costs.

This is the first program of its kind, so nobody knows if the students it graduates will pass muster in the marketplace. But the potential for both cutting costs and broadening the educational base is certainly there. Rest assured we will be watching to see how this experiment shapes up.

Don’t Let the Door Hit Ya On the Way Out..

IRS Acting Commissioner Resigns

President Barack Obama delivered a brief statement on the IRS scandal this afternoon. He announced that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had requested and received the resignation of Steven Miller, acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. He also warned Republicans not to politicize the scandal, which has government abusing Americans due to their political beliefs at its very heart.

Obama took no questions from the media.

He did manage to finally stop using “if” in connection with the IRS scandal.

Update: Miller’s resignation is a sham.

How To Listen When Someone is Venting

LifeHacker

I’ve noticed that when you’re faced with an upset customer, client, employee, shareholder, child, parent, spouse, or friend, it can actually feel like they’re bulging with emotion and about to explode. Your instinctual and intuitive reaction may be to try to calm them down, urge them to cool off, suggest it’s not worth getting so upset about. And sometimes that may work. But in cases where they’re really upset, you may need to drain their emotional abscess just as you would have to do with a physical abscess. In those situations, asking them to calm down before they’ve vented will be about as useful as skipping straight to antibiotics before cleaning their wound.

And yet a lot of people don’t know how to listen to someone venting. Usually, people take one of two attitudes. Option 1 is to jump in and give advice—but this is not the same as listening, and the person doing the venting may respond with “Just listen to me! Don’t tell me what to do.”

What Are You Most Frustrated About?

What Are You Most Angry About?

What Are You Really Worried About?

US shale oil supply shock shifts global power balance

BBC

A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says.

Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The US will change from the world’s leading importer of oil to a net exporter.

Demand for oil from Middle-East oil producers is set to slow as a result.

“North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout the world,” said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven.

3D-Printed Face Made This Man’s Life Whole Again

Mashable

Thanks to 3D-printing technology, Eric Moger is getting his life back.

Four years ago, doctors detected a massive tumor growing beneath the skin on his face. They successfully removed the cancerous growth, but were also forced to remove most of the entire left side of his face.

After the lifesaving procedure, the British restaurant manager had a gaping hole where his eye, cheek bone, and part of his jaw had been. Moger would have gone on to live the rest of his life with half his face missing.

This is what Moger looked like prior the surgery. This is him with the prosthetic.

3D Printing is Way Scarier Than Plastic Guns

ShellyPalmer

Ever the publicity hound, Sen. Chuck Schumer, who obviously has no idea what additive manufacturing actually is, came out big and strong against “stomach-churning” 3D printed plastic guns last week.

Ever the publicity hound, Sen. Chuck Schumer, who obviously has no idea what additive manufacturing actually is, came out big and strong against “stomach-churning” 3D printed plastic guns last week.

“Everyone’s seen the movie ‘In The Line of Fire,’ where one of the great bad guys, [played by] John Malkovich, labored at making a gun out of plastic and wood so it could get through metal detectors and he could assassinate the president…” Senator Schumer went on to say, “But that was only a movie, and just this week, it has become reality. We’re facing a situation where anyone — a felon, a terrorist — can open a gun factory in their garage and the weapons they make will be undetectable. It’s stomach-churning.”

This naive, sensationalist rant so misunderstands the issue, I almost don’t know where to start.  He goes on to inform the public that because these guns are made of plastic, they are undetectable, so he must introduce legislation that will make it illegal to possess an undetectable or an untraceable weapon.  This is like putting a “Band-Aid on a heart attack.”  Sen. Schumer simply doesn’t understand what he is dealing with.  In fact, most of us don’t.