A Hot Take on False Narratives

Pushing back on misinformation and disinformation

This wasn’t what I’d planned to write about today. I was in the middle of another post and I abandoned it to jump into this one. Yes, I know, a classic ADHD writer move. That impulse to bail on a work-in-progress in favor of the next shiny idea—sound familiar?—was in part the topic of the sidelined post. I’ll revisit that another day (maybe) but let’s see if I can see this one through to the end.

Here’s what happened. My train of thought was highjacked by news stories that likely will have a significant and detrimental effect on the neurodivergent community.

Individuals with ADHD, autism, and other mental health issues—in addition to having to live with challenging symptoms—often struggle to get a diagnosis, to be taken seriously, to be accurately represented, and to get access to appropriate treatment. Now, misinformation and disinformation are increasing the odds that they will continue to be unacknowledged, misunderstood, demeaned, and undertreated.

It’s likely that anyone who faces these burdens has encountered the friend, family member, or even healthcare professional who argues that their ADHD, autism, OCD, depression, or anxiety is bogus, that they’re attention-seeking, or that their symptoms don’t meet diagnostic standards even though their lived experience tells them otherwise. This goes double for women. They’ve heard some version of this:

· You don’t look like you have ADHD.

· But you’re so organized!

· You just need to try harder.

· Isn’t everyone just a little ADHD … or OCD … or on the spectrum?

· You’re just trying to jump on the bandwagon.

In the short time since my ADHD was identified, I’ve heard each of these more than a few times. Some of the comments may be well meaning, but, in fact, they’re invalidating. They’re grounded in inaccuracies, and regardless of the intention, they cause harm.

But when the skeptics and naysayers are journalists and government officials, the stakes are much higher. When they spread inaccurate and irresponsible beliefs, those ideas quickly get recycled, packaged as truth.

As I write this, I’m watching a cable news report on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s remarks about a new CDC report on autism prevalence. He declares, without evidence, that autism is a relentless, rapidly growing epidemic. The man who—despite having no bona fide medical experience—has been entrusted with guiding the federal agencies responsible for protecting the health of Americans, is tossing aside decades of autism research to promote a bizarre agenda of his own, one that’s deeply stigmatizing and has no basis in science, one that absurdly characterizes autistic children broadly as people who will “never pay taxes, they will never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

One thing Kennedy got right: the CDC study, which involved information from 14 states and Puerto Rico, did reveal a slight rise in prevalence of autism in children eight years of age and observed an unequal geographic distribution of cases. In a Department of Health and Human Services press release, titled “Autism Epidemic Runs Rampant,” Kennedy says, “The autism epidemic has now reached a scale unprecedented in human history because it affects the young.”

It’s a comment that reflects both ignorance and a willful distortion. A surge in the number of diagnoses doesn’t indicate an epidemic. It doesn’t mean that cases are skyrocketing. It means we’re getting better at recognizing autism. Greater awareness of the symptoms, better screening tools, greater access to those tools, and expanded diagnostic criteria (the inclusion of Asperger syndrome, for example) are driving the numbers upward. Kennedy hypes the uptick in cases while ignoring the study authors’ explanations.

The New York Times describes Kennedy’s assertions as “laced with scientific inaccuracies.” Let’s be real. They’re laced with lies.

And the New York Times, reporting on recent research on ADHD, has its own credibility issue, one that in many ways echoes Kennedy’s missteps.

In “Have We Been Thinking About ADHD All Wrong,” published on Sunday in The New York Times Magazine, author Paul Tough also focuses on a boom in diagnoses. He, too, discounts the role of increased awareness. And, like Kennedy, he asserts that research now points to the role of environment in ADHD. Not surprisingly, the article has drawn fire from advocates and members of the scientific community who believe the author misrepresented research and cherry-picked data.

Based on a year spent interviewing experts in the United States and abroad, Tough concludes that we understand ADHD less now than we did two decades ago and that our definitions conflict with the science. He argues, further, that current medical treatment is based on long-held assumptions now under scrutiny by researchers. “Some scientists,” he writes, “have begun to argue that the traditional conception of A.D.H.D. as an unchanging, essential fact about you — something you simply have or don’t have, something wired deep in your brain — is both inaccurate and unhelpful.”

The article is far too complex to summarize here, but if you’re invested in the topic, I recommend reading it, then watching Dr. Russell Barkley’s four part rebuttal on YouTube. Finally, check out Additude magazine’s take, “Setting the Record Straight About ADHD and Its Treatments,” which outlines the perceived fallacies and biases in the article.

After the NYT article dropped, headlines popped up all over the internet, on podcasts, on YouTube, and on social media. Like these:

· Are America’s Children Being Over-diagnosed and Over-Medicated?

· ADHD, an Excuse to Medicate the Masses

· The ‘Experts’ are finally Admitting that ADHD is a Scam

Why does it matter? Because narrative distortions influence public opinion, eroding support for the people who need it most—and in today’s political climate they may also influence policy, with real consequences for a vulnerable population. It’s up to us to push back against these false narratives, whether that’s through op-eds, letters to the editors, or outreach to our elected officials.

I hope you’ll join the conversation and share your thoughts about these stories in comments, in Notes, or in Creatively ADHD’s chat. I’d love to know your views.