The Dr. Peter Breggin Hour – 05.17.17

Did you know that ADHD kids have smaller brains?  The esteemed British journal Lancet and 80 plus authors say so, and the media has spread the news.   We must be grateful to my guest, Michael Corrigan, EdD, an educator and researcher, for debunking the study, and looking at what is really going on with this fraudulent diagnosis.  Claiming that ADHD children have smaller brains fits into a long history of racist and misogynistic claims about white men have larger brains.   It is ironic that the article claims to de-stigmatize ADHD by reassuring young people that they have smaller brains causing their problems in school.  If you were a child, wouldn’t that make you feel dreadfully stigmatized and even cheated by life?  As for me, as I confessed on the show, I have a smaller head, and therefore probably a smaller brain, than most people. My guest tells me on the air that he had the biggest head on his high school football team and hence probably the biggest brain, while when I played football in high school they could not find a helmet small enough to fit me.   My helmet was always falling over my eyes, blocking my vision while I ran with the ball.  I had to run with my head held up high to keep the helmet from sliding down, which was hazardous to say the least.  Well, at least no one told me that my small head, and presumably smaller brain, meant I had a disorder.