ADD and NYT

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

The Sufficiency of Scripture and the Problem of Overmedication

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Mike Abendroth here, glad to be on WVNE again, and World View Weekend, Facebook, and the list goes on, iTunes, TuneIn Radio, it's amazing. So, it's tongue-in-cheek, it's cheek-in-tongue.

Today I'd like to discuss something that usually makes people mad. When I talk about attention deficit disorder, or ADHD, or mental illness, or syndromes, or diseases, and what does the Bible say about them, lots of people get very mad.

The ones that usually get mad are the ones that are either on drugs themselves, or have family members on drugs, or relatives, or friends, or something like that. So, I'm going to take a different approach today.

I'm going to try to speak kindly, generously, and no-compromisingly. Is that an adverb? Here's why I want to talk about it again. The main reason is, I think children, well, I think adults too, are over-medicated.

Whether that's psychotropic drugs, or whether that is just regular medicine. We are a pill nation. Our nation loves pills. And I think that when you stop just for a moment and say to yourself, do drug companies make money when they sell pills?

Do drug companies make more money when they sell more pills? And it doesn't take very long for you to figure out the fact that when Marlboro can hook people at 18 years old, I mean, what's the legal age to smoke a cigarette?

I'm not sure. 21 years old. If they get the brand down, and brand loyalty, they've got a 60-year customer. Well, I guess if they're two-pack a day smoke, or 20-year customer before they have emphysema and die of lung cancer.

But the New York Times, this week, has an article by Alan Schwartz, December 14th, 2013. So it's about a week old by the time this NoCo plays, it'll be two weeks old. New York Times. We're not talking about the New York Post.

We're not talking about the National Lampoon. We're not talking about Mad Magazine. We're not talking about Cooking Inc. What's the cooking one my wife likes? Cooking something? Cooking Inc.? We're talking about the New York Times, far from libertarian, far from tea partying, far from conservative.

The New York Times. Now I enjoy reading the New York Times because then I can feel highbrow. No, I enjoy reading it because when they have articles like this, they just help my cause more. What's my cause?

Well, here's my cause. Sanctify them in truth, thy word, Jesus said in John 17, is truth. My cause is the sufficiency of Scripture. My cause is sola scriptura. My cause is against anything that denies the authority, which denies the inerrancy, which denies the infallibility, which denies the sufficiency of Scripture.

When people act or believe in ways that make you think Scriptures are de-ficient, then I have to stand up and say something. Listen to what Luther said, if I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God, except precisely that little point, which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I'm not confessing Christ.

However boldly I may be professing Christ, Luther says, as he continues, where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefields besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

And so we have mayhem in the world today in lots of different areas, and in one of the areas it is the pharmaceutical area and the behavior-changing area and how they relate to one another. I believe the Bible is sufficient.

I believe the Bible is authoritative. I believe that when Solomon in the Proverbs writes to his son and to his sons that people are to listen and that people are to acquire wisdom. And I believe in Galatians 5, with the fruit of the spirit of self-control, I think those are biblical issues, and when they are not addressed biblically, we run into all kinds of other things.

And so today, Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio, New York Times article, The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder. I don't know why I have to do this, but probably legally, because if you sue No Compromise Radio for our two microphones that we have, I think that's all we have for assets.

I wouldn't want that. I want to keep these microphones. Phil Johnson said they were nice microphones. If you're on these medicines, then I don't want to tell you to stop. I do want to tell you, you can go talk to your doctor.

You can go talk to your psychiatrist and say, how can I get off this medicine? How can I work on something else? What else could I do that would be viable? And so this is maybe more preventative. If your children are not on stimulants, over-the-counter stimulants, no, these are with prescriptions.

If your children aren't on prescription stimulants, maybe you won't put them on there. If you read The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder, subtitle, The Number of Diagnoses Soared Amid a 20-Year Drug Marketing Campaign, Alan Schwartz, December 14th, New York Times.

Are we shocked? The marketing of drugs? Marketers know how to sell things and marketers can increase consumption. Now, the problem is, what if it's increasing the consumption of something that's really long-term untested drug that you give to your child daily?

So if you pull this up, there's a variety of things that are interesting. I'm going to give you a quote and it says from Keith Connors, who's a psychologist and who was an early advocate of the recognition of ADHD.

And he's talking about how people are diagnosed with this disorder now on a very common basis. This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels. Keith Connors, psychologist and early advocate of the recognition of ADHD.

Friends, this is in the New York Times. This is not weird, Abendrothian 1984 kind of thing. No, Connors questioned the New York Times article says the rising rates of diagnosis and called them a natural, this is a quote, disaster of dangerous proportions.

And what he did is he looked at the CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and show that 15 of high school children, and that the number of children on medication with the disorder had soared to 3 .5 million from 600 ,000 in 1990.

Connors said the numbers make it look like an epidemic. Well, it's not, it's preposterous. Now, on one of my NoCo 90s, I talked about ADHD and related to lazy parenting. Now, while I think that it was good for NoCo 90 to get your attention, it could be lazy parenting.

But I also think that putting your children on ADHD medicines after a five minute visit with a psychiatrist, I think it could be also a lack of education. This is the kind of article that I want to point you to, because I think it directly relates to sanctification.

How do we grow in grace? How are we sanctified? What is progressive sanctification? What is the role of the Holy Spirit in sanctification? Is justification the means of sanctification, or is it union with Christ is our means of sanctification?

As we think about preaching the gospel to ourselves every day, how is that nuanced? What is the trajectory in our modern day evangelicalism with gospel-centered ministries? So this is very important.

How do we grow in grace? And if we have a child that's unruly, that doesn't obey, that doesn't get good grades, that is fidgety, that can't pay attention, is that related to sanctification? Do they need regeneration?

See, there's all kinds of questions here. But here we have Dr. Connors, psychologist, and by the way, he is a professor emeritus at Duke University. So we're not talking some wacko, small-time person.

New York Times, Duke University, he said in a subsequent interview, this is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels. Now see, this doctor is not going to say the role of medicine in Christian sanctification is nil.

It's not used at all. See, he's not where I would be. Is there a role for a drug when you're dealing with anxiety? So let's think about that for a second. When the Bible says, don't be anxious, and you're anxious, we call that sin.

We call that lawlessness. We call that the opposite of trust. We're to trust the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding and all our ways acknowledge him and he'll make our path straight.

And when we're not trusting in the Lord, we're worrying, and therefore Paul says in Philippians, he says, be anxious for nothing. And then he gives the pro side of that, what to do instead, it's prayer with thanksgiving.

And so if you say, well, I've got a problem as a Christian, and I've got a worry problem, should I or could I use meds? I think Connors would say, you could. And I would say, you shouldn't. But see, that's not what we're after right here.

We're after the over, not over dosage, the over prescribing of this very thing. Here's what the New York Times article goes on to say, the rise of ADHD diagnoses and prescriptions for stimulants over the years coincided with a remarkably successful two decade campaign by pharmaceutical companies.

And by the way, I used to work for a pharmaceutical company. So I understand to publicize the syndrome and promote the pills to doctors, educators, and parents with the child's market booming. The industry is now employing similar marketing techniques as it focuses on ADHD for adults, which would become even more profitable.

Few dispute that classic ADHD historically estimated to affect 5 of children. So again, see for me, it's none and for them, it's just 5%. But my point here is still apparent. This guy is saying too many people are on this, too many children and now too many adults.

And so what is the role of a drug in sanctification? It says here, the 5 of children is a legitimate disability that impedes success at school, work, and personal life. Medication often assuages the severe impulses and inability to concentrate, allowing a person's underlying drive and intelligence to emerge.

So legitimately this guy's saying 5 of the kids have it. Now Schwartz goes on to report New York times, but even some of the fields, longtime advocates say the zeal to find and treat every ADHD child has led to, to TOO, many people with scant symptoms receiving the diagnosis and medication.

The disorder is now, this is, this is shocking here. This is amazing, is now the second most frequent long-term diagnosis made in children narrowly trailing asthma. So if you want to know what a long-term diagnosis a kid has, pick asthma number one and ADHD number two, according to CDC data that the New York times has gathered behind that drug.

New York times says behind that growth rather has been drug company marketing that has stretched the image of the classic ADHD to include relatively normal behavior, like carelessness and impatience. If you get to the DSM four, you get this so-called Bible of prescribing drugs for behavior, mentally illnesses, those kinds of things.

It's so subjective. And by the way, the way they do this online is tilted for you to want to go get help, but that's a later discussion. Has often overstated the pills benefits. This Schwartz says advertising on television and in popular magazines, like people and good housekeeping has cast common childhood forgetfulness and poor grades as grounds for medication that among other benefits can result in quote schoolwork that matches his intelligence end quote and ease family attention.

So, but the times does brilliantly in this article, it talks about the 2002 ad for Adderall showing a mother and her son, you know, playing. And then she says, thanks for taking out the garbage. So this is a behavioral issue.

This is not, I have low blood sugar. Therefore I have to take this drug. This is, I have a behavior. I don't take out the garage, the garage because it can't be attached. I don't take out the garbage, but now I do because of this drug.

What is the role of drugs in sanctification? Is there a role? What should the role be? The food and drug administration has cited every major ADHD drug, Adderall, Concerta, Focalin. That's an interesting name Adderall, by the way, ADD for all.

That's how it came up with Focalin. So you can focus Concerta. So you can concentrate and Vyvanse. I don't know Vyvanse. So you buy Vans, those cool skate shoes and non-stimulants. Intuniv, you want to get some intuitive stuff and Stratera, maybe so you can strategize, for false and misleading advertising since 2000, some multiple times.

So they get dinged because they're advertising things falsely. And when you watch these ads regularly, Schwartz says, and I agree with him, that these companies talk directly to the young people. Shire, which is a market leader with several ADHD medications, including Adderall, recently subsidized, according to Schwartz, New York Times.

I'm just going to keep going back to that over and over and over. 50 ,000 copies of a comic book that tries to demystify the disorder and uses superheroes to tell children, this is in the comic book, medicines may make it easier to pay attention and control your behavior.

What is the role of a chemical compound in sanctification? Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. Yeah, but no, you don't understand. But friends, let's just stop and think about this for a second.

The world is coming to the conclusion quickly. Here's the world's conclusion. Overprescribed psychotropic drugs. There are cases where they're needed, the world would say, they're overprescribed. No compromise, radios position.

We agree with the overprescription. And we also say for Christians, I'm not talking about the unbeliever here, I'm talking about the Christian, the role of medicine and sanctification, loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, loving your neighbor as yourself, putting off sin, putting on wrath, putting off unrighteousness.

Do you need medicine to do that? The answer is, we don't think you need it because we think scripture is sufficient. It's not we're trying to blast the medicine. It's that we're trying to elevate in your minds the sufficiency of scripture.

Pharmaceutical Marketing, ADHD, and the New York Times

New York Times, by the way, my name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm talking about the selling of ADD in the New York Times, Alan Schwartz, December 14th, 2013. Roger Griggs, according to the article, the pharmaceutical executive who introduced Adderall in 1994, said he strongly opposes marketing stibulants to the general public because of their dangers.

He calls them nuclear bombs warranted only under extreme circumstances and when carefully overseen by a physician. So market these to the doctors, don't market them to the consumer. Like most psychiatric conditions, ADHD has no definitive test.

That's New York Times. Did you get that? Has no definitive test. And most experts in the field agree that its symptoms are open to interpretation by patients, parents, and doctors. Are you listening? Why are you mad at me when I tell you these things?

Why aren't you mad at the New York Times? Why aren't you mad at the pharmaceutical companies? Why aren't you mad at yourself? Well, the good news is it's never too late to go get some help and to say, you know, my child's been on this drug for six years.

Doctor, could you please help me have him wean off this? What would be your suggestions? Like most psychiatric conditions, no definitive test. Most experts in the field, they said it's open to interpretation.

The American Psychiatric Association, APA, which receives significant financing from drug companies. Can't you sniff out something that's carnal and Corinthian? Pretty quickly, follow the money. Has gradually loosened the official criteria for the disorder to include common childhood behavior like makes careless mistakes, often has difficulty waiting his or her turn.

Well, according to that, I need it. Probably some of you wish I was on it. And then you have the selling to doctors. Friends, this is something that's really, really wrong. And then you have somebody like me who says something negative about drugs.

And then I get the most vicious emails from folks. Who are you to tell me stick? I got one that said, stick to what you're good at teaching the Bible, not medicine. Continuation of impairment of ADHD.

This is this is this is how they sell you the fear. Here's fear factor. This is Joe Rogan's fear factor version via the APA and folks like it. You know, if in the childhood days you have school failure and you do underachievement when you're older, that could become unemployment.

You know, when you kind of injure yourself as a child and you're careless and you fall down a bunch and you get hurt out on the playground, that could become fatal car wrecks. I'm not kidding you. Drug experimentation becomes drug dependence.

ODD and CD, that becomes criminal involvement and ASPD. If you don't get impulsivity and carelessness down now through drugs like Adderall, it's going to become unwanted pregnancy. See, you'll be impulsive then to STDs, etc.

If you repeatedly fail now and don't get some drugs to help you with that, it's going to become giving up hopelessness and frustration all day, every day. Lifelong, a marketer's dream. And kicking, if you're a Christian, kicking to the curb the sufficiency of Jesus.

Christian Discernment, Fear Marketing, and the Burden of Proof

Now, I said I was going to be nicer today and I really want to, but I need to go for the jugular. Can you prescribe behavioral altering drugs to people, Christians, and still believe in the sufficiency of Scripture?

I think the burden of proof is on you. Why is the burden of proof on me? Are the Scriptures sufficient? Did God write these Scriptures? Did man write these Scriptures? There are decades of research into how advertising influences doctors prescribing practices.

Dr. Aaron Kesselheim of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who specializes in pharmaceutical ethics. Even though they'll tell you that they're giving patients unbiased evidence-based information.

In fact, Dr. Kesselheim said, they're more likely to tell you what the drug companies told them, whether it's the benefit of the drugs or the risk of those drugs. A magazine ad for Concerta has a grateful mother saying, better test scores at home, more chores done at home, and independence I try to encourage, a smile I can always count on.

2009 ad for Intuitive, a child's, showed a child in a monster suit taking off his hairy mask to reveal his adorable smiling self. There's a great kid in there, the bottom of the screen said. And people are mad at me.

People are mad at me. You know, how about this? I made a mistake. I stupidly jumped into all this stuff. My kid's probably not in the 5 that really need it. And I just went along with it. But I'm going to put a stop to it.

I'm going to go talk to the doctor and say, you know, can you help me get my kid weaned off of this? Don't go cold turkey. Don't do all kinds of other things. I'm not a doctor. You have to go talk to your doctor about all this stuff.

I'm not a medical expert. I'm not a television host. That's actually what Ty Pennington said as he had his ADHD shirt on. But it's not too late to do the right thing. That's just general things in life.

And don't get online and take one of these quizzes. The New York Times article that I'm referring to today talks about the quizzes. Could you have ADHD? Sponsored by the companies, sponsored by Shire.

If you have trouble with getting things in order, remembering appointments, are getting started on projects, they're going to say what to you? A user who splits answers between rarely and sometimes, I rarely or sometimes remember appointments, receives the result ADHD possible.

Five answers of sometimes and one answer of often tell the user ADHD may be likely. And so then you go get a drug for it. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. And I am for the sufficiency of scripture.

I am against psychotropic sanctification because it's not really sanctification. I am against companies marketing to parents and to the consumers these kind of drugs. I'm against people that say we want to sell things no matter what.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now and I'm going to have to make sure I don't go over time. But you need to read The Selling of ADD by Alan Schwartz, December 14, 2013. And ask yourself the question, isn't this amazing that the world knows this?

Why is the church so far behind? Why is the church so lacking in their discernment when the world has already figured it out? Medical companies want to sell these things to our kids and they influence the doctors and I just put my kids on it.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.