Hyperactivity in children: the Gillberg affair

I have no axe to grind in this rather heated debate and have played
no part in it.
However, as the freelance journalist Vanna Beckman arbitrarily drags my
name
into the discussion by alleging, without evidence, that I 'belong to the
camp of
anti-psychiatrists' and am close to 'but fear to be connected with'
scientologists,
it is time to demand an apology. I do not know who Ms Beckman is, have
never
knowingly corresponded with her, and wish to make it categorically plain
that I
have abolutely no time for or truck with scientology. Nor, as a bsic
neuroscientist, am I an 'anti-psychiatrist', by which I assume she means
an
adherent to the school of Laing and others from the 60s. What I am and
remain,
is a sceptic about the nature and scale of the current diagnoses of
attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder amongst children, the claims that such
diagnoses
have a reliable base in genetically based disturbances of neurotransmitter

metabolism, and the uses of powerful medication to conrol the condition.

Competing interests:
None declared