When I can, I read publications on ADHD. I receive a magazine called "ADDITUDE" that is published every other month. I also try to read websites that deal with ADHD. Many times I get very frustrated.

My frustration is a result of the things I see, which is what I try to teach you. One of my goals is for you to read things and/or watch things and see through the "smoke". It simply means, see through what is being hidden or what the other person is trying to make you believe without telling you the whole story.

Let me give you an example.

ADDITUDE Magazine, Volume 8/ Issue 3 for January 2008.

Prior to this issue, they sent out an email taking a survey asking if people use medication, alternative to medication, or both. I filled it out and gave very specific detail about how I don't use any medication and I only use alternatives which I am very successful in doing. I think that I also mentioned how I have helped others do the same.

You would think that a magazine about helping others with ADHD would be very interested in hearing more about this, wouldn't you? The answer is no. Let's see what is said about this.

Page 5, paragraph 1, From the Editor:

"ADDitude receives inquiries almost every day about alternative therapies for ADHD - what works, what doesn't, which are scams, which are potentially dangerous. In a recent ADDitude reader poll, we asked which treatments you're pursuing at the moment; 38 percent answered medication, while 52 percent said they were using additional therapies- diet and exercise, behavioral changes - to manage symptoms. Ten percent said they were using only alternative therapies."

My Comments:
Now reading this, you should see a couple things from this 1st paragraph in the "from the editor". 52 percent of people were using additional therapies. This is in addition to medication. 38 percent were using medication only. What about this last sentence in the paragraph? (I added the bold to the words; it is not originally like this in their magazine.) The very last line is; Ten percent were using only alternative therapies.

Why did they change the number to a word? Instead of 10 you get ten? It almost seems to be that way so that people will easily skip over it. Now imagine this, the majority of people are using medication and a high percentage of them are using additional therapies. A very small percentage is not using any medication at all, only alternatives!

That should alert them to something. It makes me think that they would want to contact these people and say, HEY!, what are you doing, teach me more so I can tell our readers. Let's see what they decide to do.

Page 5, paragraph 2, From the Editor:

"Based on this interest, we put together a Special Report on five popular complementary approaches - neurofeedback, fish oil, balanced diet, exercise, and working-memory training. As the term complementary denotes, none of these is an alternative to medication, even though some who have undergone neurofeedback have been able to reduce their medication dosage....

Page 5, paragraph 3, From the Editor:

"In future issues, we will be bringing you authoritative coverage of complementary therapies in the Health section of the magazine."

My Comments:
Their decision is to help people stay on medication. They use a "smoke screen" with helping people to find out more about complementary therapies. This makes people think that these people really want to help them. Why do they need to cover something that over half of their readers already do? Why not help these 10 percent of people that use no medication to tell what they do? Well now you know why. You also know how to read through some of this junk that is put out.

One last note. Page 9 is a full page color ad for Concerta. There also is a color, 2 sided tear out, to mail in for more information. That's not it. Page 10 and half of 11 continues with the warnings about the medication. So this drug company has a 2 and a half page ad in the front with a tear out to mail in for more information. This is why I believe they can't talk about being off medication and they have to hide that it actually can be accomplished. They would lose one of their biggest clients that help fund the magazine, Big Pharmaceutical companies.

I do acknowledge that they have good articles that provide benefit to people. I am not going to continue buying this magazine because they let the drug companies control their direction.

I feel this way because Pharmaceutical companies goal is not to help people. Drugs do more damage then good and they look for more ways to get more people addicted. Thats the way I feel and these drug companies are affirming it everyday with all these reports of how harmful drugs are and the higher numbers of people that are on them.