New York Times Exposé Vindicates CCHR: ADHD Isn't Biological, Says Watchdog

LOS ANGELES - Amzeal -- A recent exposé in The New York Times Magazine will send shockwaves through the psychiatric community, affirming what the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has warned for decades: there is no medical proof that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a biological disorder.[1] Yet, over 3.4 million American children are labeled with ADHD and prescribed powerful, mind-altering stimulants.

According to Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, the Times' revelations "should prompt federal lawmakers and public health officials to investigate how millions of children could be drugged under a false premise—and why dissenting voices were ignored."

The New York Times Magazine article by Paul Tough details how ADHD was long marketed as a neurobiological disorder requiring medication, despite lacking any objective test. Tough writes that the entire system rests on shaky assumptions: "that ADHD is a medical disorder that demands a medical solution; that it is caused by inherent deficits in children's brains; and that the medications we give them repair those deficits." But many of those once involved in building this narrative are now disowning it.

As the article concedes: "Unlike with diabetes, there is no reliable biological test for ADHD," and diagnosis often relies on "subjective judgment."

Eastgate underscores the damage: "Millions of parents were led to believe their children had a brain disorder—one that science now admits it cannot medically confirm. That's not mental healthcare. That's institutional betrayal."

Experts Retreat from ADHD's Scientific Foundation

Among the most striking revelations is the reversal of leading researchers who once championed the disorder and its treatments.

Dr. James Swanson, a research psychologist and one of ADHD's early proponents, was central to efforts in the 1990s that drove public acceptance of the diagnosis. At that time, CCHR was actively protesting the mass drugging of children, warning that the supposed science behind ADHD was fundamentally flawed. Their concerns are now echoed by Swanson himself.

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After three decades of research, Swanson told The Times: "I don't agree with people who say that stimulant treatment is good. It's not good." He also found that children taking the drugs were still symptomatic years later and were shorter than their peers.

Other prominent scientists quoted include:

• Edmund Sonuga-Barke, King's College London: "The traditional notion that there is a natural category of people with ADHD… just doesn't seem to be the case."
• John Gabrieli, MIT neuroscientist: "There is no single-gene story... now we realize how far away we are."
• William Pelham, Jr., University at Buffalo: "We found no [evidence that stimulants] translate into improved learning."
• F. Xavier Castellanos, NYU: ADHD drugs have "minimal effects on academic achievement or attainment."

Sonuga-Barke went further, calling the search for a biological marker a "red herring," and admitting: "There literally is no natural cutting point where you could say, 'This person has got ADHD, and this person hasn't got it.' Those decisions are to some extent arbitrary."

The Human Toll: Why Kids Quit the Drugs

The exposé also reveals how teens themselves reject ADHD stimulants. Swanson notes the high dropout rate among young users—many of whom said the drugs made them feel worse. "If it's so effective, why do people stop?" he asked.

Eastgate responds: "For decades, parents were told by doctors, 'If you don't medicate your child, you're a bad parent.' But when children themselves report the drugs made them feel bad, it's psychiatry that refuses to listen."

In response to the widespread overuse of ADHD diagnoses and stimulant prescribing—even in children under five—the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched a federal review. CCHR welcomes this as long overdue.

For over 40 years, CCHR has maintained that psychiatric labels such as ADHD are not rooted in biological science but are voted into existence through panels of psychiatrists—not discovered through medical testing. As far back as the 1980s and 1990s, CCHR was on record opposing the mass diagnosis of ADHD and the marketing of stimulants to schoolchildren.

"This investigation must look at how pseudoscience became policy," said Eastgate. "And why the system ignored watchdogs, parents, and even the United Nations, until some of the same researchers who created the mess began to admit their mistake."

In 2017, Dr. Dainius Pūras, a psychiatrist and then UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, urged governments to move away from the biomedical (drug-based) model of mental health.[2] CCHR had already submitted evidence to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), documenting psychostimulant prescribing in 14 countries.

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The UNCRC responded by recommending strict monitoring of ADHD drug use in children and criticized the "medicating" of children without addressing root causes or offering alternative supports.[3]

More recently, the World Health Organization and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights jointly declared that "legislation on mental health must… move away from the narrow traditional 'biomedical paradigm.'"[4]

The New York Times exposé represents a landmark moment in pediatric mental health. It exposes how ADHD's "biological" foundations were misleading, and the harms of its treatments were undersold. CCHR says it validates what the group has long stood for: that millions of children were mislabeled and drugged.

"This is a reckoning," concludes Eastgate. "But it must become a reform. It's not enough to admit the science was wrong. The system must now be held accountable for what it did with that false science—and ensure it never happens again."

About CCHR: Mental health industry watchdog established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and the late professor of psychiatry, Dr. Thomas Szasz. CCHR has achieved hundreds of reforms, including bans on minors being electroshocked and federal protections against forced drugging of schoolchildren.

Sources:

[1] Paul Tough, "Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong?" The New York Times Magazine, 13 Apr. 2025, www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html?smid=em-share

[2] "World Needs 'Revolution' in Mental Health Care, U.N. Health Rights Expert Reports," CCHR International, 14 June 2017, www.cchrint.org/2017/06/14/world-needs-revolution-in-mental-health-care/; "World needs 'revolution' in mental health care – UN rights expert," United Nations, 6 June 2017, www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2017/06/world-needs-revolution-mental-health-care-un-rights-expert; web.archive.org/web/20170118053505/http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Health/Pages/SRBio.aspx

[3] "Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 44 of the Convention," UNCRC, 17 Sept. – 5 Oct. 2012, p. 15, web.archive.org/web/20130729192330/http://rightsofchildren.ca/wp-content/uploads/Canada_CRC-Concluding-Observations_61.2012.pdf

[4] "New WHO Mental Health Guideline Condemns Coercive Psychiatric Practices," CCHR International, 18 Sept. 2023, www.cchrint.org/2023/09/18/who-guideline-condemns-coercive-psychiatric-practices/; "Guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation," World Health Organization, OHCHR, 9 Oct. 2023, p. xvii, iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/373126/9789240080737-eng.pdf