What's Wrong with The NY Times Article on ADHD - #1 (of 4 Parts)

On Sunday, April 13th, 2025 an article on ADHD was published in the New York Times Magazine about the nature of ADHD and whether we need to rethink our views of this disorder. The article is very similar in the major points it wishes to make to two articles in the Economist I critiqued in an earlier video in November of 2024 on the topic of Is ADHD a Disorder or a Neurodivergence. The issues the article raises also largely reflect outdated criticisms from more than 30 years ago that were part of a campaign by the Church of Scientology and its Citizens Commission on Human Rights that were refuted even then. Because the NY Times article is very long and my criticisms of its contents are numerous, I have divided the critique into four parts for ease of viewing.

Part 1 addresses the opening points made in the article about the opinions of Dr. James Swanson, the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD (MTA) in which he participated as one of several sites, about the actual study design of the MTA, and also about the prevalence statistics for the diagnosis of ADHD published by the Center for Disease Control. I critique or clarify all of these topics and the issues they raise in the NY Times article.

NY Times Article is Here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/ma...

Economist Articles are here:
https://archive.is/ySMVr#selection-97...
https://archive.is/hNPIQ#selection-97...