What is the main thesis of this film?
For me thesis of this film revolves around drug companies and the FDA, which are both corrupt entities. The movie portrayed these entities as corrupt, and these entities were allowed to target kids to create a new market for drugs. Regardless of the side effects, the drug companies continued to push their drugs on kids while creating a new demographic, and doctors continued to diagnose kids with problems to fund the drug companies.
2. What were the main arguments in support of this thesis?
The main arguments that supported the thesis were two things: the numbers, and the doctor who couldn’t describe what the symptoms of ADHD consist of. Some of the numbers behind the drugs are, ten million kids are taking drugs today, sixty-nine billion dollars are being spent annually on drug in the United States, which equates to one hundred thirty nine dollars a second, forty million people are on Prozac, there has been a four hundred percent rise in antipsychotic drugs in teens and children, eight out of thirteen kids involved in school shootings were on psychotic drugs, Ritalin use is up by seven hundred forty percent in the 1990s, and twenty-eight thousand people experienced adverse effects to Prozac in four years. The other point that really validated the thesis came when a panel of Doctors could not describe what a child with ADHD looks like.
3. How does the thesis of this film relate to the course?
For me thesis of this film revolves around drug companies and the FDA, which are both corrupt entities. The movie portrayed these entities as corrupt, and these entities were allowed to target kids to create a new market for drugs. Regardless of the side effects, the drug companies continued to push their drugs on kids while creating a new demographic, and doctors continued to diagnose kids with problems to fund the drug companies.
2. What were the main arguments in support of this thesis?
The main arguments that supported the thesis were two things: the numbers, and the doctor who couldn’t describe what the symptoms of ADHD consist of. Some of the numbers behind the drugs are, ten million kids are taking drugs today, sixty-nine billion dollars are being spent annually on drug in the United States, which equates to one hundred thirty nine dollars a second, forty million people are on Prozac, there has been a four hundred percent rise in antipsychotic drugs in teens and children, eight out of thirteen kids involved in school shootings were on psychotic drugs, Ritalin use is up by seven hundred forty percent in the 1990s, and twenty-eight thousand people experienced adverse effects to Prozac in four years. The other point that really validated the thesis came when a panel of Doctors could not describe what a child with ADHD looks like.
3. How does the thesis of this film relate to the course?
This film directly relates to the overall themes of the course as the drug companies are creating a deviant class. In sociological terms, deviance can be defined as anything out of the norm;1 however, as more and more kids become hooked on drugs, the deviant class will be the kids who do not take antipsychotic drugs. The kids on these drugs are oftentimes outsiders, which is one of the ways Howard Becker describes deviance.2 This films directly corresponds to the course.
4. Which arguments/points did you find the most convincing?
For me, the most convincing parts of this film revolved around the numbers, and the panel of doctors who could not describe what the symptoms of ADHD.
5. Which arguments/points did you find the least convincing?
I did not find any part of this movie to have flaws. It was very convincing throughout. I have been arguing for years that the idiots who are diagnosing ADHD are doing nothing more than condemning kids for being kids.
6. Choose one argument, point or question that most stands out for you from the film. How would you study this point? Briefly design a research study around that point.
6. Choose one argument, point or question that most stands out for you from the film. How would you study this point? Briefly design a research study around that point.
I would like to study the whole ADHD epidemic. It has clearly become a moral panic in our society. I would like to take kids who have been diagnosed with ADHD and to the best of my ability have a controlled study by seeing how kids on some form of medication perform in school versus kids without medication. I would have them all in the same class, with the same teacher, and make them all do the same work. I would like to see how these kids perform. I have a feeling it results would make for an interesting report.
Alex Heckert and Druann Maria Heckert. (2010). A New Typology of Deviance: Integrating and Reactivist Definitions of Deviance. In Alex Thio, Thomas C. Calhoun, and Addrain Conyers (Eds.), Readings in Deviant Behavior. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Howard S. Becker. (1963). Group from Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. In Alex Thio, Thomas C. Calhoun, and Addrain Conyers (Eds.), Readings in Deviant Behavior. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
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