"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> writes:
Why eliminate the people with endocrine problems? You need not invent a new syndrome. The folks with severe deficits of growth hormone are an actual group, and are a perfectly fine group to give growth hormones to.
The point was that the group with endocrine problems was an appropriate group to give growth hormone to, whereas the shortest 10% of the population was not. Similarly while there might very well be some disorder of cognition for which amphetamines would be appropriate medication, prescribing them on the basis of which 10% of the population performs least well in the traditional "cells and bells" school environment is not it. The fact that some claim to be able to demonstrate ADD by "repeatable biological tests" carries no more weight than the ability to repeatably demonstrate that a person is short of stature by "repeatable tape measure tests."
However, that doesn't mean that growth hormone isn't needed for the people whom you choose to dismiss in your first paragraph as though they were not a valid place to draw the analogy.
There is a difference between giving medication for a verifiable organic problem, like insulin for diabetes, or growth hormone for a pituitary defect, and giving it to the 10% shortest, or the 10% most likely to call their teachers bleep words.
Has it occurred to you that many of the children in question are happy being medicated, as are many adults? In any case, who are you to tell other people what's good for them?
Again, to return to the height analogy, doctors have to throw short parents seeking human growth hormone for their perfectly healthy short children off their doorsteps every day. Same goes for patients seeking antibiotics inappropriate for their illnesses, and countless other things. The price of giving the patient (or the patient's parents) everything they want is disease-resistant microorganisms, a country where everyone is over six feet tall, and classrooms full of obedient citizen-units in Soma-induced trances. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $