ABSTRACT
News reports say that "road rage" is on the brink of being certified as an official mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. Brand new diseases, including a lot of implausible ones, are an old story for the psychiatrists and their professional bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In June, Cincinnati police arrested a woman accused of neglecting her children because of internet addiction disorder (IAD). Huffy people on the internet suggest that the DSM might invent another illness as well: television viewing addiction (TVA). Worse, the psychiatrists are busy broadening definitions and lowering thresholds so that much of the other half will be listed as disordered too. The clearest current example is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a diagnosis which now descends on many perfectly healthy small boys who bother school officials by misbehaving in class. Pharmaceutical companies have a stake in this too. PRIME-MD, a simple one-page questionnaire used to screen for psychiatric problems, was funded by Pfizer, Inc.
