The Disagreement

Today’s disagreement is about ADHD and its meteoric rise in the United States.

Specifically, what are the causes of ADHD? Is it biological or environmental or both? And given that, what is the right approach to medicating and treating our children?

In today’s episode: two health experts with very different perspectives on ADHD.

Marilyn Wedge (Phd, LMFT) is a practicing Family Therapist in Westlake, CA and author of A Disease called Childhood: Why ADHD Became an American Epidemic. She holds a Phd in Social Psychology from the University of Chicago.

Ryan Sultan (MD) is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute. Ryan is a national expert on ADHD and cannabis use.

• What is ADHD? [04:10]
• How does the home environment impact ADHD symptoms? [10:53]
• Use of medication when nothing else works [14:22]
• Does ADHD exist? [17:05]
• Skyrocketing U.S. rates of ADHD [19:07]
• Is ADHD a disease or a constellation of traits? [20:54]
• Conflation of ADHD and other mental health disorders [32:00]
• ADHD underdiagnosis pre-2000s? [34:26]
• The use of amphetamines in treating ADHD [36:45]
• Side effects of ADHD medication [39:16]
• How and why schools identify ADHD in children [45:15]
• Ryan’s personal story with ADHD [46:14]
• Gender differences in diagnosis rates [52:19]
• Steelmanning [54:03]

The original 1937 article by Dr. Charles Bradley about the impact of benzedrine on children in the American Journal of Psychiatry

ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic by Alan Schwarz

The ADHD Advantage by Dale Archer

Questions or comments about this episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on X and Instagram @thedisagreementhq. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thedisagreement.substack.com/

Today's disagreement is on U .S. immigration. We're going to focus on two things.

First, the border: how did we get here and what should we do now? Second, what is the right strategic approach to U.S. immigration?

How do we weigh the costs and benefits? How do we balance national interests and humanitarian concerns?

In today's episode: two immigration experts with two very different perspectives on this pressing issue.

Marielena Hincapié is a Distinguished Immigration Scholar at Cornell University and served as the Executive Director of the National Immigration Law Center for 14 years. She also served on the Biden-Sanders Unity Taskforce on Immigration.

Philip Cafaro is a professor of Philosophy at the College of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University. He is the author of How Many Is Too Many?: The Progressive Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States from the University of Chicago Press (2015).

• Why do people immigrate to the United States?  [04:15]
• Who bears the brunt of responsibility for the current crisis: Pres. Biden or Pres. Trump? [05:49]
• Did the Biden administration incentivize mass immigration? [07:24]
• The difference between asylum-seekers and refugees [16:12]
• The humanitarian crisis in Central America [17:11]
• U.S. culpability in the conditions in Latin American countries [25:45]
• Impact on domestic wages  [27:30]
• Enforcement of labor laws [32:29]
• Environmental impact of overpopulation [33:00]
• Is there a labor shortage? [35:17]
• Impact of immigration on African Americans [41:30]
• White working class identity [48:11]
• Steelmanning  [53:42]

Questions or comments about this episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on X and Instagram @thedisagreementhq. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thedisagreement.substack.com/