13 May 2020
A research team felt “BESIEGED” after the backlash of from publishing ADHD research.
Anita Thapar’s research team faced a barrage of calls and e-mails, some of them hostile, following the publication of their paper on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Here’s what she learnt.
“The paper’s findings have been replicated, and ADHD looks a lot like autism in many respects — yet public opinion about autism seems different.’‘I felt that some people were attacking us for working on the disorder. It really opened my eyes to the difficulties faced by people with ADHD and by their families, and why many parents don’t tell people if they have a child who has been diagnosed with it.’
“Despite my experience as a researcher and clinician….I feel it is important to engage with the media. Sometimes we will get criticized, but that’s nothing compared with what people with these conditions are going through.”
Anita Thapar is professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Cardiff University, UK. Nature Research Journal
Read the full article here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01433-2