1 in 9 Kids Diagnosed With ADHD, CDC Says — But Why?

A new CDC study found that 11.4% of U.S. children aged 3-17 years have at…

Children's Health Defense

One in nine U.S. children have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — an increase of approximately 1 million since 2016 — according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The study, published this month in the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, showed 11.4% of children ages 3-17 years (7.1 million) as having at some point been diagnosed with the condition, and 10.5% (6.5 million) currently living with ADHD.

In 2016, 9.9% of children at some point in their lives had been diagnosed with ADHD and only 8.9% of children were living with the condition.

Led by Melissa L. Danielson, MSPH of the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, the study used data from the 2022 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) to calculate its estimates.

The researchers analyzed data from 45,169 children ages 3-17, focusing on “ever diagnosed” and “current ADHD” prevalence. They also examined differences in prevalence across various demographic subgroups, including age, sex, race, ethnicity, household income and insurance status.

The authors spotlighted the high prevalence of moderate-to-severe ADHD, co-occurring mental health disorders and suboptimal treatment rates.

The study comes as Sweden recently reported an explosion of ADHD cases in 2022, with 10.5% of boys and 6% of girls diagnosed with the condition.

Study doesn’t connect ADHD to vaccines, toxic chemicals

Responding to the study findings, Dr. Paul Thomas, author of “The Vaccine-Friendly Plan” and co-founder of KidsFirst4Ever, told The Defender that his vaxxed-unvaxxed study showed “zero ADHD in the unvaccinated compared to significant ADHD in the variably vaccinated.”

While scientists and public health officials often cite genetic predisposition as a causal factor in ADHD, Thomas said genetic vulnerability relates more to an increased susceptibility to toxins like the weedkiller glyphosate and aluminum in vaccines.

“What some might call genetic is just a toxic effect of exposures in the womb,” he said, citing the MTHFR single nucleotide polymorphism that “can make it more difficult to get toxins out of the body.”

Paul said MTHFR also affects one’s ability to produce enough dopamine and norepinephrine, the neurotransmitters thought to be involved in mental focus — an issue at the heart of ADHD.

“Vaccines are by far the greatest source of aluminum toxicity,” he said. “The large doses of aluminum bypass the gut epithelial lining that can remove 99.9% of [normally] ingested aluminum.”

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense and co-author of “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak,” cited a study he conducted with Neil Miller in 2021 that found fully vaccinated children were 20.8 times more likely to be diagnosed with ADD/ADHD compared with their unvaccinated counterparts.

The study used a survey-based instrument but all cases of ADD/ADHD were verified using medical chart abstraction, Hooker said.

Hooker told The Defender:

“It is difficult to narrow down a single mechanism for the connection between ADHD and vaccine components — although mercury and aluminum are both neurotoxins.

“But the neuroinflammation that occurs especially from early childhood vaccines does create a condition where brain immune cells [astrocytes and microglia] are in a constant state of immune activation, causing damage to neurons…