"Road Rage" is a disease

> The Archives of General Psychiatry has discovered a
> new disease:
> "intermittent explosive disorder" that makes people
> lose control when they
> become angry and accounts for road rage. The average
> sufferer has 43 attacks
> during a lifetime, resulting in $1359 in property
> damage. They estimate that
> 16 million Americans have it. Most sufferers also
> have other emotional
> disorders or drug or alcohol problems and had gotten
> treatment for them, but
> only 28% had ever received treatment for anger.
>
> In my opinion, this is nonsense. Anger is not a
> disease but an emotion, and
> people who can't control their behavior are having
> childish temper tantrums
> and need to grow up. This is the latest in a long
> series of attempts to
> "medicalize" normal aspects of human behavior, and
> is reminiscent of the
> Twinkie defense. It is quackery to persuade people
> they have a disease and
> are therefore not responsible for their own
> behavior.
>
> Harriet Hall, MD



PLoS Medicine open access journal
(http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv?request=index-html)
recently revisited the issue of how drug companies and others create and sell conditions and diseases in order to build a market for their products. Though
surrounded by what passes for detailed scientific credibility, the entire presentation often boils down to being no more meaningful than what you'd see on a
self-assessment nutrition survey on a vitamin-seller website.

For years I have followed the insurance coverage for rehabilitation associated with children with "special needs." If anyone wants to be in the very thick of
controversy regarding emotions, behaviors, and disease, welcome to that world.

Playing devil's advocate, why can we more readily excuse the behavior in a child or adolescent and diagnose them with a "special need" and not hold an adult to the same standard? If my child is labeled "developmentally delayed" in some aspect of maturation and qualifies for medication and rehabilitation because he bites his sister and bangs cans together at the supermarket, why can't we do the same for Uncle
Charlie when he talks back to police officers and pops the clutch at every stop light?