Medical industry opens a new market:
Report: Alarming number of kittens being diagnosed with ADD
Recoil ^ | Dec. 2005 |
Los Angeles, Calif. -- Veterinarians across the country are reacting to Monday’s release of a UCLA study claiming that as many as 90 percent of all felines currently being born in the United States will develop Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) during their first month as a kitten.
“Our research shows that an overwhelming majority of kittens begin displaying classic symptoms of ADD and ADHD within their first two to three weeks of life, symptoms such as uncontrollable, aggressive hyperactivity, constant squirming and being easily distracted by irrelevant sights, sounds and extraneous stimuli – a ball of yarn or a toy mouse, for example,” said UCLA researcher David Berman, who led the study. “In the past these symptoms have simply been attributed to youth – passed off as cute or playful, instead of being acknowledged as symptoms of a disorder. But we now know that when a kitten is bouncing hastily and randomly between playing with a loose string, chasing a remote controlled car, trying to give the goldfish a heart attack and tonguing herself clean, it’s actually a physical sign of the kitten’s neurotic psychological condition.”
According to Berman, UCLA researchers achieved their results by studying a representative sample of 1,000 kittens from all parts of the country during the kittens’ first eight weeks of normal, indoors rearing. By documenting the habits of these felines, researchers were able to diagnose 904 of the adorable animals as having either the inattentive type ADD or the hyperactive/impulsive type ADHD.
“The remaining ninety-six kittens were either stillborns or died shortly after birth,” said Berman. “So, technically, we could have drafted a report that said that all kittens, so long as they’re alive, have ADD – but we all agreed that just sounded too damned depressing. By saying only ninety percent of kittens are suffering from these conditions, at least cat owners who haven’t read the fine print of the study can hope that their kittens are part of that ten percent which aren’t afflicted.”
Berman said that in the past, most kittens displaying the symptoms of ADD or ADHD were routinely misdiagnosed – most often by their owners but even by trained veterinarians or behavior specialists well-versed in animal psychology.
“For the typical cat owner, when his or her kitten would display an ADD symptom such as being unable to focus long enough to listen to and act on instructions, he or she would often just shrug it off with a ‘She’ll grow out of it’ and simply hope that as a full-grown adult their kitten will begin to slow down, develop a longer attention span and stop its constant squirming,” said Berman, referring to ADD and ADHD symptoms that were previously thought to be part of the normal behavior of a kitten.
Roger Vick, vice president of operations at the pharmaceutical manufacturer Novartis – a company which was quick to voice strong support of the study’s findings – told sources Wednesday that Novartis will soon bring to market Kitilan, a specially formulated derivative of Ritilan made exclusively for kittens to help curb their symptoms.
“Using our medication will provide these kittens with their one and only chance to live a normal life,” said Vick. “A kitten that is properly diagnosed and prescribed Kitilan will no longer be bouncing off the ceiling like they normally would. They will be able to control their attention span and they won’t engage in physically dangerous activities without considering possible consequences like many ADD positive creatures do. Long story short, you won’t have to worry about your kitten getting into all sorts of humorous situations that look like they belong on a photo calendar.” |
