Dear Rod: When your wife gets a cancer diagnosis, I am sure they will be able to trace it back to sleeping with a feckless, uninformed, low class asshole like you. I sure hope your children never have any problems—those poor darlings.

Did you really give a Celiac child a peanut butter sandwich with a glass of milk? Is that supposed to be funny? I call that recklessly irresponsible child abuse. You are a sick and dangerous man, Mr. Liddle. The rest of your pathetic, uninformed and untrue diatribe will not be dignified with a response by an educated, accomplished, intelligent person like myself.

Being over 50 I should recall my primary school days. I recall but the usual
rambuctious play/behavior which youth affords. Heavens, and to think one escaped the sinister world which today’s youth are confronted. Many back then would have been diagnosed as ‘ill’ and promptly medicated into oblivion whilst big pharma psychopathic execs and their truly sick salesmen/women would tally their year-end bonuses. With untold millions of children so diagnosed and pumping quantities of meds into their bodies no wonder humans today are considered walking bio hazards. Sometimes I wonder if the doping up of the children is more for the relief/benefit of modern parents who are either unable, unwilling, absent, too busy, exhausted, stressed, working, imprisoned, or addicted. The modern world is off its rocker. There’s no doubt that the Post WWII world has truly reshaped parents ability to raise their children. Outside forces, technology and crass advertising for one, have hijacked the process. Back to the basics for holistic health!

Reading this uninformed, offensive and woefully inaccurate ‘article’ has made my blood boil… to think this self-promoting, facile little man gets paid to write this rubbish is beyond a joke. I’m guessing that, by his own questionable ‘logic’, the bubonic plague was made up by the Plantagenets to disguise ethnic cleansing and AIDS was dreamed up as a cunning viral by the Durex marketing machine???

It’s understandable that the people who experience these conditions will be very angry at the idea that they aren’t what they seem to be. No one is denying the suffering experienced but it is irresponsible not to question the authenticity of the ‘diagnosis’.
‘Diseases’ which have been ‘declared’ and not ‘discovered’ as physiological diseases are and who have been declared at the behest of pharmaceutical companies with a stake in the findings of very questionable ‘tests’.
Many reputable doctors, psychiatrists and other professional bodies are officially distancing themselves from these ‘diagnoses’.

Have you ever tried to teach a child with dyslexia to read? Do you know what Coeliac Disease actually is and how it damages your body and mind? Do you know that people diagnosed with ME or CFS or Fibromyalgia are diagnosed by the medical professionals (and ridiculed by Rod Liddle) and many of them are later found to be suffering from other diseases which the medical profession hadn’t bothered to investigated for eg coeliac disease,

It is all very well to joke about giving a child peanut butter etc just because you have decided that they don’t really suffer from adverse (potentially lethal) reactions. But is it OK for you to imply that it is perfectly safe for everyone to do likewise? If anyone as stupid as Rod Liddle is has read his article then I expect there will be a few deaths.

Anyone ever had to administer an epi-pen to someone who has just collapsed at your feet because someone peeled an orange? Try it Rod. You see how you feel when you know this person is going to die if you don’t do something.

Why is it so funny to mock people who are not well? Why do newspapers and magazines think it is OK to publish this type of article?

Pick on someone your own size, Rod.

As for the ‘nobody used to be sick’ they did but they were left to suffer, or as in my family shipped off to stay with ‘other ppl’ the fact that we recognised conditions that we can help with is progress!
Conditions like M.E have been about for decades except you had never heard of them bc you would of been sent to a mental hospital and forgotten about.
I don’t believe your this stupid, so you are basically profiting from sick children and parents of.
What kind of a person does that make you?

I help out with a football club, there are several kids there who are little baskets who cannot concentrate for 30 seconds at a time. The problem lays with the parents not the kids. Back into 80s these kids would get to secondary school where teachers would sort them out. Now they are destined to become big baskets.

‘practitioners do, in private — that both ‘illnesses’ were rooted squarely in the noggin. ‘

So who are they, what sort ? where you getting this info from the 1980s ? Sound like you just made that up for a response…oh wait.
Your lack of detail and generalisation is childish even at tabloid levels.

I suggest you read up on the NICE guidelines and update your ignorance. They are not perfect in themselves but they should send a clear message to any GP that needs reminding how disabling the condition can be and the possible related health problems.

What sickens me most about this article is that your adding to children’s suffering and you probably don’t even realise it.

There maybe some that fall through the net and don’t need to be on the drugs they are, but guess what ?
There are lots of great doctors out there with years of experience helping children with these conditions that you are trolling, and that is what it is. This isn’t journalism in any measure, it is guess work at best, but I’m not willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, mainly because the article is so 1980s.

I expect this guy tells Downs children to stop pulling funny faces and tells paraplegics to pull their socks up.

Are the editors on holiday? I honestly can’t believe that this kind of absolute garbage is allowed to be published in what’s meant to be a serious publication.

I fear all newspapers are turning tabloid.

A true disgrace.

In our Victim society, there’s no greater crime than to deny Victimhood. If you said the black community’s social problems were their own fault and not the result of white racism, you’d probably be put in jail.

I had the symptoms of ADHD growing up. I couldn’t pay attention in school or sit still for long. I was actually expelled from a state primary at age 6 because I caused so much trouble. In hindsight I put my expulsion down to the fact my mother had taught me so much at home that I already knew everything they were teaching me and the school couldn’t be bothered to simply move me up a class, which the private school my parents put me in did immediately. I never grew to like school much, though I did better than average in my exams. However I do recall a few teachers whose classes I did pay attantion in, because they were particularly good at teaching their subject. Most were poor speakers and communicated little interest in what they were teaching. This was true at university as well – I recall one great lecturer and that’s it.

I have a lot of sympathy for what Mr Liddle is saying. I know if I had gone to school in the last 10 years I would have been drugged, and I don’t see to what end. One of my friend’s kids has issues and he refused to let anyone drug him. He’s now doing well in a school for kids with behavioural problems with no pharmaceutical assistance. I’ve seen what they teach my friends’ kids. I’ve experienced trying to help teach a 6 year old boy to read when the books the school gave him are about (1) a disabled girl learning to make vegetarian pizza and (2) two Indian boys learning to share. You try and persuade a kid that age that reading such PC crap is better than playing FIFA. Our education system is run by social engineers, not teachers, that is the problem.

Agree with ADHD,but not disleyxah;do you consider my colour blindness to be fake too,my OCD?
Believe me,they are not.
But,clearly,itsnotmyproblemsosodititis is rampant chez Liddle.

I’m enjoying all the trolls, really adds to the ridiculousness of the article. I guess this is the kind of scum articles like this attract huh ?
Childish frustrated boys that like to project on the internet.

A status symbol for the average reader of Liddles pathetic rants if you will.

Deslyxia lures, ko!

You really are an ignorant man and it’s time you gave up your job (which is basically involves spreading loathsome venom about subjects you know nothing about). I know people who have all of the conditions that you have denigrated and every single person have genuine physiological issues. All have been thoroughly tested, scanned and examined and show abnormalities which are very apparent. I also have one of the conditions that you refer to and I have abnormalities in scans, X-rays and blood tests and don’t tell me that’s all in my mind! People with dyslexia have brains that are wired differently and people with ADHD are also shown to have marked brain functioning issues. People with ME & Fibromyalgia are found to have pronounced problems with their nervous and immune systems. Thousands of research papers support these findings scientifically. Genetics, exposure to toxins and viruses and even our diets also have a lot to answer for where health is concerned and it’s so easy for idiots like you to say it’s all psycho-babble, when you don’t know anything about it. Spend a week with someone who has real health issues, like me, and then see if you can still spew out your vitriolic bile.

As someone who has a family member suffering from CFS/ME, I feel a strong compulsion to come down to your place and turn you into a paraplegic. I won’t but I shall spend an hour or two fantasising about it. You ignorant c@nt.

This is frankly the most offensive article that I have ever had the misfortune to read . I am the mother of a coeliac little girl who was diagnosed aged 2 . I also work as a GP and to say that this article is medically incorrect is understating the point. I did not imagine the height loss, failure to thrive , faecal
Impaction and loss of skin on her bottom aged 2 until the diagnosis was made and nor did I chose to put her through a general anaesthetic for an endoscopy for diagnosis at the same age unless it was medically necessary. I thankfully have understanding and open minded friends that can adapt to her dietary needs as without this we could look forward to her growth being restricted and the risk of osteoporosis and a small chance of intestinal lymphoma later in life. As for your asthma comments , try telling them to someone who has lost someone through an acute fatal asthma attack. Free speech is to be applauded but your comment a are dangerous and prejudiced in this article. I would at the least expect a full written apology in the spectator if not from you , from the editor who allowed this incorrect and appalling piece to be published . Disgraceful . Your sincerely, dr Tracey Lucas

What a dingbat. ME/CFS, coeliac disease and the other ‘invisible’ diseases you’ve mentioned above are a lot more real than your imaginary medical knowledge.

Light blue touch-paper………..

Rod, you are an attention seeker. I bet you were like that at school. A verse for you with al my love.

There’s a boy who stands out from the ruck
By constantly bellowing, ‘Fuck!’
Or sitting in school,
He whips out his tool
And asks you to give it a suck..

If you fed a child with coeliac disease gluten then you’re the thick one. Clearly you’re too stupid (or lazy) to find out what this autoimmune disease is and what you did to the poor kids insides. Faddy diets are stupid but don’t confuse them with a lifelong medical condition.

The ignorant and abusive posters here who refuse to even debate the issue of dyslexia and whether it exists should watch the little video available on this page and wipe the scales from their eyes:

https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=20285

It could very well be that these maladies are real but overblown. Liddle is apparently sold on the idea that they are completely overblown. It may well be that cases are on a continuum of almost unnoticeable to clearly apparent, and many of the diagnoses are made where the most equivocal of symptoms are present, “just to be on the safe side.” That position to take has its own consequences, as well as the position that it’s all just so much hot air.

Perhaps cases that are mild enough should NOT be diagnosed, as they tend in the main to train the person with them, in this current environment, play victim all too readily if there is a support system for doing so. And good God almighty, there certainly is that, for enough of these diagnoses. Too many people in too many professions have a stake in medicalizing just about everything. Perhaps that’s what Liddle, in the most ham-fisted of manners, is saying— or he’s being an assclown. The evidence here is equivocal– so I will err on the side of “assclown,” till I shall have more evidence that warrants an intervention in the matter to rescue him and to attempt to treat his suspected foot-in-mouth syndrome.

Unless things have changed since my own schooldays, you will find that there are genuine sufferers of dyslexia and some unprincipled schemers who see it as an excuse to get extra time in exams.

I’ve met several true dyslexics and all were well behaved at school. All had severe handwriting difficulties and all had first rate minds.

The increase in ADHD is arguably due to an increased lack of exercise, an increased consumption of sugary foods and drinks and lack of suitable outlets for childhood energy. It’s not a disease, it’s a manifestation of poor parenting, schooling and societal discipline. Just because drug companies see it as an excuse to put children on pills doesn’t mean society shouldn’t address the issues at hand. Perish the thought that pharma profits might drop as a result…….

This really is a horrible article. I know you’re not supposed to wish illness on people, but if Rod Liddle came down with ME….

As the father of a dyslexic (and not being one myself) it tears me apart watching my son struggle with homework, not because he’s thick or lazy and makes me ‘a little defensive’ when I hear or read tosh like the above.

If dyslexia really is about laziness or being thick as you suggest, then it is obviously attributable to a ‘thick and lazy gene’, as my son’s cousin, grandfather and his mum are /were all sufferers.

I was hoping my son would be in a climate where his condition was accepted and understood, and not like his mum’s experience of being told for 30 years that she was thick until she was diagnosed (and then went on to post-grad study).

Rod, this week you’re talking a load of big, fat hairy shadow chancellor and look a bit of a Tristram.

It occurs to me that I don’t know anyone dyslexic and that the only person I can think of that suffers, off the top of my head, is AA Gill. Which does back up the stupid and posh theory.
ADHD I have no knowedge of, but anyone who reckons it is offensive to suggest that it is a load of old trousers designed to enrich pharma companies is either a pharma exec or needs to try thrashing their naughty little bleeders.

BTW – fibro/CFS sufferers: I sympathise with your pain but it is not going to go away until you realise that it is entirely down to your mentalism and inadequacy. Throw away the pills and dismiss the consultants. Man (or woman) the fuck up.

Pendulum swing argument

As always – even with nutters like David Icke – there are elements of truth in what is written in this article. In addition – the ‘latest’ research is not necessarily the best. It is true that drugs are handed out willy nilly by Doctors who don’t really understand the socio-political system and media conditioning that forces them down the ‘drug’ channel. It is also true that personal choices are involved and that children need to learn how to make worthwhile and productive choices in their lives. But the slightly amusing rhetoric of the article serves as a smokescreen to hide the fact that Rod Liddle has very little understanding of dyslexia for a start, or the complexity of the problems all lumped under the ADHD banner (yes- in a way it is a meaningless homage to an oppressive medical model and big Pharma). Rather than attacking the individuals concerned (which is the coward’s way), he should take a look at the education and social systems that produce these kinds of monstrous outcomes. Professionals who need to preserve their own professional status and support systems, an education system that focuses on useless knowledge of exams and a competitive socio-political system that keeps people in ignorance about these things… for a start! He has no inkling of what it is like to have epilepsy with the side effect of severe problems in spelling, writing and certain areas of memory but have other amazing talents that are highly suppressed by an attitude towards education and learning that Mr Liddle espouses. His writing is not helpful – nor does it give any positive suggestions to change the situation it is simply an attack on people who are not there to defend themselves!

Liddle better hurry up and invent a disease which will excuse the inane reactionary bile which he spews without relent. I also wonder why evidence for the existence of ‘karma’ is so much more compelling to him than is the evidence for any one of the conditions he lists in his mindless rant. This is not journalism its a platform, for the irrelevent opinions of an ignorant egoist who courts controversy in a feeble attempt to mask the fact he has nothing of any real value to contribute.

Oh look, I can use google. So I typed in ‘Durham university dyslexia research’. Amazingly enough, the very first thing that came up was an article about that research from… uhhh… Durham university itself. Here’s a handy quote from that article:

“Although the researchers do not question the existence of the very real
underlying problems that those with complex reading difficulties
typically experience, they are critical of dyslexia as a term often used
to describe a wide range of problems, of varying degrees of severity,
in a haphazard and imprecise fashion.”

Astonishing! It turns out that the study takes issue with the term dyslexia, but not with the symptoms. So this entire article by Mr Liddle, is in reality a load of complete codswallop, written by a completely brainless ballsack who wouldn’t know a fact if it jumped up and bit him in his journalistically imcompetent backside.

Who’da thunk it eh? -_-

Hubby’s a teacher — suspects that dyslexia is in fact a real disability, but believes that ADHD is not a spontaneously existing natural condition but an acquired one. It something that originates in the development of the person, rather than something that was always there and waiting to express itself. In short, it’s the fault of the child’s environment. And guess whose fault *that* is?

I am indeed over the age of 45. I spent my school years being told I was imagining the stomach pain, joint pain, and migraines. Doctors told me it was anxiety, my mother was causing it, it was because I was a virgin (not kidding), because I was gay, the litany goes on. At 30 when I dropped several stone I was told this was because I was eating healthily.. I weighed 6.5st. I was lucky, a friend spotted what was wrong at a time when coeliac was still considered super rare, and I was tested and diagnosed. As a consequence so was about half my dad’s family, none of whom had such serious symptoms but all of whom feel a lot better. If you were to feed me a slice of bread no, I wouldn’t get sick in front of you. That’s because coeliac isn’t an allergy you ignorant piece of crap. It’s an autoimmune disease.
As for your racist – classicist diatribe on dyslexia and ADHD, I’ve seen the difference when people get help and its dramatic: nor are either of these syndromes focused in any particular group.

Coeliac disease can be shown in blood tests and biopsies so how can it be imaginary. That child will have suffered symptoms such as vomiting and pain and more to the point further damage to the lining of the gut leading in long term cases to malnourishment. Being diagnosed in my 40s has led to my also being diagnosed with osteoporosis in some vertebrae due to a failure to absorb calcium.
Really an imaginary disease – not!

Very disappointed in this article. About a year and a half ago I finally found out what was causing me to become more and more ill: gluten. Now, on a very strict gluten-free diet, I can actually function normally, without digestive problems, extreme fatigue, constant headaches, and the other numerous symptoms that were affecting every aspect of my life. If I eat even so much as a crumb containing gluten, I am ill for around four days starting on the day after ingestion. Living gluten free is difficult (gluten turns up in a surprising number of foods) and I would never choose to do it on a whim or because it’s fashionable.

You have willfully misunderstood the dyslexia research and linked symptomatic diagnoses with conditions identified by specific tests. In your childhood children with coeliac disease failed to thrive and many would have just died in infancy. Why is it so important to you to make other people’s health your issue? It seems you have your own hangups firmly routed in your head. Don’t expect any support for this neurosis under the current administration- bashing the ill and disabled is acceptable sport. For the spectator I suggest you consider the risks of the behaviour being advocated in this article and move to distance yourself from the author before something serious occurs. The action he describes here is asult.

When I was young, at Bash St. Junior, we were all too poor and hungry to have any food fads. Allergies were unheard of. ADHD didn’t exist because any attention seeking misbehaviour was quelled with painful blows from a cane, or the edge of ruler across the knuckles. Kids were either OK or they were “ESN”. The latter group was virtually non-existent because, in those days, “learning difficulties” didn’t exist either.

Ronnie, the results are in, and I’ve got good news- you don’t have a disorder. You’re just a generic jerk who can’t write.

What a great pity your parents failed to educate you. This is the single most ignorant thing I ever had the displeasure of reading. I diagnose you with `Ignorance`. May your ears turn into arse holes and s**t all over your shoulders.

Presumably Rod Liddle intended this for the 1st April edition but possibly has trouble with numbers (there’s a name for this, isn’t there?) so it was printed too early…seriously though, this has to be one of the most ignorant articles I have ever read. I can think of several other names for it but am too polite to say them.

Rod, love the article, I have quoted it on a Which article and opened a veritable can of worms. It’s good to get this out in the open and being discussed. See http://conversation.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/nut-dairy-food-allergy-eating-out/#comments

Perhaps you should spell check this utter bile before publishing it into the public arena.

“Percent” is one word, whereas “per cent” has an entirely different meaning altogether.

As you seem so against the idea of dyslexia being real, I will put this rather
basic error down to you being a ridiculously stupid moron.

Fraud Almighty?
Regarding Rod Liddell’s entertaining article on us dyslexics just being old fashioned ‘dense’ and stupid; (March 15th). Yeah and we’ve not asked for much either:- only for the curricula in audio and text, noting that audio has been available since 1900.

But it’s still not happening because once The Curriculum is accessible in an audio and text format, then who needs teachers? So The Academy obfuscates The Curriculum to provide a necessity to intercede, which is a vast fraud system.

Moreover The State colludes, because in return The Academy allows it to control The Childs’ Curriculum for indoctrination purposes:- so just ‘The 3Rs incl. IT and Sport’, since all that The State needs is a passive, dumbed-down Public, capable only of being bureaucrats and soldiers, which is a still more malign fraud system.

Furthermore the UK Public has had to endure these twinned UK Academy Fraud Systems since 1870 and the cost which is about £110 billion p.a.; whereas UK Education should be virtually free via video downloads, and via home and community education, supervised by the parents and students themselves.

We the dense people have known about this Fraud Almighty since Saint Clerical Fraud System 1 got his visa and entered Britain in 597AD; and this is how things are likely to remain until the present Fraud State destabilises the UK entirely; to the contrary we the dense people, have been recommending since 598AD that an informed consensus would be a very good thing, rather than the Fraud State).

Failing adopting The Dense Idea, the entire destabilisation of the UK is already scheduled by Global Banksters for when you Bright Things via The UK Party Political Election Fraud System have global corporately expropriated all the UK’s worthwhile assets, and which is well nigh, is it not, and you’ve heard it from a dense person have you not?

Jessus ♀ (disciple posts welcome)

My husband and daughter are dyslexic and ADHD. My son and I are not. Indeed, our brains are wired differently. Medications do greatly reduce distractibility and impulsivity in my husband and daughter. My daughter just earned college credit in art and yet she is still in high school. My husband has a masters degree and is a successful head of school. However, neither my husband nor my daughter read as fluently my son and I read. You cannot fake this brain structure if you are examined by a qualified psychologist. I can walk into a classroom and within a week, I can tell you who is dyslexic and who is not. There are many subtle indicators that cannot be faked. Children receiving assistance in school would not be able to consistently fake a dyslexic or ADHD condition. No adult could do so. Many highly successful entrepreneurs are dyslexic. They don’t spell well but they do problem solve very well. Dr. Sally Shaywitz at Harvard is one of a number of physicians who have emperically proven brain scan research proving the difference in brain structures for dyslexics. The debate, professional egos really, is not if there brain structures that where a high IQ is hindered by a reading inefficiency, but what to call this type of brain structure. You could not fake the condition. Not for long. You would find it much too frustrating, especially since writing and reading are something you do with ease. Have you created your own successful business with a new and innovative approach. This is what Richard Branson did and yet he cannot spell, nor easily pick up vocabulary nor quickly find the right word when verbalizing his ideas; nonetheless, his ideas are top notched. Your writing is provocative and well crafted. If you were to do some research or actually dialogue with dyslexics and then write a follow up piece, that could be truly interesting. I have seen very little evidence of empathy or real assistance towards my daughter in school. She daily takes a beating and keeps on ticking. She would rather not have a dyslexic brain and give up what few accommodations she receives. In fact, most recommended accommodations would prove frustrating or non helpful for those with non-dyslexic brains. Surely your life experiences have shown that life is not as black and white as you propose in this article nor are humans as simplistic and easily categorized as this article proposes nor do we even begin to really understand the human mind. We are a bit more complex, mysterious, and intriguing than this article urges us to consider.

Mr Liddle

Don’t know where to start you clearly have no idea what you are
talking about. As a severe dyslexic myself I can tell you it is real. And I can
provide several psychologists reports to prove it. Your article says nothing
about all the researchers, doctors, academics teachers etc. who for the last
100 plus years have been studying, understanding, looking at ways to help dyslexics, look for a cure etc. How dare you right such crap!

The scary thing is, you have got to a high level of
Journalism, when you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Please
stop there are children, adults struggling all over the world with dyslexia,
writing crap like the above just brings so much pain to so many.

Anthony Woods

Do you even have a single days experience working in education? As a 30 year-old teacher with six years experience in classrooms and private tuition, I can assure you that dyslexia is an absolutely real disability.
Some of the brightest students I have met have such difficulty with written English that it’s almost unbelievable to read an essay by a highly articulate teenage student with the written expression of a child. If you had bothered to do any real research into the topic you would have seen that there has been so much research done into dyslexia confirming the reality of the condition that it’s truly laughable to question the condition at this point.
Obviously your style is intended to provoke and the actual knowledge and expertise you bring to the table regarding this issue is zero. This piece, like so much journalism, is merely articulate nonsense with no scientific or social merit.

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