Martin Shkreli, the repellent pharma-bro, is now publicly diagnosing Hillary Clinton with Parkinson’s Disease.
I'm dead serious. I reviewed a number of videos and I think @HillaryClinton has early onset Parkinson's Disease. It appears she takes L-dopa
— Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) August 7, 2016
He has no qualifications at all for offering medical advice.
Shkreli dropped out of high school his senior year but graduated because he had the necessary credits and got his bachelor’s degree in business administration, not medicine, from Baruch College in 2004. He did not go to medical school.
Yet he has a video that’s over 2 hours long in which he meanders on about this.
If you find this as revolting and inappropriate as I do, I’ll just mention…do you feel the same way about all the non-psychiatrists claiming that Donald Trump, or his mobs of cheering fans, are mentally ill?
Don’t be like Martin Shkreli.
Donald Trump and all his cheering fans demonstrate some of the most common failure modes of the standard human mind.
For what it’s worth, I actually don’t find Shkreli’s pontificating to be revolting (although considering all the other stuff he did, it’s hard to compare). I mostly just find it childish. Parkinson’s disease? Seriously? It’s like accusing Donald Trump of having tiny little hands.
and what about those who ARE qualified?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/
not the only one, btw.
this isn’t armchair shit… the man literally DOES exhibit all the symptoms.
so, he’s either a complete genius at faking all that.. or he really IS suffering from NPD.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/donald-trump-narcissism-therapists
pretending there ISN’T a problem, simply because you want to be fair, is JUST as bad.
Why would anyone report on what this loathsome pusbag thinks? Isn’t he supposed to be in prison?
Hillary with Parkinson’s? Nothing like Michael J. Fox, whom I admire for persevering despite of his problem. I don’t see it.
Trump with NPD? Well it does explain a lot of The Donald’s behavior. But, I’m not a mental health professional. Still wouldn’t vote for him in any case. Too much Loony Tunes behavior.
Eh. Trump and his fans are assholes. Given that there are tens of millions of them, you can’t argue that they’re all crazy.
Unless you want to also argue that insanity is a universal human condition.
re ~6(sorta):
the people who vote for Drumph are assholes, voting for someone “outside the system” [scare quotes, actually] in order to ‘shake it up’ to amke it get the results that benfit them directly and personally (screw everybody else, just me, just me, me, me, me). So the reality show role player is the perfect foil to infiltrate the “insiders club” they consider the government to be.
Perfectly fine if Drumph exhibits symptoms of NPD, they don;t care what he says. They all want to “speak their mind” regardless of any kind of etiquette (which they disparagingly call “PC”). They actually appreciate a doofus who speaks without thinking, just spouts off first thoughts without consideration to “double-guess” themselves.
oops. geeze. Sorry to diagnose the general public. ugh. just felt like expressing my Opinion of the response Drumph has gotten. opinion only, not armchair diagnosis. phooeey
I don’t have any problem saying that Trumplethinskin is completely and utterly fucked in the head. This is not a medical diagnosis, simply my observation.
I am not qualified to opine on whether or not Donald Trump is neurotypical, but on the best available evidence of his statements and actions, he is a dangerously manipulative and opportunistic fascist, and that is what we should be focusing on, because neurotypical or not, he would present a pressing danger if he ever achieves high office.
Yes, but in addition to the garden variety assholism he shares with his supporters, Trump also has a number of specific characteristics that suggest NPD (which is a personality disorder, not a mental illness.)
Obviously I am not “diagnosing” him. I’m observing him, and forming a hypothesis based on my knowledge of personality disorders.* I don’t find anything the least bit inappropriate or revolting in saying “that guy sure acts like a clinical Narcissist.”
* No, I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not prescribing medication or suggesting a treatment plan, either. Do you get mad when people without a medical degree recognize cold symptoms in themselves or others and say, “that sounds like a nasty cold!”?
Scott Adams has already diagnosed Hillary as having had a stroke or possibly a brain tumour. Parkinson’s is a new one.
I watched a few Shkreli videos and I’m pretty sure he gets a boner when he sees sheep.
I am troubled by our modern tendency to medicalize everything, partly because the people who are doing it aren’t generally qualified to offer a medical diagnosis but mostly because it excuses everything: “I know she never does any work and steals office supplies, but she can’t help it, she’s got Impulse Control Disorder.” Without a doubt Trump is a severely damaged person: putting a medical label like Narcissistic Personality Disorder on him doesn’t mitigate anything he does or says, doesn’t explain him meaningfully, doesn’t lead him any closer to being a decent human being. Saying he’s an asshole pretty much tells us everything we need to know.
Donald Trump is obviously neurotypical, and exhibits many of the most dysfunctional traits found among neurotypicals…
….in the original sense of the term, before it was Appropriated.
As for trump and his supporters, I think “ideopathy” is the most salient description.
Sigh, I want to call Trump a complete and utter narcissist – and that term is commonly used as an insult, mind – but how would I know whether he fits the psychiatric definitions without actual interviews and evaluations?
dam that was supposed to be preview
well…….
it sure is not a black and white situation nothing in life is it is the rare person who never looses their grip on reality at least occasionally and does not succumb to emotion and mistake illusion for reality it seems more a matter of degrees from just like most people (normal) to hardly able to function at all.
it is not a crime and should not be thought of as wrong anymore than it would be wrong to condemn someone for having the flu.
still I would not want them cooking in any restaurant I might eat in
I do not know if Trump is nuts or not.
He does not talk about reality at all.
I have no Idea what he really thinks, all he ever says is bull shit some of the “best” anyone has ever peddled
uncle frogy
A 2-hour video?
He should stick to a letter format:
“‘My letters are the greatest’: Tampa man channels Trump in hilarious viral letter to the editor” http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/my-letters-are-the-greatest-tampa-man-channels-trump-in-hilarious-viral-letter-to-the-editor/
This disease is inexplicably missing from the DSM-5.
#20 David Gerard
Probably because too many on the DSM committee would qualify.
A LOT of politicians are assholes. But there are different kinds of assholes. Pretty much all politicians exhibit strong narcissistic traits–but only one politician triggers my PTSD, which was brought on by being raised by a malignant narcissist. Only one.
I’ve met other people who trigger me, but no other politicians have managed to do it via their public speeches. If any of them have personality disorders, and odds are at least one does, they nevertheless manage to hide it in their public speeches at least.
Whether Trump HAS NPD I’m not qualified to diagnose–but as far as I’m concerned that’s a unimportant distinction: on the one hand, he still triggers me; on the other hand, 100% of his behavior is either predictable or explainable by means of this hypothesis, including tics you might not notice if you weren’t raised by one. My go-to example is now that baby. “She actually believes I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking.” Adult children of narcissists have heard that one. Their parents resent their own grandchildren for taking the spotlight off them.
This situation requires a fine line be walked. Diagnosing mental illness is inappropriate for anyone but the person’s actual therapist. But affirming the absence of NPD is ALSO a diagnosis–and one with potential to add to the suffering of people who bear the scars of having been raised by (or with) someone with NPD.
Setting up an NPD/asshole dichotomy is also implicitly ableist. People with NPD can’t be assholes? Believe me, they can.
Trump is dangerous and given his talk about a rigged election, he also appears to be delusional. Ascribing his bigotry to mental illness would be wrong, however, and would be an easy out.
I thought 2008 was ugly but this election season is much worse now that we have candidates challenging each other’s mental fitness. Sigh.
I was about to write that Trump has to be the prototype case for *some* disorder, then I read the link to APD :-)
Thank you, David Gerard.
The American Psychiatric Association is telling psychiatrists to stop armchair diagnosing Trump .
Interestingly, the ethical rule against “diagnosis from afar” came because of doctors doing the same thing to Barry Goldwater.
Given how successful the Republican’s REDMAP strategy was and also their voter registration abuse, Trump is right. The election has been rigged. Where he is wrong is in implying that it has been rigged against him. when it has been rigged for him.
Whether or not we slap the label of NPD onto Trump isn’t going to change anything, so I really don’t see the point in debating it. It’s not like we’re going to convince him of the label and get him to see a therapist about it. He’ll just keep on being Trump, with or without NPD.
Parkinson’s, on the other hand, is a more informative diagnostic, as it’s a progressive condition, so if there were seriously any reason to believe Clinton (or any other candidate) might have it, it would indeed be a point worthy of public interest, as we could keep in mind how it might affect her over the next four years. Of course, Shkreli is full of shit here, so his diagnosis isn’t worth the electronics used to transmit it.
“Crazy” is a lay term that just means “thought processes I don’t understand” or even “thought processes I’m not in sympathy with”. It’s not medically defined, and doesn’t mean that the “crazy” person is clinically ill. As such, I’m comfortable with it being used in reference to anyone: politicians, artists, me, you. I might not agree, but that’s okay; it’s implicitly a subjective assessment.
Calling out Trump, for example, as crazy is okay. You can even detail those features of his stage persona (if that’s different from his real-life persona) that make you say, “That’s crazy!” I’ll even give a pass to anyone who’s had experience of people with certain conditions saying that Trump acts like their NPD relative, say.
But it crosses a line when lay people go through medical textbooks trying to match up observed features of others’ personalities with diagnosable psychiatric conditions. It’s obnoxious, and wrong on two counts: if one isn’t trained in it, one shouldn’t do it, because it’s too easy to get wrong; and it’s unethical for the trained to do diagnosis remotely using only anecdata, so doubly unethical if one isn’t trained.
Plus, you just make yourself look stupid when you extend your lack of expertise to diagnosing physical conditions like Parkinson’s on the basis of bullshit. That’s the same as writing that Trump has been abusing amphetamines or whatever drug for years; no solid basis in fact, just a smear. And a transparently obvious one at that.
I think we’re looking at two different phenomena here – armchair diagnosis on the one hand and using mental illness terms as insults on the other. Both are problematic, but they’re not the same thing.
What the odious Mr. Shrekli is doing seems to be genuine armchair diagnosis – thinking you have some insight into another’s mental health and pontificating about it. It may well involve an element of trying to diminish or insult Clinton too, but the motivation behind it is the conviction that one is capable of diagnosing mental disorders in others from afar and that this is an interesting and profitable thing to do.
On the other hand, I don’t think most of the people who say “Trump is a dribbling loony” or “Trump is stark, raving mad” or even “Trump is mentally ill” are genuinely making an armchair diagnosis. They’re just using the language of mental illness in a time-worn manner to insult and belittle. Which is problematic of course, but it’s a different problem. The motivation there is just to insult and mock, and the usage is colloquial and vernacular rather than intentionally technical and specific.
I think there is often confusion, given that a lot of words have both specific medical and general vernacular meanings. Calling someone a narcissist can just be saying they are very concerned with their own appearance and grandeur, not that they have a damaging personality disorder, and saying that an idea is mad doesn’t literally mean it stems from mental illness. Even very clinical terms can become vernacularised – a lot of people call fastidiousness or perfectionism “OCD” now for instance. One can complain about this, but that’s just how language develops.
Me @28: I meant to add, there’s plenty wrong with Trump’s behaviour and stated policies to make it clear that he would be an unsuitable, if not disasterous president, even worse than Bush II, without having to cross the line into amateur psychiatry.
From what I’ve read, it’s very rarely the person with NPD who does the suffering!
PZM@6,
NPD is not a mental illness, and people who have it are not crazy.
We had a family member with NPD (diagnosed, and now deceased) and when Trump first came across our radar we were astounded at how well his behavior matched that of our family member. In fact it it almost felt like we were listening to our family member come back to life, and not Trump. Even some of his phrases are exactly the same. We sure don’t go around claiming he has NPD, because how would we know that, but after spending years around someone with NPD, the similarities are incredibly striking.
A person with NPD can exhibit behavior that is really puzzling. To me it’s been interesting to read all these various analyses by political pundits about why Trump does what he does. I doubt that any of us are ever going to actually know, but his behavior does make a little bit more sense when viewed through an NPD lens. To us though it makes no difference at all; we are still not voting for him, no matter what. We simply don’t like what he is bringing to the table, NPD or not.
#32,
Actually, I see some medics do classify NPD as a mental illness. But that certainly doesn’t mean those who have it are crazy.
Those of us qualified to make diagnoses also have ethical codes which disallow making a diagnosis of someone we haven’t evaluated. A layperson calling Trump a narcissist is different from a mental health professional saying he has NPD.
To follow on from my previous comment at 27, it occurs to me that what a lot of people might be doing in trying to label Trump is to be able to use the stigma attached to that label as a weapon against him. Defeating Trump is one thing, but you have to watch out for the splash damage that can be caused by such efforts. If you add to the stigma of a label, you make it harder for people who meet its criteria to admit to it and be willing to get help (if needed).
Yeah, actually, sometimes. “Flu” bugs me more, someone gets a little sick and suddenly they have the “flu” according to amateur physicians.
Shkreli appears to have a bad case of affluenza, possibly comorbid with aggrandized asshole syndrome.
Am I the first one to point out that even if Hillary had Parkinson’s, Parkinson’s would not be an impediment to being a first-rate POTUS? Parkinson’s itself does not impair cognitive function or personality (although because it is largely a disease of the elderly, it is often accompanied by other aging conditions which do–but we already knew Hillary’s age.)
Yep. As someone with genuine diagnosed mental illnesses, seeing variations on ‘crazy’ being tossed around as insults makes me cringe. I am crazy, but, unlike Trump, I am not an asshole. ‘
What bothers me most about Trump and the 42% of Americans allegedly about to vote for him, is their reality-doesn’t-bother-us disorder. That scares me more than anything else.
The idea that Hillary Clinton has health problems has been pushed by rightwing media before. Now there is a new assault.
In addition to Shkreli, the Drudge Report is re-running photos of Clinton slipping on icy stairs back in February. The Drudge Report says nothing about ice, preferring to focus on the fact that aides helped Clinton up the stairs. The rightwing blog American Mirror also re-published the slip from February, calling it the “latest evidence that the questionable health condition of Hillary Clinton should be a major issue of the 2016 campaign.”
They are working hard to make this bogus health story a new anti-Clinton meme. “At what point is the mainstream media going to question Clinton’s health status?”
WorldNetDaily and Breitbart News showed the “struggling to make it up the stairs” photos, claiming that what was really a slip on an icy spot was not that, it was a near-fall “as a result of her fragile body or perhaps because her well-documented brain injuries make it harder for her to transport herself through daily life activities.” Link
Trump supporter Alex Jones went even further in an interview with Trump surrogate, Roger Stone:
Link
Expect Trump to make a big deal out of Hillary Clinton’s health. He has already claimed that she exhibits “low energy,” that she takes a long time in the bathroom, and that she has no stamina.
Some pushback from mainstream media:
@39
Not true.
http://www.pdf.org/en/cognitive_impairment_pd
It’s not as severe as impairment cause by other conditions, but it is impairment nonetheless.
LOL. She’s been running a national election campaign for almost an entire year.
Diagnosing Roger Stone and Alex Jones would be an interesting exercise.
Jake Harban @ # 1: It’s like accusing Donald Trump of having tiny little hands.
At least in that case, we have evidence.
PZ:
Why would anybody argue that? It doesn’t have to be true of his “fans,” in order for it to be true of Trump himself.
I don’t get this either. There are billions of people. A claim about some tens of millions, if for some reason that were the sort of claim you’re making, wouldn’t need to be a claim about a human universal.
Well, all the old white people in the GOP who seem to think that the votes of old white people alone would be sufficient to elect a president DO have a warped view of reality, but as PZ pointed out, this is far too common an affliction to be considered abnormal.
does he expect anyone to believe he has looked into her mouth close enough to have actually seen holes in her tonge?
all of this shit sounds way to similar tactics used by Trumps mentor Roy Cohn
the lying cheating ruthless infamous lawyer.
uncle frogy
This smear campaign directed at Hillary Clinton’s health has really gone too far. And it is getting worse by the day:
Link.