In her book "The Hidden Drug – Dietary Phosphate", Hafer states: "Phosphate disorders affect people from cradle to grave. They begin with the weepy baby who shies away from being touched and end with the old, osteoporotic woman, about whom her young family complains, "And my mother-in-law has become so spiteful". She states clearly that there is a genetic factor involved in ADD and related conditions but that the emergence of the condition is triggered by excess dietary phosphate; thus a genetic predisposition is triggered by an environmental factor. There are sections in the book on the relationship between ADD and: poor infant sleep patterns, osteoporosis, drug addiction, juvenile delinquency, asthma, allergies, allergic eczema, depression and alcoholism. She also explains convincingly why more boys than girls are affected by ADD and other problem behaviours, something which has been widely observed and confirmed by other researchers but not explained.

When the Australian study began, in 1983, it was widely held that children's behaviour problems were caused by poor parenting. But the study revealed that babies and toddlers revealed "important clues early on" about whether they would have later difficulties such as drug abuse and mental problems. Constant crying by babies may be an indicator of future hyperactivity, misbehaviour, adolescent depression and drug dependence. The study produced "abundant evidence" that children who showed patterns of aggressiveness and anti-social behaviour as toddlers were "at risk for difficulties at school age and in later life". It found that "most children with continued anti-social behaviour were boys, who were more likely to get into trouble at school, have learning difficulties and bully other children"

Professor Frank Oberklaid said that the fact that some children were easier to raise than others was "less to do with the way they are brought up and more to do with temperament. …. Temperament is based on nature, not nurture – it is very much a genetic construction", he said.

The study involved 2500 randomly selected families from varied social, economic, religious and ethnic backgrounds across the Australian state of Victoria.

In the light of this ringing endorsement of claims Hertha Hafer first made as far back as 1978, the frustration in the following comment is entirely understandable: "Ever since we published our first observations - which point to a single cause and a principal effect - medical science has been doing its utmost to shatter the integral picture of phosphate intoxication which was presented into a plethora of individual symptoms, so that it would fit neatly back into the categories of medical specialisation. A multitude of therapists are involved in treating the symptoms of phosphate-intoxication: physicians, paediatricians, allergists, psychiatrists, gastroenterologists, dermatologists, speech therapists, psychologists, physiotherapists and remedial teachers. This is a huge financial burden not only for the affected persons but also for the public health service.

We have not so far the opportunity to read this full report but it appears from the news reports that Prof Oberklaid and his colleagues have concluded that the cause of the conditions they have described is purely genetic and that it may not have occurred to them that there might be an environmental factor involved, which causes the conditions to manifest themselves. Such a conclusion flies in the face of much evidence that ADD is not evident today in developing countries in which people continue to consume traditional, unprocessed diets whereas it is an epidemic in advanced countries such as Australia in which the change from such diets to highly processed, phosphate laden convenience foods is most advanced. It is also true that ADD was unknown in countries in this group before about 1870 – when phosphate first invaded the world's bakeries.

A purely genetic explanation for ADD cannot account for the fact that it occurs in one group of countries but not in another, in one historical period but not another; the human genetic inheritance is neither so variable either in time or place as to make such an explanation convincing.

Reference: "The Australian" Newspaper Monday November 27, 2000, p 4