According to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. Called the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD), it's recommended that the malady be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition is to be completed in 2012. The benefit to people so classified is health insurance coverage.

"The symptoms of PADD are all around us, and treating it professionally can do more for our country than any election," said Dr. Mable Wank in the report's introduction; she is chairwoman of the Council and a professor at UCLA.

Here are the Council's main findings on PADD:

Nearly 80 percent of adult American citizens are unable to pay sustained attention to issues and problems associated with their government. They are unable to accept their responsibility as citizens, including their obligation to vote, read in-depth articles and books on political issues, become active members of politically oriented groups, and initiate discussions on current events with friends and family. "The decades-old decline in voter turnout is a direct result of a national epidemic of PADD," said the report.

The chief cause of PADD is the desire to avoid the very real pain of cognitive dissonance - the difference between what Americans want to believe about the greatness of their country and the disturbing reality that their government and country are in terrible shape, which is a constant reminder when there is normal, healthy political attention. Such pain suppression, however, is counterproductive and linked to depression and anxiety disorders, as well as a heightened level of cynicism and despair. According to the report, many suicides and possibly many criminal acts result from PADD.

Another consequence of PADD is that people devote more of their time, energy and money on pleasure-seeking distractions. PADD is correlated with profound statistical significance to clinical symptoms such as obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, video game addiction, Internet addiction, sexual promiscuity, excessive shopping, gambling addiction, and other harmful behaviors.