First of all, a disclaimer:  I’m not a medical professional.  I don’t even play one on TV.

And since I’m not qualified to make recommendations on health or mental health, please take this post as an informational piece and not a position piece.  That being said, I’m hoping my medical professional colleagues have some opinions on the issue, so here goes.

This article comes via a friend of mine who is a post-doc in NeuroScience at Baylor University.  The abstract of the article is as follows:

What is attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Why are so many children being diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication? Are stimulant drugs an effective and safe treatment strategy? This article explores the current state of scientific research into ADHD and the key social and ethical concerns that are emerging from the sharp rise in the number of diagnoses and the use of stimulant drug treatments in children. collaborations among scientists, social scientists and ethicists are likely to be the most promising route to understanding what ADHD is and what stimulant drugs do.

The article goes on to explore such issues as: the validity of diagnoses, alternative treatments, ethics of medicating children, etc.  A couple of excerpts I found interesting:

Diagnoses of psychiatric disorders are controversialbecause they are based on clinical assessment of behavioural symptoms: there are no laboratory tests to determine no unequivocally whether a subject has the disorder. In the case of ADHD, this problem is exacerbated by the fact that ADHD symptoms are difficult to distinguish from normal childhood behaviours. As long as there is no clear and indisputable scientific rationale for the growing rates of ADHD diagnosis and treatment in children4, the validity of ADHD diagnosis will continue to come under social and ethical scrutiny.

and:

In the future, better diagnoses and more comprehensive understanding of ADHD aetiology are likely to have a positive impact on treatments for ADHD. At this time, however, the state of scientific understanding is not sufficient to overcome the problem of over-diagnosis of ADHD and overuse of stimulant drug treatments. In this context, it is necessary to evaluate the ethics of medicating children for ADHD.

Safety is a paramount ethical issue in psychotropic drug treatments for children with ADHD. children are not small adults; nevertheless, most of the psychotropic drugs that are prescribed to children have only been tested on adults. Although stimulants have been used to treat childhood behavioural problems since the 1930s, there have been few systematic longitudinal scientific studies of the long-term effects of stimulant drug use in children. Moreover, an increasing number of children are taking not just a single psychotropic drug, but a combination of these drugs. The fact that there are no safety data available for drug cocktails does not dissuade parents and clinicians from using these drugs off-label in children, in increasing quantities and in ever younger populations of children. The FDA has attempted to resolve this problem by providing 6-month patent extensions to drug companies that conduct follow-up studies in children. However, the pharmaceutical industry selectively reveals psychotropic drug trial results and has concealed unfavourable safety data. These are compelling reasons why careful, systematic follow-up of children taking psychotropic drugs is essential.

The main reason I post this is, of course, that a fairly sizable number of my clients and/or their children are taking or have taken medications for ADHD and it’s important that we all have as much information as conceivable.  Plus, since I have a kid of my own, I’m always thinking of what it’s going to be like a few years down the road when I get that note from the principal:  “Your kid is fricking crazy, put him in an institution for Pete’s sake!”

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Butch Porter
Goose Creek Financial
Loudoun County’s best source for Health Insurance Expertise
703-651-3705