ADHD drugs now putting millions of adults at serious risk
There’s “something happening here.”
That’s how the authors of a new investigation on adult ADHD have summed up their research.
You read that right, adult ADHD. Sure, we know how millions of kids, many just active, normal children, are being drugged everyday due to an ADHD diagnosis.
But this investigation wasn’t about kids. It’s about what the authors call a “lowering of the bar” that’s allowing an ocean liner of prescriptions to be given to grown-ups. I’m talking about the same kinds of risky drugs our kids are being pumped full of.
And surprisingly, it looks like these meds are even more dangerous when taken by adults.
If I told you that one out of every 23 adults in America suffers from ADHD, you would probably say my calculator is broken. That would be around 10 million people!
Yet that’s what numerous studies have stated. We’re being told that millions of us are suffering from this horrible disorder and need to be drugged immediately!
On top of that, three years ago the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM), made some tweaks in what it takes to be diagnosed with adult ADHD. Now, you only need five out of nine symptoms to be handed an Rx.
As Professor Peter Conrad of Brandeis University put it, ADHD has become “a lifespan disorder.”
And if you’re wondering what these horrific symptoms are, here’s some of them:
- Poor time management
- Trouble multitasking
- Restlessness and fidgeting
- Problems focusing
- Trouble coping with stress
Are you kidding me? I don’t know one person who couldn’t say they haven’t had these kinds of issues.
But for drugmakers who are pushing ADHD meds, it’s a dream come true. And it’s one they helped create.
The new investigation I mentioned, done by reporters at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today, found that many of those studies supposedly showing how many adults have ADHD were funded by none other than Big Pharma.
On top of that, the significant change in the DSM (which is published by the American Psychiatric Association) was accomplished by a Big Pharma-friendly panel of experts. In fact, close to 80 percent of them were found to have ties to the drug industry.
Of course, we’re adults. And you might say that we don’t have to pop any pills that we don’t want to.
But drugmakers know that, too. And to help convince your doctor to push these meds, some very devious methods have been used.
For example, Shire, which makes the ADHD drugs Vyvanse, Adderall XR, and Daytrana, sent its sales force around the country telling doctors that the meds would “prevent car accidents, divorce, arrests and unemployment.”
Can you believe it?
While the drugmaker was fined $56 million for doing that by the Department of Justice two years ago, you can’t tell me that put a stop to it. That fine is just a drop in the bucket compared to what these companies are bringing in for these meds.
And as I said, these addictive, stimulant medications, while very risky for kids, are even more so for adults to take. They can up your heart rate and blood pressure, and have been linked to cases of sudden cardiac death.
The FDA has received almost 20,000 reports of problems due to these drugs in the past three years. Things such as kidney failure, panic attacks, dizziness and fatal heart attacks.
But still, they keep on being dispensed to adults with more prescriptions being written every year.
As Professor Conrad put it, “If we are not careful, we are going to get geriatric ADHD.”
Sources:
“Lowering the bar: Adult ADHD, a risky diagnosis?” John Fauber, Matt Wynn and Kristina Fiore, MedPage Today, September 10, 2016, medpagetoday.com
