Name: ADHD Nation
ISBN: 9781501105913

Alan Schwarz

"A groundbreaking and definitive account of the widespread misdiagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder--and its serious effects on children, adults, and society"--

Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic

ADHD Nation

Jeremy Anderberg

“the child comes to our attention because of his family’s or his community’s initiative. Who, then, are we to classify diagnostically: the child, the family, the community, or all three?” —Leon Eisenberg

Research has shown that right around 5% of children can be diagnosed with ADHD—these are kids whose hyperactivity and inability to focus is dangerous not only to the child, but to the family as well. In those instances, amphetamines can help calm things down and allow that child to live a pretty “normal” life.

The problem is that anywhere from 15-20% of kids (largely boys, but not exclusively) and a growing percentage of adults are being diagnosed ADHD and given those potentially harmful amphetamines. Additionally, there’s an exploding population of high school and college students getting their hands on Adderall as a performance enhancing drug. As a result, a handful of junk doctors and a ton of drug makers are lining their pockets with cash.

Journalist Alan Schwarz sought to figure all this out in his revelatory book. He starts with the history of the disorder and its early treatments; in the profiling of Dr. Keith Conners the reader gets a glimpse of both the promise and peril of ADHD diagnoses and drugs. Conners, in good faith, created the infamous diagnostic questionnaire that unfortunately led to some of today’s problems:

“However rooted in science, Conners’s symptom questionnaire measured not necessarily a child’s behavior, but outsiders’ impression of it—their tolerance for it. The evaluations remained dangerously subjective . . . depending on their own values, even whims.”

Beyond the doctors, Schwarz gets in the dirt with the parents and kids who’ve been affected by ADHD—particularly in the stories of two people: one is a young girl seemingly afflicted by the disorder and given some misguided treatment, the other is a high school student who easily faked his way into a diagnosis which turned into a very real drug problem. Schwarz details how those stories began and how they played out over the long-term.

It’s a moving book, inevitably compared to Dopesick, which asks hard questions not only about drug use, but more importantly about the role of family and community in the midst of a drug epidemic. As Eisenberg ponders in the quote at the top of this review, is the ADHD over-diagnosis problem solely a drug company problem, or does it also stem from a combination of tired, well-meaning parents (who may understandably think their kid is too hyper when really he’s just normal hyper) and overly busy doctors who aren’t educated enough or have time enough to make thoughtful diagnoses?

It’s a lot like the opioid problem: Schwarz finds answers that are honestly somewhat predictable (there’s plenty of blame to go around), but terribly hard to detangle from the reality of the current situation. When there are billions of dollars to be made, knowledge of the problem won’t do a whole lot. Ultimately, change has to come from greater regulation of the companies that are exploiting the health and well-being of millions of families, as well as from some of the doctors on the ground who are handing out Adderall like its Halloween candy.

ADHD Nation is a fast-moving, eye-opening book about a problem that every parent should be well-educated about.

ADHD Nation Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic

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