ADHD overload

Bryan Hubbard — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:42:00 GMT

Nobody has anything nice to say about NICE - so, being a contrarian, I will! As you may know, NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) determines the drugs that should be made available on the National Health Service based upon their effectiveness and price.

Invariably it makes decisions that upset some groups, and is seen as a skinflint denying life-saving pharmaceuticals to people in desperate need. That's the rub, of course. People in desperate need a magic bullet, and are more than willing to swallow any drug company hype, whereas NICE has to take a more considered view.

The institute has hit the headlines again in the past week, this time urging doctors to reduce the prescriptions on drugs such as Ritalin for children with ADHD (attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder). It wants to see the numbers of prescriptions reduced to a third of their current levels, and reserved only for the most extreme cases.

There are a number of pressures going on here, and NICE is being the voice of reason. The first pressure is from the drug's manufacturer. Years ago, WDDTY got hold of a secret memo to the salesforce, stating that it was concerned that too few children in the UK were taking Ritalin. It was the start of a concerted drive, and, as usual, the doctors were willing accomplices.

The second pressure is from parents and doctors alike, who both see any form of errant behaviour as 'ADHD'. It's a catch-all umbrella term that captures any form of problematic behaviour that, once upon a time, was dismissed as 'boys being boys' and the like. Any excitability is exacerbated by diet, and often times the removal of sweets and processed foods from the diet will result in an almost immediate improvement to any bad behaviour.

Of course, this is not to diminish the problems of ADHD and the hell that parents of genuinely afflicted children go through. But NICE has it about right - the prescriptions need to be reduced to around a third of the level of where they are now.

It's time to stop seeing every childhood problem as ADHD in order to sell more drugs.

Sweet enough?

Bryan Hubbard — Tue, 08 May 2007 11:08:00 GMT

Drug companies move in a slow, slow way their profits to protect. Even when an argument enters the realm of the blindingly obvious, we continue to see prevarication, the creation of sub-sub committees, review boards, and the review of review boards.

This highly successful strategy has been used on countless occasions to buy time for drugs that are either dangerous or needless.

Take, for example, the childhood condition of ADHD (attention-deficit, hyperactivity disorder), which, judging by the numbers of prescriptions for Ritalin and the like that are being written in the UK and the USA alone, has reached epidemic levels.

Despite the ease that doctors seem to instantly recognize a case of ADHD, it is merely an umbrella term for a range of childhood problems that are either dubious, temporary, or even non-existent. Of course, there are 'problem' children who need help, but the numbers fall far short of the 5 million in the USA who are currently taking Ritalin.

And slowly, slowly, scientists are finally coming round to the view that additives and colourants in foods may have more to do with the 'condition' than they once thought. Researchers at Southampton University in the UK have just announced that their latest research supports earlier findings that additives affect bevaiour in children, and may be a cause of temper tantrums, poor concentration and hyperactivity - or ADHD.

These obvious conclusions are now being considered by the UK's Food Standards Agency, which determines what goes into food sold in Britain's shops. Astonishingly, for something that is not only blindingly obvious but that every parent already knows, the conclusions have been presented in private, and it will be many months before they are published in a scientific journal. Only then will they be considered 'official', by which time a sub-sub committee will no doubt be created to review the findings.

After all, we do have Ritalin sales targets to consider.

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Adverse Reactions : Ritalin

ADHD overload

Sweet enough?