In the years since the consensus statement was published, however, the evidence for each of these A.D.H.D. biomarkers has faltered. Attempts to replicate the studies that showed differences in brain electrical activity came up empty. And though scientists have identified complex collections of genes that together may be signs of greater risk for A.D.H.D., they have failed to find a specific gene that predicts the disorder. “There is no single-gene story,” John Gabrieli, an M.I.T. neuroscientist, told me recently. “Fifteen years ago, there was incredible optimism, and now we realize how far away we are.” ...So use of the ADHD drugs has been increasing, but the evidence is that they do not work.Though Swanson had welcomed that initial increase in the diagnosis rate, he expected it to plateau at 3 percent. Instead, it kept rising, hitting 5.5 percent of American children in 1997, then 6.6 percent in 2000. As time passed, Swanson began to grow uneasy. He and his colleagues were continuing to follow the almost 600 children in the M.T.A. study, and by the mid-2000s, they realized that the new data they were collecting was telling a different — and less hopeful — story than the one they initially reported. It was still true that after 14 months of treatment, the children taking Ritalin behaved better than those in the other groups. But by 36 months, that advantage had faded completely, and children in every group, including the comparison group, displayed exactly the same level of symptoms.
Thursday, April 17, 2025
Ritalin and Adderall do not Work on Kids
NY Times reports:
Labels:
kids,
psychology
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2 comments:
Interesting. I have long had my doubts about the efficacy of these drugs, and it appears those doubts may be justified.
Want to know what another very bad idea was?
Accutane.
Oh no, poor kid, he's suffering from bad Acne, here, give him this. And then things go off the rails, and the 'experts' say, Oh, poor kid, suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts? Here, have some Prozac, and some Paxil, and some Zoloft...this will fix everything.
And then said 'experts' say, hmm, child is acting emotionally stunted and is just 'being difficult'.
I don't need to speak from anecdotes. I don't need to speak from hearsay.
I don't even need to speak from any opinions at all.
I don't need to hear one more god damn 'expert' tell me, 'This will help, trust me...'.
I WAS that kid.
Screw the 'we can't seem to reproduce our findings' pharmaceutical industry,
Screw the 'expert highly trained' doctors and their precious hippocratic oaths,
who pushed their very expensive drugs in lovely professionally landscaped clinics ON KIDS for financial kickbacks.
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