Filed under: Health & safety , Medical conditions , Development , In the news , Special needs More kids are misusing prescription ADHD medication. Credit: Fillmore Photography, Flickr The pills help them concentrate, stay awake longer and finish their work faster. The kids who take these drugs can impress their parents and teachers and feel a little less different among other kids who don't share their challenges. And if one pill helps, then two or three sho

"The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike." -Ralph Waldo EmersonThe wave of evil washes not only the financial-industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, the energy-industrial complex, and predatory executives at AIG, Citibank, Halliburton, Blackwater/Xe, Enron, and Exxon. The pharmaceutical-industrial complex has virtually annexed the mental health profession, whose all-star opportunist team is captained by Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, the high-profile doctor most

Thanks to unsealed documents from legal proceedings, we now know that many drug makers routinely hid negative findings about antidepressants and anti-psychotics (ranging from Paxil to Seroquel) from doctors and consumers. Now comes evidence that the researchers who conducted a long-term study on the effectiveness of drugs for attention-deficit disorder (ADHD) also sought to play down results showing that these drugs are not particularly effective over the long haul. According to an article in Th

WASHINGTON — New data from a large federal study have reignited a debate over the effectiveness of long-term drug treatment of children with hyperactivity or attention-deficit disorder, and have drawn accusations that some research team members have sought to play down evidence that medications do little good beyond 24 months.

Look at this figure - use of drugs to treat ADHD has TRIPLED in the past ten years worldwide! This statistic is from a research team at the University of California at Berkeley. Similar fears have been expressed in Australia where the number of prescriptions for these ADHD drugs has doubled. I want to ask a question:- Is the use of drugs to treat ADHD essential and what alternatives are they?The fact that the number of prescriptions has tripled does not mean that this disorder is on the increase