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Table of Contents Content ADHD Drugs

What is known about these Drugs The Ritalin Explosion What, when and how of taking Ritalin Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD What We Don't Know: Ritalin and Preschool-age Children The ADHD Drugs Ritalin Abuse Statistics Statistics on Stimulant Use Defining and Diagnosing ADHD What is ADHD? The NIH Consensus Panel on ADHD The Official Diagnostic Criteria for ADHD Steps in Making a Diagnosis American Academy of Pediatrics' Guidelines The Evolution of a Disorder The Protean Diagnosis: Problems with Today's Version of ADD What Happens to ADHD Kids?

Page

1 9 17 22 24 26 27 28

31 41 43 46 47 49 53 58

Opponents and Backlash

Does ADHD Exist?

61

The Business of ADHD

68

ADHD Lawsuits

75

UN Warnings on Ritalin

78

Readings

Ritalin ? Miracle Drug or Cop-out?

82

Brain Politics

92

Pseudo-ADD

98

ADHD in Schools

Federal Laws Pertaining to ADHD Diagnosed Children

101

An Overview of State Legislation and Initiatives

104

Interviews

Stephan Antosson

106

Russell Barkley

112

Fred Baughman, M.D

122

Peter Breggin, M.D

127

Xavier Castellanos, M.D

133

Lawrence Diller, M.D

140

William Dodson, M.D

147

Peter Jensen, M.D

156

Harold Koplewicz, M.D

167

Harvey Parker

174

ADHD Drugs What is known about these Drugs

What about the impact of the discovery of these medications? It definitely alters the views of psychiatry. How has it altered your practice?

. . . The good news is that the medications are remarkably safe. The reason that they're so safe is that you take them and they have a very short half-life, meaning that you metabolize them very quickly and they're out of your system in several hours. Because of that, you have to know that they only work when you take them, so that this is a treatment, not a cure. When it does work--and it works in about 80 percent of the cases--you see children who, all of a sudden, are able to use their intelligence, able to use their wit, their charm, so that they can focus on the blackboard. They can listen to the teacher. They can pick up social cues. . . .

Vice chairman of psychiatry at New York University, Koplewicz believes that ADHD is a legitimate brain disorder. He wrote It's Nobody's Fault: New Hope and Help for Difficult Children and Their Parents. He is director for the New York University Child Study Center.

A lot of parents have a hard time giving kids medication. How would you allay their fears and make them feel a bit more at ease?

read FRONTLINE's interview with

koplewicz

I can understand completely why most parents wouldn't want

their children taking medicine. . . . But if you have a disorder, if

you have a real illness, and if the illness is Attention Deficit

Hyperactivity Disorder, the only treatment that we know is effective is medication. ...

The potential side effects of taking this medicine are usually very short term. They decrease your appetite and they decrease your ability to fall asleep. The good news is that frequently those two very common side effects disappear with time, and sometimes when lowering the dose, they will be able to get rid of those effects.

There are some less frequent symptoms that are very bothersome. Kids will become more zombie-like; they seem to lose their spark. They don't seem to be as fresh and as with it. In those cases . . . even though the child's able to pay attention, you've lost the essence of who that child is. The good news is that all these side effects are short term and are reversible. If you stop the medicine, the side effect goes away.

The thing is that I think most parents worry about are the myths about these medicines. They think, "If my child takes this medicine, I'm teaching my child how to take drugs." The truth is that kids who have ADHD who don't get treated are much more likely to abuse illicit drugs, bad drugs, than kids who take the medication. Because when you're taking the medication, you're less impulsive; you're more attentive; you're more on-target. And you're also learning, hopefully, from your parents and your doctor that you have a more sensitive brain, and that you should really avoid these bad drugs like marijuana and cocaine and even alcohol, because they may have a stronger reaction in you than it would in an average person. ...

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