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FDA Hearings On ADHD Drugs Will Sound Like A Broken Record

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Evelyn Pringle
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But it gets worse. Over one third of children in the Michigan study were on 2 or three psychotropic drugs at the same time, involving 30 different combinations and almost half were on two to six different drugs over time.

The authors of the report pointed out that most of the drugs used had never been tested for safety or efficacy in young children either alone or combined. "[T]he extreme variation in the use of psychotropic medications suggests haphazard use at worst and uninformed use at best." the report said.

At a September 26, 2002, Committee on Government Reform hearing on the Overmedication of Hyperactive Children, in regard to Ritalin, Representative John Duncan claimed, "I have to believe that this drug is way overprescribed in this country."

"And I believe it's all really about money," he added.

He read from a June 28, 1999 article, titled "Doping Kids," that estimated that Novartis generated an increase in stock market value of $1,236 per child prescribed Ritalin.

"Based on these evaluations, the drug company would have enjoyed an increased stock market value of approximately $10 billion or more since '91," he noted.

"I've known personally two or three of these young boys that have been put on Ritalin," Rep Duncan continued. "And they have appeared to me to be in zombie-like states," he observed.

"I believe it's being overprescribed in this country just because of the profit factor," he noted, "the money that's out there that the drug companies want to make."

Representative Dan Burton said the committee heard reports that Ritalin was being prescribed for 2-year olds in the Medicaid population and asked Dr Mary Ann Block, author of the book, "No More ADHD", whether she had any idea how physicians are influenced by the drug companies to prescribe ADHD drugs for kids.

"Yes, as a physician, I see this influence all the time," she told Rep Burton.

"For one thing," she said, "I don't think any of us can turn on the television, radio, open up a newspaper or magazine without seeing multiple advertisements for prescription drugs."

"They go so far as to say, "Ask your doctor if this drug is right for you," she continued, "encouraging the public to go to the doctor to get a drug."

"But in addition," she noted, "I don't believe the public is aware of the strong influence the pharmaceutical industry has on physicians."

"From the time we start medical school until the day we stop our practice," Dr Block continued, "we are strongly influenced or attempted to be strongly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry."

"Our medical journals," she said, "which are purported to be unbiased, usually have about 60 percent of their pages as full-page ads from the pharmaceutical industry."

"If I go to a continuing medical education meeting," she noted, "the doctors who are talking to us are being paid by the pharmaceutical industry to give those lectures."

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Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for OpEd News and investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate America.
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