If everyone whose "attention" improves on speed has "adult ADHD," it could just as easily be claimed that everyone has an "anxiety disorder" since an alcoholic beverage relaxes everyone!
It is amazing that government regulatory bodies have allowed a medical sham in which Pharma enriches itself selling street drugs for a disease it essentially invented.
Watch Out For Pharma Marketing
"Speed" hardly needs selling. An April 26, 2010 segment of "60 Minutes" reported on a survey of nearly 2,000 students at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, that found 34 percent of undergraduates had taken ADHD drugs without a prescription, with the number climbing the longer students were in school. Fifty to 60 percent of juniors and seniors were taking them, Alan DeSantis, a communications professor at the University of Kentucky who was shocked at the drugs' popularity on campus, told Katie Couric.
But ADHD marketing is also very aggressive.
To sell the "disease" of adult ADHD, drug maker Shire launched a Nationwide Adult ADHD Mobile Awareness Tour replete with "self-screening stations." Concerta makers ran ads four times per hour on a 26 x 20 foot CBS jumbotron in New York City that said "Can't focus? Can't sit still? Could you or your child have ADHD?" They also sent text ads--short enough to not cause attention deficit problems.
The discovery of "geriatric ADHD" could be another goldmine for Pharma. Can we soon expect jumbotrons asking if our father or mother can't focus or sit still?
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