Selling ADHD for [Huge] Profit

I often talked to my students about the selling of diseases.  Some pharmaceutical company comes up with a chemical that might cure some uncommon disease.  There's no profit in uncommon diseases.  So, hit the television.   Give your disease a spiffy nickname, like 'low-t' or 'afib', then announce a cure.   Repeat.  Often.

While I was teaching, I noticed an increase in students mothers who were frantic about their ADHD darlings.  It wasn't my imagination.  The following is excerpted from a not-unexpected article in the New York Times:

Dr. Conners, a psychologist and professor emeritus at Duke University, noted that recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the [ADHD] diagnosis had been made in 15 percent of high school-age children, and that the number of children on medication for the disorder had soared to 3.5 million from 600,000 in 1990. 

“The numbers make it look like an epidemic. Well, it’s not. It’s preposterous,” Dr. Conners said in an interview. “This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels.”

 

The rise of A.D.H.D. diagnoses and prescriptions for stimulants over the years coincided with a remarkably successful two-decade campaign by pharmaceutical companies to publicize the syndrome and promote the pills to doctors, educators and parents. With the children’s market booming, the industry is now employing similar marketing techniques as it focuses on adult A.D.H.D., which could become even more profitable.

Like most psychiatric conditions, A.D.H.D. has no definitive test, and most experts in the field agree that its symptoms are open to interpretation by patients, parents and doctors. The American Psychiatric Association, which receives significant financing from drug companies, has gradually loosened the official criteria for the disorder to include common childhood behavior like “makes careless mistakes” or “often has difficulty waiting his or her turn.”  

Everybody! has ADHD!!!!!   Buy drugs!

So, come up with a chemical that might cure some uncommon disease.  There's no profit in uncommon diseases.  Hit the television.   Give your disease a spiffy nickname, like 'ADHD', then announce a cure.   Repeat.  Often.