It's really a crying shame.
Our country loves its ADD medications.
Ritalin is the 4th most prescribed "psychotherapeutic" (i.e., ADHD/ADD) medication in America, with sales totalling almost $133 million in 2005. Almost 2.5 million prescriptions for Ritalin were written in 2005. Concerta was the 2nd most prescribed, with 2005 sales totalling over $839 million and over 8.2 million prescriptions.
And now
this story comes out.
The Guardian Online reports today the release of the results of a new study from the University of Buffalo, basically stating that Ritalin and other drugs used to treat ADHD are of "no long-term benefit" and may in fact stunt growth in children:
Research released today raises questions about the long-term effectiveness of drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
A team of American scientists conducting the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA) has found that while drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta can work well in the short term, over a three-year period they brought about no demonstrable improvement in children's behaviour. They also found the drugs could stunt growth.
...The report's co-author, Professor William Pelham, of the University of Buffalo, said: "I think we exaggerated the beneficial impact of medication in the first study. We had thought that children medicated longer would have better outcomes. That didn't happen to be the case.
"The children had a substantial decrease in their rate of growth, so they weren't growing as much as other kids in terms of both their height and their weight. And the second was that there were no beneficial effects - none.
"In the short run [medication] will help the child behave better, in the long run it won't. And that information should be made very clear to parents."
Australia's Daily Telegraph adds:
The influential BBC Panorama television program found last year the cost of ADHD drugs had cost the public health system in Britain more than $AUD60 million.
The program aired disturbing footage of a 14-year-old Briton who had been on ADHD medication for a decade. His family kept a video diary of his behaviour; he recently assaulted three school teachers....
Prof Pelham believes behavioural therapy such as concentration tests in the first instance and a simple diet of Omega-3 helped.
Novartis - the manufacturer of Ritalin - declined comment on the study, and Janssen-Cilag, manufacturers of Concerta,
stated in response that Concerta was a "very valuable treatment".
These drugs provide, over the long-term, "no demonstrable improvement" in behavior, and, have even caused
death in rare cases - and yet are prescribed to the tune of almost $3 billion per year.
Is this the result of some diabolically good marketing on the part of big Pharma? Or is this the result of today's culture? Since we want everything now, give the kids a pill to get the behavioral change now -- and who cares about the kid's mental state 10 years from now? In 2001 the average clinical trial for Ritalin lasted
only 3 1/2 weeks, and
this is what is being given to millions of children a year? For example,
this 2001 Concerta study -- where Dr. Pelham, author of the current study, was one of the heads and did his research on a grant
sponsored by Concerta's manufacturer -- published in
Pediatrics says in its methodology that "three dosing levels of medication were used" and that "children received each medication condition (i.e., dosage level) for 7 days". There's your 3 weeks.
So it comes out that the same doctor who had been doing the research for the corporations back in 2001, is now saying, that he and his research team "exaggerated the beneficial impact of medication" back then.
Will the market have a change of heart as well?
Or will more and more kids, instead of receiving behavioral therapy or Omega-3 rich diets, be made to buy into the $3 billion pharmaceutical market?
Ultimately, it's up to hospitals and doctors to put their foot down and say -- even though the Novartis sales guy is hooking the hospital up, alternatives to medication have
got to be presented to parents and adult patients.