While the nation's attention has been focused on the role of prescription painkillers in our current, tragic opioid epidemic, another class of overprescribed drugs — those used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults — is also causing “a trail of misuse, addiction and death,” according to a new investigative report published jointly Saturday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today.
As reporters John Fauber, Matthew Wynn and Kristina Fiore point out, ADHD was rarely diagnosed in adults two decades ago. Today, however, it is part of mainstream medicine, “fueled by relaxed standards for diagnosis and a push from drug companies, one of which helped fund a study that claimed 1 in 23 adult Americans are affected by it. That represents about 10 million people.”
And as the number of people diagnosed with the condition has risen, so have reports of medical complications from the drugs — mostly stimulants like Adderall, Ritalin and Vyvanse — used to treat it.
