Word: adhd
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...first to bar school officials from recommending psychotropic drugs for kids on the theory that such matters should be left to families and their doctors. The law comes on the heels of legislation enacted by Minnesota earlier this year preventing schools from forcing parents to medicate ADHD children. Utah and New Jersey have similar bills pending, and lawmakers in many other states have shown interest in such action...
...legislative trend is at odds with a new--and unprecedented--marketing push by the makers of ADHD drugs. Until now, drugmakers have heeded a 30-year-old international treaty meant to discourage consumer advertising of psychotropic substances. No more. In one ad, drugmaker Celltech shows a smiling boy and his mom with the message: "One dose covers his ADHD for the whole school day," plus the drug's name, Metadate CD. The ad is running in a dozen magazines, including Ladies' Home Journal, which has two more ADHD drug ads in the same issue--from Shire Pharmaceuticals (maker of Adderall...
...light of what appears to be an epidemic of ADHD-some 3 million U.S. youngsters are believed to be afflicted with it and related behavior problems--pharmaceutical companies are locked in a fierce battle for what will soon be a $1 billion-a-year market for drugs treating the problem. New prescriptions for ADHD treatments have gone up more than 38% over the past five years, with 20 million prescriptions written in the past year. No longer do Ritalin and its generic knockoffs rule. Now there are more than half a dozen treatments, some of which last a whole school...
...Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association says such ads "empower" patients by informing them of treatment options. But, as doctors will tell you, they are a double-edged sword because they drive up demand for drugs. And that's particularly dicey in the case of drugs like those used for ADHD, which the DEA puts in the same category with morphine, cocaine, Demerol and Oxycontin...
...Food and Drug Administration is also handcuffed. Most of the ADHD ads are not within its jurisdiction because they neither name the drug nor describe it. (Exception: Celltech's ad for Metadate CD, which the FDA is reviewing.) And even if they were, says FDA official Nancy Ostrove, the agency doesn't have the authority "to treat advertisements for controlled substances any differently" from those for other drugs. As for the drug companies, they insist their ads "are within the letter and spirit of all laws," in the words of a spokesman for McNeil...