The Ritalin Wars: Reaction, Overreaction Continue To ADHD Studies

A week after news came out around a couple of studies with implications for the ADHD debate--or the Ritalin Wars, if you prefer--I figured that the hubub would have died down. I was wrong. On the heels of Judith Warner's love letter to drug companies everywhere on Friday on the New York Times' website and my response to the same, the British press had a go at the implications of the two studies. In fact, articles and editorials cascaded out of the Brit press over the weekend. Here's a sampling. Oh, yes, all of these are headlines from thoroughly legitimate British news organizations.

"ADHD drugs 'used to silence rowdy children'"

"We need inquiry into ADHD kids"

"Ritalin: The scandal of kiddy coke"

There others, of course. Some of the articles were over-the-top, some them quoted David Healy to great effect and so on. I think some of them engaged in fearmongering--kiddy coke? Oh, come on--and it takes a lot for me to be use that term, but I think that globally the Brits have caught the big takeaway message from these studies--ADHD drugs aren't particularly needed long-term (short-term may be another story) and may indeed retard brain development, and this is mostly about the boys. One opinion piece got into the question of boys so well that I'll take it up in a separate piece today or tomorrow.

The intensity of it all reminds me of earlier this year when the US press had a run at the bipolar child paradigm. The Brits have braver headline writers, however. I'm a bit surprised that I remain the only commentator here or over there to poke at the idea that the bipolar child who-ha and the ADHD noise are deeply intertwined.

As outrageous as the Brit press can be, they have done a fine job of sounding the alarum that something is up out there in Western culture and in our souls, our societies and our behaviors. Good for them for banging away on it, however crude some might find the results.

By comparison, commentary in the US has been a wee bit quieter (so far, at any rate). But that's probably because the media in this country are still trying to figure out what it all out means. And I certainly don't know what it all means yet, but given that we are medicating the hell out of a generation of children and given that it doesn't seem to be producing particularly robust results for us as a culture by just about any yardstick I can use, I have to think that it means we've gone too far with a modern technology and we really, really need to take a timeout and reassess the situation.