How Big Pharma Keeps Their ADHD Pipeline Overflowing

     Science writer Peter Simons this week reported on new research that shows that a third of healthy young adults think they have ADHD.

     These are “healthy” youth who have no prior symptoms of ADHD and no history of medication use or psychiatric diagnoses. However, after this group of young adults have undergone an “ADHD awareness campaign,” based on ADHD advocacy groups’ material, that number jumps from thirty percent to almost sixty percent.

     This new research shows that “Being exposed to ADHD awareness reliably increases false self-diagnosis among healthy young adults for at least one week.” The study was done at the University of Toronto and was published in Psychological Medicine.

     Simons notes that even psychiatrist Allen Frances, who oversaw the creation of the DSM-IV, said that the ADHD label was an “overly broad diagnosis” and it medicalized what were normal aspects of childhood. In fact, no objective researcher has ever been able to find any biomarker or any brain difference s that show a neurobiological condition of ADHD.

     Also, no researcher has ever found any long term benefits for those diagnosed with ADHD being given extended prescriptions of the amphetamines used to treat the condition.

     One NIMH funded study showed that after two years of taking those prescriptions “deterioration” occurred and the medication was associated with a suppression of adult height, as well. Another study showed that those taking the amphetamine Ritalin had an eighteen percent increase in depression. That figure returned to normal after they stopped taking the medication.

     Still, the FDA has done nothing to curb the prescription of amphetamines for this bogus “mental disorder,” and Big Pharma has continued to increase their pipeline of revenue from these self-diagnosed youth through “ADHD awareness” campaigns. Profit from ADHD medications was almost $14 billion in 2024. If Big Pharma continues to feed this pipeline, profit from their ADHD stimulants is projected to be $25 billion by 2035.

     That’s a lot of money to make from a bogus disease.