by
Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society
There is a
frightening new trend in the medical community: prescribing psychoactive
stimulant medication to children from low-income families to boost
their academic performance. To be more clear, doctors are actually
prescribing ADHD drugs to students who are academically struggling.
Here’s the kicker: the kids don’t have attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Evening
the Scales
One proponent
of the trend, Dr. Michael Anderson, says that ADHD is a “made
up…excuse” for the real illness, which is a social and
educational environment unwilling to spend money on changing the
environment and instead opting to change the child. A self-professed
“social justice thinker,” Anderson knows that many families
cannot afford behavior-based therapy for their children. He sees
the practice of issuing Adderall to children without ADHD as “evening
the scales a little bit.”
Dr. William
Graf, a pediatrician who also sees many children from poor families,
has his concerns with the practice. “These children are still
in the developmental phase, and we still don’t know how these
drugs biologically affect the developing brain.”
When the New
York Times tried to contact educators to speak on the topic
of ADHD, many resisted interviews and some – like a superintendent
of a major school district in California – only spoke anonymously.
“It’s
scary to think…how not funding public education to meet the
needs of all kids has led to this.”
ADHD Drugs
and Dangerous Side Effects
Despite a growing
body of knowledge that the drugs in question – like Adderall
and Risperdal – cause devastating side effects, prescriptions
are on the rise. In 2010 alone, doctors drew up 18 million prescriptions
of Adderall. Companies have even been struggling
to produce enough ADHD drugs due to the massive increase in
prescriptions.
July
5, 2013
Copyright
© 2013 Natural
Society
Republished with permission from: Lew Rockwell