A Federal Investigation Has Launched into the Mass Labeling and Drugging of America’s Children, especially for ADHD.
By CCHR International
The Mental Health Industry Watchdog
February 21, 2025
• The Call to End a Manufactured Epidemic: With mounting evidence increases in children being labeled with ADHD, without any scientific test to substantiate the diagnosis, a federal investigation needs to look to profit-driven motives.
• A study in PLOS Medicine found that 57% of DSM-IV and 69% DSM-5 task force members had financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, fueling a dramatic rise in ADHD diagnoses over the past two decades.
• 58,091 children aged five or younger were prescribed ADHD drugs in 2020, yet the Food and Drug Administration has not approved their use in this age group.
• Severe Health Risks of ADHD Drugs: ADHD stimulant drugs are classified as Schedule II substances (high potential for addiction), linked to addiction, growth suppression, psychotic symptoms, heart complications, and sudden deaths among children.
A federal investigation has been announced into the 3.4 million American children being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and their potential overmedication. The probe is part of a broader review of America’s escalating health crisis, with an initial focus on children.[1] This investigation is long overdue. Children are being drugged for normal childhood behaviors like fidgeting and restlessness and parents are not informed that there is no biological basis for ADHD, which is heavily marketed as a neurobiological condition to justify the prescription of stimulant drugs.
More than 58,000 children aged five or younger were prescribed ADHD drugs in 2020, according to data CCHR obtained from the IQVia Total Patient Tracker Database.[2] Yet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved ADHD drugs for children under six.[3] A surge in calls to poison control centers due to ADHD medication-related adverse events from 2000 to 2021 underscores the dangers, with children under six three times more likely to be hospitalized than their older counterparts.[4]
In 2022, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which categorizes ADHD drugs as Schedule II substances with a high potential for abuse, alongside morphine, oxycodone, and fentanyl—warned ADHD drug manufacturers about aggressive marketing practices and the potential over-prescription of stimulants.[5] Between 2019 and 2022, prescriptions for ADHD stimulant, Adderall, surged 27%, according to IQVia.[6]
The expansion of ADHD diagnostic criteria has been widely criticized. Critics argue that the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) has been heavily influenced by pharmaceutical interests. A study in PLOS Medicine revealed that 69% of the DSM-5 task force members had financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, up from 57% in the DSM-IV task force.[7]
A Counseling Australia report detailed how the psychiatric field effectively created the ADHD market: “DSM-III and DSM-IV provided the diagnostic framework, academic psychiatrists validated its existence, and corporate interests marketed the condition aggressively.” The DSM-III criteria for ADHD alone were projected to increase diagnoses by 23%. Dr. Allen Frances, former chair of the DSM-IV task force, warned that diagnostic changes fueled a “false epidemic” of both ADHD and autism, drastically increasing the number of children labeled with the disorder and prescribed stimulants to treat it.[8] ADHD rates tripled, in part due to aggressive drug marketing, Frances said.[9] By 2012, the number of American children prescribed an ADHD drug was six times the number in 1990.[10]
The Pseudoscience of ADHD Diagnosis
ADHD symptoms are arbitrarily determined by APA member votes. Behaviors considered symptomatic include traits common in young children: easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another; become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless they are doing something enjoyable; have trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities; does not seem to listen when spoken to; fidgets and squirms in their seats; talks nonstop; has trouble sitting still during dinner, school, and story time; on the go; has difficulty waiting for their turns in games; and often butts into others’ conversations or activities.[11]
Yet, gifted children, in particular, face a heightened risk of misdiagnosis because according to Dr. Erik von Hahn writing in the American Academy of Pediatrics, these children generally “may show behaviors that mimic ADHD. For example, they may appear hyper active because they ask many questions and are so excited about learning. Or, they may fail to participate in age-expected activities because of their over-focus on an area of interest. Finally, boredom can lead to inattention as well as feelings of depression.” Further, “In such cases, the child does not have ADHD or another disability, and the appropriate intervention is to provide needed stimulation. Otherwise, the child is at risk for academic and social failure despite superior potential.”[12]
Dr. James T. Webb and Diane Latimer have identified many ADHD-like behaviors in gifted children, including:
• Poor attention and boredom in unstimulating settings
• Power struggles with authority
• Low tolerance for persistence on tasks
• High energy and activity levels requiring less sleep
• Questioning of rules and traditions.[13]
Prof. Frances warns that 3-5 percent of kids who are particularly gifted are at special risk for being tagged with an inappropriate diagnosis of mental disorder. “One of the disasters of the diagnostic inflation is that expectable and desirable individual difference is so often mislabeled as a mental disorder.”[14]
ADHD is not a Neurological Disease
Convincing parents that their children have a medical disease requiring medication is part of the marketing scam behind ADHD and violates informed consent rights.
The British Journal of Psychiatry confirms that ADHD lacks biological markers or medical tests and that its mainstream classification has been contaminated by pharmaceutical industry influence.[15]
Dr. Mary Ann Block, author of No More ADHD, notes: “There is no valid test for ADHD. The diagnosis… is completely subjective.” And ‘while some compare ADHD to diabetes, there really is no comparison. Diabetes is an insulin deficiency that can be objectively measured. Insulin is a hormone manufactured by the body and needed for life. ADHD cannot be objectively measured and amphetamines are not made by the body or needed for life.”[16]
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) also determined in 1998 that “We do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD,” and “there are no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction.”[17] In 2013, David J. Kupfer, chairman of the NIH conference in 1998, further confirmed no “biological and genetic markers that provide precise diagnoses that can be delivered with complete reliability and validity” had been established.[18]
In 2002, the Netherlands Advertisement Code Commission (NACC) ordered the country’s Brain Foundation to stop advertising or promoting ADHD as a neurobiological condition or brain dysfunction, ruling this was misleading. Data presented to show that ADHD was a mental disease was not convincing and the NACC ordered the Brain Foundation to cease false claims to the contrary in its advertising.[19] Yet, in the U.S., where there is direct-to-consumer advertising, ADHD is marketed as a neurobiological disorder.
The late pediatric neurologist Dr. Fred Baughman, Jr., author of The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes “Patients” of Normal Children, further criticized the practice stating that children are misled when they “believe they have something wrong with their brains that makes it impossible for them to control themselves without a pill.”[20]
Stimulants: Risks of Addiction, Heart Failure, and Death
The DEA equates the effects of Ritalin and Adderall to those of cocaine.[21] The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that Ritalin is not only chemically similar to cocaine but also more potent.[22]
Dr. Richard Saul, a behavioral neurologist, warns that ADHD medications are highly addictive, leading patients to require higher doses over time. “There are many side effects to ADHD medication that most people are not aware of: increased anxiety, irritable or depressed mood, severe weight loss due to appetite suppression, and even potential for suicide.”[23]
On August 14, 2023, Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD, reported the following findings regarding stimulants, specifically methylphenidate:
• Stunting growth. After 16 years, those who consistently took their pills were 5 cm [1.9 inches] shorter than those who took very little, and there were many other harms.”
• They harm the brain, which could be permanent.
• Short-term harms include tics, twitches, and behaviors consistent with obsessive-compulsive symptoms, all of which can become common.
• Stimulants reduce overall spontaneous mental and behavioral activity, including social interest, which leads to apathy or indifference, and many children—more than half in some studies—develop depression and compulsive, meaningless behaviors.[24]
In 2006, the FDA linked 51 deaths to prescription stimulants, later adding warnings about sudden death in children with heart conditions.[25] That same year, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) reported nine ADHD drug-related child fatalities.[26]
One tragic case is that of Matthew Smith, a 14-year-old skateboarder from Michigan, who was prescribed Ritalin for a decade. He died in 2000 of a heart attack, with the medical examiner concluding that long-term stimulant use led to his death.[27]
According to a Swedish study, a search of an international safety database for one methylphenidate manufacturer, found reports of 21 cases of attempted suicide and six suicides, in addition to 25 reports of suicidal ideations in patients aged 6-48 years, 56% of whom were children younger than 16 years.[28]
Big Pharma’s Role in Driving ADHD Marketing
Since Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) was legalized in 1997, ADHD drug advertising skyrocketed. The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry went from zero ADHD drug ads in the early 1990s to nearly 100 pages annually by the early 2000s.[29]
New York Times journalist Alan Schwarz detailed in The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder how a 20-year marketing campaign resulted in the number of diagnoses soaring.[30] One study in JAMA reported a 67% increase in ADHD diagnoses from 1997 to 2016.[31]
Pharmaceutical companies aggressively marketed stimulants, targeting parents with ads such as:
• “Better test scores at school, more chores done at home.” (Concerta ad)
• “He’s as smart as you think.” (Adderall XR ad)
• A child is depicted in a monster suit taking off his hairy mask to reveal his adorable smiling self, with the caption: “There’s a great kid in there.” (Intuniv ad)[32]
Researchers Jeffrey Lacasse and Jonathon Leo observed that mainstream child psychiatrists and pediatricians, and leading academic psychiatrists, failed to make public objections to the misleading information. The academic psychiatrists could have influenced the FDA to act much sooner on the misinformation peddled by the drug companies, but Lacasse and Leo argue that the money these psychiatrists have received from the pharmaceutical industry possibly explains their silence.[33]
The Verdict: A Manufactured Epidemic for Profit
Despite decades of promotion, there is still no biological test, neurological marker, or conclusive proof that ADHD is a distinct medical disorder. Profit drives its diagnosis, with ADHD drug sales projected to rise from $19.5 billion in 2020 to $34.8 billion by 2027.[34]
As the federal investigation unfolds, there is hope that the widespread labeling of children as “mentally disordered” and prescribing psychotropic drugs will be recognized as a profit-driven practice harming children’s health and future.
References:
[1] “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Establishes the Make America Healthy Again Commission,” The White House, 13 Feb. 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-establishes-the-make-america-healthy-again-commission/
[2] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/children-on-psychiatric-drugs/
[3] https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/treating-and-dealing-adhd
[4] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/25/3-million-children-at-risk-for-adhd-drugs-adverse-effects/; https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/emergency-calls-adhd-medication-errors-guanfacine-tenex/; Gary A. Smith, MD, DrPH, et al., “Pediatric ADHD Medication Errors Reported to United States Poison Centers, 2000 to 2021,” Pediatrics, Volume 152, number 4, Oct. 2023, https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2023-061942/193956/Pediatric-ADHD-Medication-Errors-Reported-to
[5] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/25/3-million-children-at-risk-for-adhd-drugs-adverse-effects/; James Gordon, “DEA warns that ADHD overprescription could be as bad as OPIOID CRISIS in stinging letter to pharmaceutical giants it accuses of ‘aggressive marketing’ – as users rise 10% in a year to 41 million,” Daily Mail, 2 Jan. 2023, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11593463/DEA-warns-ADHD-prescription-bad-opioid-crisis-stinging-letter-pharma
[6] “The Byzantine Adderall Shortage Puts Teva and Others In The Hot Seat,” Investor Business Daily, 5 Apr. 2023, https://www.investors.com/news/technology/teva-stock-what-we-know-and-do-not-about-the-adderall-shortage/
[7] Lisa Cosgrove, Sheldon Krimsky, “A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ Financial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists,” PLoS Medicine, 13 March 2012, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3302834/
[8] Dr. Helen Bannister, “ADHD epidemics: The marketing of ADHD,” Counselling Australia Magazine, circa 2024, https://magazine.theaca.net.au/articles/adhd-epidemics-the-marketing-of-adhd
[9] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/03/21/adhd-marketing-brands-children-to-hook-them-on-psychostimulants/; “Does your child really have a behavior disorder? A shocking book by a leading therapist reveals how millions of us – including children – are wrongly labeled with psychiatric problems,” Daily Mail, 6 May 2013, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2320493/Does-child-really-behaviour-disorder-A-shocking-book-leading-therapist-reveals-millions–including-children–wrongly-labelled-psychiatric-problems.html#ixzz2SciDb8UA
[10] Dr. Helen Bannister, “ADHD epidemics: The marketing of ADHD”
[11] The National Institute of Mental Health, “What are the symptoms of ADHD in children?,” www.nimh.nih.gov, http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder/what-are-the-symptoms-of-adhd-in-children.shtml
[12] https://www.cchrint.org/2017/08/09/watchdog-group-alerts-parents-and-teachers-about-gifted-children-being-mislabeled-adhd-and-given-stimulant-drugs/; Erik von Hahn, M.D., FAAP, “When diagnosing ADHD, consider possibility of giftedness in some children,” American Academy of Pediatrics News, July 2012, http://sengifted.org/when-diagnosing-adhd/
[14] https://www.cchrint.org/2017/08/09/watchdog-group-alerts-parents-and-teachers-about-gifted-children-being-mislabeled-adhd-and-given-stimulant-drugs/; Allen Frances, “The International Reaction to DSM-5,” Huffington Post, 25 Apr. 2013, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reaction-to-dsm-5_b_3146659
[15] S Timimi, E Taylor, “ADHD is best understood as a cultural construct,” The British Journal of Psychiatry, Volume 184, Issue 1, 2 Jan. 2004, pp. 8-9, Published online by Cambridge University Press, 2 Jan. 2018, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/adhd-is-best-understood-as-a-cultural-construct/6A2C79B3CD1D4D2627F3EE4C3DF3FBAF
[16] Dr. Mary Ann Block, “No More ADHD,” 15 Sept. 2009, https://www.cchrint.org/2009/09/15/no-more-adhd/
[17] https://www.cchrint.org/2016/11/09/adhd-is-real-campaign-chadd-pharmafunding/; “NEWS COMMENTARY, NIH Consensus Report Highlights Controversy Surrounding ADHD Diagnosis and Stimulant Treatment,” Ethical Human Sciences and Services, Vol. 1, No.1, 1999
[18] “Chair of DSM-5 Task Force Discusses Future of Mental Health Research,” American Psychiatric Association News Release, Release No. 13-33, 3 May 2013
[19] Kelly Patricia O’Meara & Zoli Simon, “Netherlands Panel Rejects ADHD Diagnosis as a Mental Illness,” Insight Magazine (Washington, D.C.), 9 Sept. 2002
[20] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/02/14/new-diagnostic-manual-with-adhd-listed-could-turn-childhood-into-a-mental-disorder/; Fred A. Baughman, Jr., MD, “Treatment of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 12 May 1993, p. 2369
[21] https://www.cchrint.org/2016/11/09/adhd-is-real-campaign-chadd-pharmafunding/; Drug Fact Sheet, Amphetamines, Drug Enforcement Administration, https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Amphetamines-2020_0.pdf
[22] Brian Vastig, “Pay Attention: Ritalin Acts Much Like Cocaine,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 22/29 Aug. 2001, Vol. 286, No. 8, p. 905
[23] https://www.cchrint.org/2017/08/09/watchdog-group-alerts-parents-and-teachers-about-gifted-children-being-mislabeled-adhd-and-given-stimulant-drugs/; Dr. Richard Saul, “Doctor: ADHD Does Not Exist,” TIME, 14 Mar. 2014, http://time.com/25370/doctor-adhd-does-not-exist/
[24] Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD. “Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 9: ADHD (Part Two),” MIA, 14 Aug. 2023, https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/08/critical-psychiatry-textbook-chapter-9-part-two/
[25] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/25/3-million-children-at-risk-for-adhd-drugs-adverse-effects/; Sarah Boseley, “Ritalin heart attacks warning urged after 51 deaths in US,” The Guardian, 11 Feb. 2006, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/feb/11/health.medicineandhealth
[26] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/25/3-million-children-at-risk-for-adhd-drugs-adverse-effects/; Sarah Boseley, “Ritalin heart attacks warning urged after 51 deaths in US,” The Guardian, 11 Feb. 2006, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/feb/11/health.medicineandhealth
[27] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/25/3-million-children-at-risk-for-adhd-drugs-adverse-effects/; “Michigan Medical Examiner Blames Ritalin For Death of Teenager,” CNN, 17 Apr. 2000, http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0004/17/wt.08.html; https://www.iol.co.za/technology/row-over-ritalin-link-to-teens-death-34703
[28] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/25/3-million-children-at-risk-for-adhd-drugs-adverse-effects/; https://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/9094/ritalin-the-cover-up-of-suicides
[29] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/03/21/adhd-marketing-brands-children-to-hook-them-on-psychostimulants/; Alan Schwarz, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder,” The New York Times, 14 Dec. 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/health/the-selling-of-attention-deficit-disorder.html
[30] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/03/21/adhd-marketing-brands-children-to-hook-them-on-psychostimulants/; Alan Schwarz, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder,” The New York Times, 14 Dec. 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/health/the-selling-of-attention-deficit-disorder.html
[31] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/03/21/adhd-marketing-brands-children-to-hook-them-on-psychostimulants/; Alan Schwarz, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder,” The New York Times, 14 Dec. 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/health/the-selling-of-attention-deficit-disorder.html
[32] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/03/21/adhd-marketing-brands-children-to-hook-them-on-psychostimulants/; Alan Schwarz, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder,” The New York Times, 14 Dec. 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/health/the-selling-of-attention-deficit-disorder.html; Dr. Helen Bannister, “ADHD epidemics: The marketing of ADHD,” Counselling Australia Magazine, circa 2024, https://magazine.theaca.net.au/articles/adhd-epidemics-the-marketing-of-adhd
[33] Dr. Helen Bannister, “ADHD epidemics: The marketing of ADHD,” Counselling Australia Magazine, circa 2024, https://magazine.theaca.net.au/articles/adhd-epidemics-the-marketing-of-adhd
[34] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/25/3-million-children-at-risk-for-adhd-drugs-adverse-effects/; https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/emergency-calls-adhd-medication-errors-guanfacine-tenex/
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