A doctor in Georgia has been prescribing ADHD medication to children who come from low income families. The children have not been diagnosed with having ADHD. Instead, the doctor is giving them the medication in an effort to help them improve their grades.
There are a lot of parents who have concerns about what their child’s ADHD medication might be doing to him or her beyond helping with the symptoms of the disorder. Some parents will go to great lengths to try alternative forms of treatment first, hoping that they will not have to put their child on a daily medication for his or her ADHD.
Considering this, it is really strange to hear that Doctor Michael Anderson has been prescribing Adderall for the children that he sees who come from low-income families – even when the child does not have ADHD. He is a pediatrician who works with many poor families who live in Cherokee County, which is north of Atlanta, in Georgia.
Why is he doing this? Here is his explanation:
“I don’t have a whole lot of choice. We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So, we have to modify the kid.”
To clarify, he isn’t the only physician who is doing this. If I am understanding correctly, Dr. Anderson, and others, are using ADHD medications as a tool to help kids who are in schools that are “starving for money” so that the child can get better grades than he or she is able to get without the Adderall. The children come from families that cannot afford to pay for family counseling, and they go to schools that cannot afford to have an on staff psychologist or counselor to help students who are exhibiting behaviors that indicate that they are struggling.
There is a connection between using Adderall and getting better grades. This is precisely why some college students seek out the drug during finals week or before a big exam. However, Dr. Anderson isn’t prescribing Adderall to college students who don’t have ADHD, he is prescribing it to children.
He could be teaching the children that it is ok to take a drug in order to get better grades. Some would question if it is a good idea to medicate a child for a condition that he or she does not have for the sake of a better grade on a test or report card.
Another troubling concept here is that this is only being offered to kids who are poor. Rich kids, whose families can afford counseling, are not getting prescriptions for Adderall. It also implies that ADHD isn’t a “real” condition, since any kid could have a doctor’s prescription for the medications used to treat ADHD, even when he or she doesn’t have ADHD. I find this all very troubling.
Image by Charles Williams on Flickr