ADHD = Big Business

The ADHD Business Niche

The ADHD industry is booming and everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. Parents are happy to try anything, but are they helping or hurting their children?

Katherine Ellison, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of a memoir entitled, “Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention” is generating a great deal of attention. In a recent article, Ellison wrote about what she calls the “ADHD-industrial complex” in the Washington Post, describing the way commercial entities have co-opted ADHD for themselves, spotting a serious business niche by way of parents who will buy just about anything in their desperation to make their children’s ADHD go away.

Katherine Ellison

At the top of this pyramid is the U.S. pharmaceutical industry which is said to sell over $5 billion worth of ADHD medications per year. The United States and New Zealand are the only countries with permission to market these products to the public.

But prescription drugs aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, and so another industry has sprung up to fill the gap: the alternative medicine route, in which there are any number of creative alternatives to the popular prescription stimulants and psychotropic medications for ADHD. These alternative treatments are for the most part unregulated and tend to be expensive as well. Within this spectrum one can find herbal supplements, magnetic mattresses, dolphin therapy, life coaches, and exercise regimes touted to stimulate certain brain regions.

ADHD is big business.

Marketing Targets

Consider the cause: being the parent of a child with ADHD means coping with impulsivity, forgetfulness, distraction, and inattentiveness. It pays to mention that ADHD has a genetic component—quite often, the parent of a child with ADHD is just as impulsive and distracted as their offspring. Good marketing targets, for sure.

Ellison was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 50, just three months after her son’s diagnosis. As a result, she decided to take a year to look into the disorder and discover the best means of coping from what is on offer. Since her son, like many other ADHD kids, didn’t like the effects of the stimulant medications, she had a huge incentive to look into the Pandora’s Box of alternative treatments.

Silent Meditation

Ellison paid $2,000 to Daniel Amen, a Southern California specialist who can find ADHD with a brain scan, tried Ritalin, extended loans to cover many neurofeedback sessions, and took a five-day silent meditation retreat. Her son was not immune to her experimentation and she doled out fish oil capsules, forced him into two days’ worth of neuropsychological testing to the tune of $4,000, paid for top tutors, and lobbied for him to get special accommodations in his public school, for instance permission to have him chew gum during algebra class.

Katherine Ellison's book

Ellison backs up her experiment by mentioning a 2003 survey which found that 54% of Boston parents of kids with ADHD had given non-medical treatments a try. She also speaks about the despicable idea that pharmaceutical companies are capitalizing on our children. But the journalist points out that at least the prescription medications are regulated. Some of the alternative medications are unsafe for children, especially when misused.

In the end, discovered Ellison, ADHD is a journey that continues. She has discovered that regular exercise and regular jolts of glucose by way of frequent trips to the refrigerator are helpful for her son as are her constant visits to his educators to make sure they stay on the ball.

She also learned that her biggest aid in helping her son was found in keeping her cool, no matter what.

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