Virginia Commonwealth Uni. gets grant to study ADHD but deeper questions remain for society

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) received a $2.4 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to research ways of improving the academic performance of middle school students with a so-called disorder that has become ubiquitous in U.S. society, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

According to VCU officials, the four-year grant will be used to compare two different school-based interventions to assist students with ADHD. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, “One helps them learn how to organize their materials, plan ahead and manage time effectively. The other helps them stay on task and focused, and to complete homework more efficiently.”

It strikes me as a serious flaw to orient studies regarding ADHD around “improving” students of any age who have already been branded with the label of ADHD. Instead, more money should be going towards understanding why the rates of ADHD have risen to 8.4 percent of children in the U.S. aged between 4-17. 

Some reports have set this figure as high as 11 percent, and some even higher. If we knew nothing else, the fact that children aged 4-17 diagnosed with ADHD has increased 16 percent since 2007 should propel us towards an emotion bordering on outrage.

It’s  not a secret that ‘Big Pharma’ has and is targeting children for their multi-billion dollar ADHD prescription medications, fanning, if not igniting, the flames that have fueled the jaw-dropping increase in ADHD prescription medications. Thus, it’s not so much that big pharmaceutical companies are making windfall profits, it’s the aggressive tactics that big pharmaceutical companies selling ADHD medications have used to build those tremendous profits, hooking millions of America’s children onto a medical train that may cause more harm than good, may never come to a stop, and may not even be necessary.

VCU may well use its newly gifted grant money to help scores of children branded with the label of ADHD. But amid the talk about helping these “disordered” children, we shouldn’t forget about some of the deeper questions like, why has the designation of ADHD mushroomed so dramatically over the course of the 21^st Century? Why do so many doctors recommend prescription medications as a first resort to symptoms of ADHD as opposed to, say, exercise?

If we wish to be a truly free society, one aspect we’ll have to deal with is the increasingly medicated country that we live in. Can we ever really be free if we are taught, from children to adults, that self-control, responsibility, and social acceptance can only be gained by ‘the pill’? I think you already know my answer.