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ADHD Nation

Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781408706572

Price: £14.99

ON SALE: 6th September 2016

Genre: Health & Personal Development

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) will soon be the most frequently diagnosed chronic condition among children, surpassing asthma. Yet research shows that ADHD can’t be that prevalent. ADHD, a problem once thought to affect a small percentage of children, has exploded into one of the most misdiagnosed psychiatric conditions. Now doctors and Big Pharma are targeting children and adults worldwide to get the diagnosis and take medications that will, they say, transform their lives.

In ADHD Nation, acclaimed New York Times journalist Alan Schwarz takes readers behind the scenes to tell the full story of this billion-dollar industry. There’s the father of ADHD, Dr Keith Conners, who spent fifty years promoting the disorder in the US and pills like Ritalin before realising just what he had wrought; a troubled young girl and studious, teenage boy who get entangled in the ADHD machine and are prescribed medications that lead to serious problems; and the pharmaceutical industry that promoted the disorder and continues to earn billions from the rampant mishandling of ADHD.

An investigation of how Big Pharma and medical professionals are complicit in the creation, maintenance and continuing expansion of the ADHD industry, this book sounds the alarm for UK readers and demands we wake up to the problem that we too could face in the future.

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Reviews

Chilling . . . a powerful, necessary book
Kirkus
An illuminating exploration of ADHD, brimming with intelligence and insight. Schwarz reveals the powerful cultural and economic forces fueling its widespread diagnosis and drug treatment. Those with the disorder will hear a voice of compassion. And those who may be misdiagnosed, a clarion note of caution
Jerome Groopman, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, staff writer, New Yorker
Important, humane and compellingly written . . . a narrative that unfolds with the momentum of a thriller . . . ADHD Nation should be required reading
Steve Silberman, New York Times
ADHD Nation is a true rarity - a book that confronts an important subject with the authority of an expert, makes its case with the urgency of a red alert, and moves at the pace of a thriller
Daniel Okrent, New York Times bestselling author of Last Call
Alan Schwarz's book is an absorbing, well-researched corrective to decades of pharma industry marketing
Times Literary Supplement
Often devastating and very necessary . . . I beg you to read this candid, fact-packed and even-handed study
Mail on Sunday
Shem's Mount Misery meets Goldacre's Bad Pharma. It is a very powerfully-told narrative of just how far academia and profit motive can each be subverted and, increasingly powerfully, can subvert each other . . . a compelling read
Dr Kit Byatt
[Schwarz's] nimble investigation interweaves the narratives of pharmaceutical companies with those of child psychologist Keith Conners, who led ADHD's 'Manhattan Project', and young people grappling with the medical fallout. An intriguing sidelight is the misuse of ADHD drugs as performance enhancers
Nature
ADHD Nation is a necessary book. Schwarz has done a fine job on a maddening topic, and everyone who's interested in hyperactivity, attention spans, stimulants, and the current state of American health care should grab a copy
New York Magazine
An urgently needed study of the diagnosis and medication of ADHD . . . The real power of ADHD Nation [comes] from the cumulative effect of the narrative . . . Schwarz uses his gentle wit to disarm the recurring industry marketing lines
Richard Orange, Guardian