{"id":1990919,"date":"2023-08-04T12:32:03","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T16:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-big-pharmas-marketing-machine-is-fueling-the-adhd-surge\/"},"modified":"2023-08-04T12:36:18","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T16:36:18","slug":"how-big-pharmas-marketing-machine-is-fueling-the-adhd-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-big-pharmas-marketing-machine-is-fueling-the-adhd-surge\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Pharma&#8217;s marketing fuels ADHD surge."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-big-pharmas-marketing-machine-is-fueling-the-adhd-surge%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1990919&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Big Pharma&#8217;s Troubling Success: Profit Over Health<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s hard to think of any industry that\u2019s enjoyed more success over the past twenty years \u200bor so than big pharma. \u2063More than 131 million people \u2014 \u2064that\u2019s \u2064two-thirds of all adults in the United States \u2014 report that they\u2019re taking at least\u200b one prescription drug. That\u2019s a significant\u200d increase\u200c from the year 2000, when around half of American adults\u2062 said they were doing so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The percentage of people \u2062taking five or more prescription drugs\u2064 has nearly\u200c doubled\u2064 since the turn of the century. Spending on prescription drugs in that period has more than tripled. Drugs\u2063 that supposedly\u2063 treat \u2063psychological issues \u2014 like unhappiness, or a lack of self-control \u2014 have done especially well. From 1991 to 2018, SSRI prescriptions\u2062 increased by \u200cover 3,000 percent.\u200c Roughly half the country either takes the\u200d potentially mind-altering \u200cdrug Ozempic to lose \u2063weight, or knows someone\u2064 taking it.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The Paradox of Big\u2062 Pharma&#8217;s Success<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Given big pharma\u2019s tremendous success,\u2062 you\u2019d think that\u2063 by now, they would have solved\u2062 a lot \u2064of the\u2063 health problems facing Americans, or \u200dat least made \u2062progress in resolving them. But the opposite is\u2064 true.\u200c Average\u200b life expectancy is declining. \u200dSuicide rates are up. So\u2064 are the\u200d rates of obesity, \u200ddrug addiction, and cancer among young adults. How is\u200d this possible? How is the \u200cpharmaceutical industry succeeding financially, while failing in \u200devery area that matters? How can they have so many people on so many medicines, and yet everyone is only getting sicker and less healthy?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of the answer is that many drugs created by big pharma aren\u2019t even intended \u2062to \u2063alleviate health problems anymore. They\u2019re designed, instead, to \u2063cause \u200bmore death and suffering. The pharma \u200dindustry is churning\u200b out record amounts of sterilization drugs, abortion drugs, \u2062and suicide drugs \u2014 especially in Canada, where the \u2064government has begun putting down \u200bthe \u2062undesirables who don\u2019t even have a terminal illness. They \u200dare euthanizing human beings like stray dogs, and hardly anyone is objecting to it. More than \u200dhalf of\u2062 all abortions \u2063are now performed using drugs from\u200d pharmaceutical\u2064 companies. So<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/whistleblower-girls-deemed-transgender-by-uk-health-service-for-not-liking-pink-ribbons-and-dollies\/\" title=\"Whistleblower: Girls Deemed \u2018Transgender\u2019 by UK Health Service for Not Liking 'Pink Ribbons and Dollies\u2019\">-called puberty blockers<\/a>, which can cause lifelong complications, \u200dare now \u200cprescribed \u200dto children under the age of 18 \u200bmore than \u2063twice as often as they were just a few years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The rest \u2064of big \u2064pharma\u2019s catalog \u2014 the drugs that are at least allegedly beneficial\u200b to patients\u2019 health \u2014\u2062 have had a lot of \u2063marketing behind them. Other than New Zealand, we\u2019re the only country that allows drug companies to market directly to consumers. This means that the pharmaceutical industry can sell not just the medication, but also the illness that the medication is supposed to cure. \u201cDo you have such \u2063and such symptoms?\u200d Then you might have this \u2062disease. Here\u2019s a drug that can help!\u201d Diagnosis and \u200bprescription in\u2064 one\u200d 30 second advertisement. How convenient. Fortunately for big pharma, the U.S. government\u200b has also granted\u2062 them immunity from lawsuits, even when their \u200cproducts injure\u200b people. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which they quite\u2063 often do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maybe the most important single \u2064reason for \u200dbig pharma\u2019s \u200dsuccess, though, is \u200bmedia coverage, in particular media\u2062 coverage that\u200b the drug companies have paid for. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pharmaceutical companies recently began spending more \u2064on advertising than research and development. In 2020, the\u2062 year of the great pandemic, Pfizer spent $12 billion on marketing, \u2063compared to just $9 billion on R&#038;D. Companies like AbbVie\u200c and Johnson &#038; Johnson and Bayer and many other pharma companies posted similar numbers. What does all\u200b this money \u200dbuy? If you turn\u200d on any cable or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/eddie-scarry-medias-long-con-to-bury-hunter-bidens-laptop-scandal\/\" title=\"Media hides Hunter Biden's laptop scandal, says Eddie Scarry.\">network news channel<\/a>, you know the answer\u200b to \u200bthat question. It buys incessant advertisements that air during every commercial \u200dbreak. And although the networks will never\u200c admit it, it also buys positive \u2062coverage. After all, if the networks criticize Big Pharma, they stand to lose millions in advertising dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You might have noticed that \u2064the entire national news media \u2064is currently freaking out over the shortage of\u200c the drug Adderall. Adderall is manufactured by Teva Pharmaceuticals, although there are \u2062competitors \u200bthat make other versions \u200dof the drug.\u200c All of a\u2063 sudden, Adderall\u200d is hard \u2064to find.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here\u2019s\u2062 one recent report from \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dt8RHGE06hc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ABC Action News<\/a>\u201d on the shortage. \u2062You \u200bcan also see the\u200d video clip on my show. \u2064Watch how they \u2063frame this:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, what\u2063 will that 6-year-old do without her\u200d stimulants? This is a medical crisis. After all, the 6-year-old\u00a0 has trouble sitting still to memorize sight words when she\u2019s not drugged. Which makes her very similar to almost every other 6-year-old that has ever \u2063lived on the planet. But this mother\u200d wants her 6-year-old to be less like a 6-year-old, because it is very\u2062 inconvenient to have a 6-year-old acting like a 6-year-old in\u200b the home. And that\u2019s why\u200c she desperately needs the drugs.\u2064 And by \u201cshe,\u201d I mean the mother, not the \u2064child. The mother\u2062 \u201cneeds\u201d the child to be drugged so that\u200b the child is not such a\u200c burden on her, the mother. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The anchor says that\u2063 the shortage of ADHD medication is\u2064 leaving parents wondering, quote, \u201cif they are going to have enough pills to help \u200dtheir children,\u201d but of course ADHD drugs for kids are \u2062really meant to help\u2062 the parents. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Think about what a \u2063revealing line that\u2064 is, though, for a moment. The statement \u2014 from the \u201cnews\u201d anchor \u2062\u2014\u2063 assumes, \u2062as a matter\u200b of fact, that the only possible way for parents to help their\u200b children is\u2062 by giving them\u200c pills. What\u2019s the scientific basis\u2063 for\u2064 that claim? Later on,\u200b \u201cABC Action News\u201d provides an <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cexpert\u201d who affords legitimacy to the idea that 6-year-olds need ADHD medications. His name is Michael Ganio. \u200cHe\u2019s with the \u200c\u201cAmerican\u2062 Society of Health-System Pharmacists.\u201d He says that a lot of patients, quote, \u201crequire \u200bthis medication just to \u200bfunction on\u200d a daily basis.\u201d \u2064Therefore, he says, the ADHD shortage is \u201cvery difficult.\u201d Soon we might have\u2062 an epidemic\u200c of 6-year-olds \u200cnot memorizing sight words. Think of the devastation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, what\u2019s left unstated \u2063in that report is that\u2064 the American Society of\u2064 Health-System Pharmacists is \u2064sponsored by big pharma. They admit it, on their website.\u00a0 Their most\u200d recent\u200d mid-year conference lists Pfizer as \u2063a \u2064\u201cplatinum\u201d\u2062 sponsor. These are the \u201cexperts\u201d that the pharmaceutical industry launders through so-called \u2064\u201cnews reports,\u201d in order to convince you that ADHD is a real disorder. This is the quality\u200b of \u201cmedical professional\u201d they throw on television to tell\u2063 you that your 6-year-old\u200d needs a lifetime supply of psychiatric medication so that she\u2019ll be docile\u200d and compliant, as if that\u2019s how a 6-year-old \u2064is supposed to \u2062be. But these experts are really\u200d PR \u2062people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As if to prove that point, \u200dthat same \u201cexpert,\u201d Michael Ganio,\u2062 popped up in a\u200c PBS \u2063News article on Adderall. It\u2019s entitled, \u201cA \u2018perfect storm\u2019 led to an \u2062ADHD\u2063 medication shortage. Here\u2019s why.\u201d Once again, Ganio explains\u2063 that the Adderall shortage is \u201creally frustrating,\u201d presumably\u200c because patients desperately need \u200bthe drug. PBS agrees. They reported that \u200c\u201cmillions who rely on the drugs\u201d have been left with \u201cuncertainty, frustration and bureaucratic hassles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Geographic\u2063 was even more melodramatic. They wrote, \u200bquote, \u201cAs Adderall shortage continues, people with ADHD struggle to stay afloat.\u201d The article quotes an adult who\u2019s been diagnosed with \u200cADHD as saying, quote, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t\u200d take much for us to drown.\u201d National\u200c Geographic added that, quote,\u2064 \u201csome adults with \u200dADHD\u201d are now \u201cforced to\u2062 navigate life while unmedicated.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you\u200c imagine? American adults\u200d are having \u200cto figure\u2062 out how to \u200dnavigate life without their regular\u2062 dose of\u2063 stimulants. God forbid. The horror. How can these people possibly live \u2014\u200b and deal with normal distraction and boredom \u2014 without\u2063 their chemical crutches? Of course, prior to the invention of ADHD medicine \u2014\u200d and ADHD itself \u200d\u2014\u2062 everyone lived without these drugs and not one single person died because of it.\u200d Yet now a shortage of \u200cthese drugs\u200b \u2014 the ones that everyone was fine without, \u200bsince forever \u2014 represents some kind of existential \u2062crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/episode\/ep-1197-how-big-pharma-s-marketing-machine-is-fueling-the-adhd-surge-member-exclusive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show<\/a><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u2062Biden administration, \u2062of\u2063 course, \u2063agrees that this is \u2062a major problem. They want everybody hopped\u2064 up on as many\u200c drugs as \u2062possible. Accordingly, CNN\u2063 reports, the\u200b FDA and DEA are now \u2064calling on drugmakers to \u201cboost manufacturing \u200bamid ongoing shortage of\u2062 prescription\u200b stimulants.\u201d CNN\u2064 blamed the shortage on the,\u2063 quote, \u200d\u201csurge in demand for \u2063prescription\u200c stimulants\u200d during the Covid-19 pandemic, especially among adults.\u201d Of course this is not the first time that there\u2019s been a rush to manufacture and push \u200dout drugs allegedly \u2064because \u2063of the \u200dpandemic, and we all know how well it worked out the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In any \u200ccase, it\u2019s the pandemic\u2019s \u2064fault. They\u2019re\u200b blaming the shortage\u200d of Adderall on the pandemic \u2014 just like they blame everything on \u200cthe pandemic. But here\u2019s the thing. If\u200c the pandemic increased \u201cADHD\u201d by such\u200b an enormous\u200c degree, then that only shows \u2064that ADHD is not a\u200d real\u200b disease. It\u2019s a concept invented \u200cby the\u2062 medical industry in its \u200bnever ending \u200bpursuit to\u2062 medicalize and subsequently profit off of every inconvenient human trait and behavior. The fact that more people suddenly\u2062 came down with ADHD when they were \u2063locked in their homes absolutely proves that \u200bthis \u201cdisorder\u201d is simply a way of categorizing normal\u2064 boredom and restlessness \u2014 which is all extremely human and normal. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That\u2063 would explain why ADHD diagnoses somehow increased by\u200b two-thirds from 1998 to 2016.\u200c It would explain why \u200dthese diagnoses increased again, during the pandemic, by \u200broughly 20 percent for some demographic \u2062groups, including young women. It\u2019s not like some new objective ADHD test\u2062 was developed that explains these numbers. They\u2019re just making up criteria that mean nothing, and diagnosing every patient that walks in the door.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take a look at how the CDC defines \u201cADHD,\u201d if you\u2019re skeptical. The CDC says that children \u2062have ADHD if they\u200b do the following:\u2063 \u201cmake careless mistakes or take unnecessary risks \u2026 daydream a lot \u2026\u00a0 forget or lose things a lot \u2026 squirm or fidget \u2026 and have a\u2063 hard \u2062time resisting temptation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My goodness. \u2064The ADHD epidemic is worse than I thought. \u200dApparently \u2064literally every child who has ever lived on Earth \u2062is infected. Apologists\u2064 will try to claim that the diagnostic criteria isn\u2019t this broad, that there are other ways of determining whether a child really has it or \u2062not. \u2062They\u2019ll even claim that ADHD can be detected in the brain with\u200b brain scans. And yet you\u2019ll notice that the \u201cDisorder\u201d is never diagnosed with brain \u2062scans.\u200d That\u2019s because it is really as\u200c broad \u2063as it seems. Every child\u2063 can\u2064 be diagnosed with it. If you\u2064 want your child to have \u200dit,\u200b they \u200chave it. If you want the drugs, \u2062you can get the drugs. Apart\u200b from the shortage,\u2063 of course. You can indeed\u200d diagnose every kid \u200don the planet with ADHD, just like you\u200d can diagnose every unhappy, masked middle-aged\u2063 woman with \u2063\u201cLong\u200d COVID.\u201d The diagnosis is about as rigorous.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That\u2019s because \u200bADHD, like \u201cLong \u200cCOVID,\u201d is \u2062not a real medical diagnosis. It\u2019s a category\u2063 error. It\u2019s a made-up\u200b illness that\u2019s used to describe normal \u200chuman\u200c responses to a modern \u2063environment filled \u2064with distractions. The solution, which no one ever talks\u2064 about because it wouldn\u2019t make big\u200c pharma any money, is to \u200ceither change your environment, or learn \u200bto deal with\u200d it. If everyone did that,\u2063 it\u2019s very\u2063 possible that the pharmaceutical companies \u2063would\u2063 lose money. But maybe the metrics \u2063that matter \u2014 \u200clike the suicide rate, life expectancy, \u200ddrug overdoses and so on \u2014 maybe those would finally start moving \u200bin the right\u200c direction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/onelink.to\/dwapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big pharma has experienced unparalleled success in the past two decades. Over 131 million Americans, equivalent to two-thirds of adults, now rely on prescription drugs, marking a substantial rise from 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":1990920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1990919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1990920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}