FDA Commissioner Blames Adderall Shortage on Stimulant Overuse, Telehealth, Generics

additudemag.com:

June 4, 2023The head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) blames the persistent ADHD medication shortage, in part, on a surge in stimulant use by people with ADHD, who he suggests may not all truly need the drugs.

In a new interview with WebMD’s John Whyte, M.D., FDA commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D., claims that telehealth providers are largely responsible for driving a “tremendous” increase in ADHD diagnoses and stimulant prescriptions over the last few years and, in his words, not all of them warranted.“If only the people that needed these drugs got them, there probably wouldn’t be a [stimulant medication] shortage,” Califf says. “There’s a large amount of use which is on the margins.

And this is why we need better clinical standards.”Califf’s call for “better clinical standards,” purportedly to determine whether a patient with ADHD warrants treatment with stimulant medication, echoes lingering misconceptions about the real and important ways that ADHD symptoms impact the lives of adult patients, in particular. “Adult patients with ADHD deserve high-quality care, and providers likewise deserve authoritative resources that outline effective, evidence-based practices for adult ADHD,” said Maggie Sibley, Ph.D., and Ann Childress, M.D., who are working with the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD) to develop the first-ever guidelines for diagnosing and treating ADHD in adults, set for release later this year.In addition, Califf’s suggestion that ADHD medication use may be unnecessary and inadvisable for some population of diagnosed individuals contradicts decades of research verifying the necessity and safety of short- and long-term ADHD medication use — and its profound ability to.