The major NIMH trail that proved the superiority of stimulants for treating ADHD over therapy did not include a placebo group and 20 percent of the therapy group were on stimulants
The NIMH touted its ADHD study as “the first major clinical trial” the institute had ever conducted of “a childhood mental disorder.” However, it was a rather flawed intellectual exercise right from the start. Although the investigators, led by Peter Jensen, associate director of child and adolescent research at the NIMH, acknowledged during the planning stages that there was no evidence in the scientific literature that stimulants improved long-term outcomes (Stimulants have been shown to not improve behavior over the long-term), they did not include a placebo control in the study, reasoning that it would have been “unethical” to withhold “treatment of known efficacy” for an extended period. The study basically compared drug treatment to behavioral therapy, but in that latter group, 20 percent were on a stimulant at the start of the trial, and there never was a time during the fourteen months that all of the children in that group were off such medication.
Despite this obvious design flaw, the NIMH-funded investigators declared victory for the stimulants at the end of fourteen months. “Carefully crafted medication management” had proven to be “superior” to behavioral treatment in terms of reducing core ADHD symptoms. There was also a hint that the medicated children had fared better on reading tests (although not in other academic subjects), and as a result, psychiatry now had a long-term study that documented the continuing benefits of stimulants. “Since ADHD is now regarded by most experts as a chronic disorder, ongoing treatment often seems necessary,” the researchers concluded.
References
- Whitaker, Robert. (2010). Anatomy of an Epidemic Chapter 11 The Epidemic Spreads to Children (Epub p. 309). New York , NY: Crown Publishing.
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Type:🔴 Tags: Psychiatry / Pharmacology Status:☀️