ADD ADHD and the Danger of Ritalin

There are a lot of reports being circulated today about the dangers of giving our children Ritalin. Ritalin is one of the stimulant medications given to children to help treat, ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Other commonly used drugs include, Concerta, Adderall, Dexedrine, and Strattera. In the year 2005, Canada banned the use of Adderall XR because of its link to death in 20 patients. In 2005, the FDA sited 16 deaths from Concerta.

A number of parent groups have popped up calling for a ban on giving children drugs for ADHD. These cries are echoed by various natural treatment manufactures, who just so happen to have their own treatment for ADHD to sell to you. Reports of death from these medications long with all the other noise makes many parents uneasy, and quite understandably so. No one wants to put their child at risk. ADHD, though quite annoying, is not a life threatening condition.

Perhaps we should not be treating our ADHD children? Before we jump to any conclusions, we should look at some of the evidence.

186 children died from taking Ritalin between the years 1990 and 2000. This sounds like an extremely high number, but we should put these numbers in perspective.

There were 900,000 children on Ritalin in 1990. Now there are about 5 million. Therefore if you calculate the risk of death from taking Ritalin you will that for every 48,000 children who took Ritalin, no more that one child died from it. Probably the number is a lot less.

That is not to say that the other 47,999 children will not have side effects or other problems. It is just that death won't be one of them.

Granted, this is not an exact calculation. To determine the exact risk you would need to know how many children took Ritalin between 1990 and 2000. There is no data on this. The main point is that whatever the actual risk of death with Ritalin really is, the number is very very small.

In contrast, acetaminophen causes 42% of all cases of acute liver failure and accounts for 450 deaths annually. Every year there are 7600 deaths attributed to aspirin and similar drugs. The risk of a fatal reaction from penicillin is 1 in 50,000, three times the risk of death from Ritalin.

This is not to play down the danger of taking Ritalin. Even one preventable death is too much. However, one aspect you should remember when you hear about the dangers of taking Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall, and similar medications is the other medications you use regularly may be much more dangerous.

But that is only one aspect of the problem. We need to consider the risk of not using Ritalin or other stimulant medications when treating ADHD.

In a 1999 study, 212 children were followed to determine how ADHD medication treatment affects the risk of future drug abuse. The results were quite astounding.

Children with ADHD who received medication for their condition had about the same rate of illicit drug use as their normal peers. However, ADHD children who did not receive medication had triple the rate of drug and alcohol abuse by the time they reached high school.

What is the risk of not treating ADHD? The three leading causes of death in young people are homicides, accidents, and suicide. Alcohol and drug abuse are common factors in all three. We also should not forget the academic, social, and behavioral problems that go along with untreated ADHD. These may not be fatal, but they can destroy your child's life. In addition, ADHD is associated with other conditions. The current recommendation for treating Oppositional Defiant Disorder when it appears with ADHD is to treat the ADHD with a stimulant in conjunction with trying to address the ODD problem.

No one advocates giving Ritalin, Concerta, or Adderall to a child who does not need the medication. It is probably true that these medications are given to children who do not have ADHD. However, if your child does have ADHD and Ritalin or some other medication is helping, then it is clear that the benefits of taking medication far outweigh the risk of death from the drug.

No one wants their child to take Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall or Strattera. However, if your child has ADHD, you should not be concerned that your child will be the one child out of 1.5 million who dies from the drug. You should be far more concerned about the danger of not treating your child's ADHD.