A.D.H.D. NATION

A groundbreaking and definitive account of the widespread misdiagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder—and its serious effects on children, adults, and society.

More than 1 in 7 American children are getting diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (A.D.H.D.)—three times what experts have said is appropriate—making it one of the most mishandled and debated conditions in medicine. The numbers are rising every year. Now doctors and Big Pharma are targeting adults and the rest of the world to get diagnosed with A.D.H.D. and take medications that will “transform their lives.” In A.D.H.D. Nation, Alan Schwarz takes readers behind the scenes to show the roots and rise of this cultural and medical phenomenon: There’s the father of A.D.H.D., Dr. Keith Conners, who spends fifty years pioneering the disorder and use of drugs like Ritalin before realizing his role in what he now calls “a national disaster of dangerous proportions”; a troubled young girl and studious, teenaged boy who get entangled in the growing A.D.H.D. machine and take medications that cause them serious problems; and a pharmaceutical industry that egregiously overpromotes the disorder and earns billions from the mishandling of children (and now adults). While demonstrating that A.D.H.D. is real and can be successfully medicated, Schwarz sounds an alarm and urges America to wake up and address this growing national problem. Alan Schwarz is a Pulitzer Prize–nominated national correspondent at The New York Times, best known for his acclaimed investigative series of 100 articles that exposed the seriousness of concussions among football players and was described as “the greatest feat in sports journalism history.” His work was profiled in The New Yorker and honored with the Polk Award, the Associated Press award for project reporting (three times), and the 2013 Excellence in Statistical Reporting Award from the American Statistical Association. Schwarz earned a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. He is the author of A.D.H.D. Nation.