What is The Problem With ADHD Checklists?

Executive Summary

• ADHD checklists have an undisclosed financial conflict and interference from pharmaceutical companies.

Introduction

If you search for the term ADHD checklist, in most cases, to some of the biggest medical information websites. All of these websites have undisclosed financial conflicts with pharmaceuticals that make ADHD medications. Reading these websites will promote the idea of ADHD, and following their advice will, in many cases, result in being prescribed ADHD medications.

We have no financial conflicts or other connections to drug companies or medical establishments. We will use our independence to review some of the information from these websites.

Article Example #1: From ADHDAdulthood

The following ADHD test is from ADHDAdulthood.

This website is deliberately designed to look helpful, and not marketing for a drug company 

It offers an ADHD checklist.

This website has bright colors and presents an easy-to-fill-out form which then you download the results and are supposed to take to an MD to help you determine if you have ADHD. 

I filled out the ADHD checklist or quiz, and here are my results.

I have a problem with this test in that it does not differentiate between things I don’t like participating in — one example being meetings. I wanted to leave corporate workplaces partly because I was tired of meetings. However, is this really part of a diagnosis of ADHD? 

At the end of the test, they recommend that you see an MD to be diagnosed with ADHD. However, the reader does not know that ADHDAdulthood.com is a website created by a pharmaceutical company that makes ADHD drugs.

They have sort of a strange disclosure on the website. It is as if while Takeda Pharmaceutical takes credit for creating the website, they don’t think there is anything of a conflict about that fact. They also don’t mention their specific drugs in the website, which allows them to make positive claims without having to discuss side effects. Opioid manufacturers follow the same strategy. There is not a single mention of the side effects of ADHD medications.

So this would be like GM or Toyota creating a website for determining if you should buy a new truck. GM or Toyota would not be trying to help you or contribute to your wellbeing — but to sell you a truck. 

The website has inspirational testimonials about how great it is to be diagnosed with ADHD. Interestingly, while a drug company produces this website to sell ADHD drugs, there is no discussion of drugs. However, what follows a diagnosis of ADHD? Drugs. Takeda is not simply producing this website for health education purposes. 

Takeda makes the ADHD drug Adderall and Vyvanse. Nowhere on the website does it state that Takeda makes these two drugs. The website is presented as a public health site. If a person is diagnosed with ADHD, there is a high probability that that patient will be prescribed one of these two drugs.

An article in Fierce Pharma (Fierce Pharma is an industry trade publication), states that Takeda intends to show ADHD patients as empowered, as explained in the following quotation.

“We set out to tell a different kind of story that empowered patients to see their symptoms in a more positive light,” she said.

Isn’t that nice? Takeda taking such an interest in people — that, of course, is unrelated to their desire to sell more Vyvanse amphetamines?

And Google thinks that this is a top website that people should visit? A completely biased site trying to sell ADHD drugs?

Amazing.

How Scientific is the DSM Process that Setup ADHD?

This is a critical topic related to how much stock those that receive an ADHD diagnosis should place in that diagnosis. This is covered in the article How Scientific is the DSM Process that Setup ADHD Diagnosis Criteria? (Subscription Required)

The Implications of the ADHD Information

This all means that the vast majority of people looking into ADHD symptoms and ADHD are generally exposed to and directed to make important decisions for themselves and their children by information that the pharmaceutical companies write, which is then “laundered” through seemingly independent sources. The readers of this information normally do not know this. This is exactly what happens when pharma reps visit MDs offices- what they categorize as “education.”

Did you feel educated?