Study Raises Doubts About ADHD Meds for Kids
Here's a study that the makers of Ritalin probably won't love: Researchers working on the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD, which has been tracking 600 kids in treatment for ADHD since the 1990s, now question earlier findings about the effectiveness of medication and raise new concerns.Here’s a study that the makers of Ritalin probably won’t love: Researchers working on the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD, which has been tracking 600 kids in treatment for ADHD since the 1990s, now question earlier findings about the effectiveness of medication and raise new concerns.
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But now after longer-term analysis, the report’s co-author, Professor William Pelham of the University of Buffalo, said: “I think that we exaggerated the beneficial impact of medication in the first study.
“We had thought that children medicated longer would have better outcomes. That didn’t happen to be the case.
“There’s no indication that medication’s better than nothing in the long run.”
Prof Pelham said there were “no beneficial effects” of medication and the impact was seemingly negative instead.
“The children had a substantial decrease in their rate of growth so they weren’t growing as much as other kids both in terms of their height and in terms of their weight,” he said.
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