• anlumo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    As far as I have followed this issue, this is a US problem. Pharmaceuticals are treated very differently in Europe. For example, there’s no public ads for prescription drugs allowed, meaning that patients usually don’t push doctors to prescribe random stuff they’ve heard about on TV.

    • EyesEyesBaby@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Maybe not that way around, but in the EU the pharmaceutical companies take physicians out for dinner, take them on skiing trips etc. to accomplish the same result; push for more of this medication to be prescribed.

      People downvoting me probably don’t work in healthcare and have no idea how these businesses work.

      • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        In the UK the NHS uses NICE guidelines for prescriptions. A doctor would be expected to justify prescribing outside of this.

        Additionally, ADHD charities report that it is under diagnosed in people in the UK. With many parents suspicious of medicating children.

        • EyesEyesBaby@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Have you actually read the article?

          There was a study done in 2000 by Duke University, where Angold, Erkanli and their team analysed data from North Carolina and discovered there that only 43% of students on medication met the full DSM III-r criteria. Later studies in 2010 by Evans, Morrill and their team established an estimate of 1.1 million false positives globally.

          Labelling and expectancy bias has been shown to reinforce the behaviour. This same issue is evident with boys who are acculturated to ‘boisterous’ behaviour, even before their hormones add to the problem. There is no surprise to hear that in 2003 the Annals of Family Medicine published a study showing boys consistently get diagnosed more often than girls at a rate of 3 to 1.

          • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Unfortunately, that study was done a couple of hundred years after the UK lost control of North Carolina, so it doesn’t support the claim that ADHD medication is overprescribed in the UK.

              • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Your quote doesn’t say they calculate the result globally. It’s estimated based on the results in Carolina. They say estimate because the don’t have the data to say it is true.

                ADHD administrative prevalence (based on rates of diagnosis and/or prescriptions) in children and adolescents in the UK has been estimated to fall between 0.2 and 0.9% since the mid-2000s (39). These rates remain below community prevalence estimates in the UK estimated at around 2.2% in 1999 and 2005 (55, 56), with more recent estimates of 1.6% in 2017, based on the more restrictive ICD-10 Hyperkinetic Disorder criteria (57). Administrative prevalence of adult ADHD in the UK stands at around 0.1% (40), far below even some of the lowest prevalence rates documented in adults (9).

                • Failure of Healthcare Provision for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in the United Kingdom: A Consensus Statement, 2021

                This suggests about 1% of the UK population has ADHD and isn’t diagnosed. The would be more than 600,000 people.

      • angrystego@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This used to be true and perhaps still is in some places, but in some European countries the laws have changed a bit recently which means bad time for pharma companies. They now don’t have enough finances to bribe doctors effectively. (Source: family member in European pharma.)

        • EyesEyesBaby@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s not about money, they have more than enough of that. It’s about regulations on how they can spend it. They are not allowed to give doctors a mini holliday anymore, they used to to that, but they still have more than enough ways to influence doctors.