Prescribing ADHD medication to children
Prescribing ADHD medication to children - Dr. Michael Anderson
We started this segment with a clip from Stephen Colbert, he can find the humour in medicating students to help them perform better. But it's a tremendously divisive issue.
And you don't need to be a parent to wonder about the ethics of fixing school kids versus fixing the school. As part of our Line in the Sand project, we're going to look at how this became a dilemma for well-meaning doctors who just want to help their patients.
Some say they are ethically justified in prescribing children in low income communities ADHD medication even when other forms of intervention could or should address some of the root causes of behaviour.
Dr. Michael Anderson is a pediatrician and an assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford. And at the Medical College of Georgia. He is also the author of The ADHD Dysfunction. He joined us from Canton, Georgia.
Prescribing ADHD medication to children - Panel
Our next two guests are both experts in attention deficit disorder in children. Dr. Nancy Rappaport is an associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She was in Boston. Dr. William Graf is a Professor of pediatric neurology at Yale University and he joined us from New Haven.
This segment was produced by The Current's Josh Bloch.
Other segments from today's show: