People with ADHD Outraged Over Drug Shortage

By Myles Collier, Christian Post Contributor Monday, January 02, 2012

There is a major uproar due to the shortage of a drug that helps treat individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), with many doctors writing prescriptions to similar drugs to help offset the shortage.

The main ingredient of Adderall, the drug to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), has been hard to come by due to the regulated ingredient that is found in Adderall not finding its way to pharmaceutical manufactures.

The main material that is found in Adderall is the drug's active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), which is amphetamine salt. It is a controlled substance and the amount that is available to drug manufactures is controlled by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and based on estimated need negotiated by the DEA and various producers.

ADHD is one of the most diagnosed conditions for adolescents with figures from IMS Health, which tracks pharmaceutical production, at record levels. In 2010, more than 50 million prescriptions were written for Adderall, up more than 13 percent from 2009.

The majority of those individuals were between the ages of five and 17 with an average of 9 percent of children between these ages are diagnosed with ADHD per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Under the regulated system the DEA allocates a certain amount of the ingredient to manufactures, which is based on national estimates of need. But the DEA stated that the shortage is not the fault of the DEA but that of Pharmaceutical companies marketing practices.

"Any shortage of these products is therefore a result of decisions made by industry regarding manufacturing or distribution," Barbara Carreno, DEA spokeswoman said, according to Reuters.

There are currently more than 200 drugs on a shortage list with the majority of those drugs not containing any controlled substances.

Valerie Jensen, associate director of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug shortage program told The New York Times: “We have reached out to the DEA and told them that there are shortage issues. But the quota issues are outside of our area of responsibility.”