School children fly off the rails amid Adderall shortage

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Bottles of Adderall XR prescription pharmaceuticals photographed in a pharmacy in Remington, Virginia, on February 26, 2019. (Photo by Kristoffer Tripplaar/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Parents across the country say their children’s grades are falling and becoming more violent

  • The shortage has led to many kids being disruptive in school and less focused 
  • Roughly six million children aged three to 17 have ADHD and most take meds
  • Prescriptions for Adderall in the US doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic 

An ongoing shortage of Adderall has left children unable to concentrate and behave in school, according to parents across the US.

Parents and school officials across the US, from California to Kentucky to Massachusetts, are worried about falling grades and increased violence among children in sudden detox due to having their meds cut off.

The Food and Drug Administration acknowledged the shortage last October, but parents of children with ADHD have been blowing the whistle on supply chain issues and backorders since the summer.

“The light of a lamp shall not shine in you anymore, and the voice of bridegroom and bride shall not be heard in you anymore. For your merchants were the great men of the earth, for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived.” Revelation 18:23

Adderall prescriptions have steadily increased over the last 12 years. The figures include prescriptions for both Adderall, brand and generic, in the U.S.

Medicating children for ADHD is the norm in the US and of the more than six million of them who have the condition, over 60 percent take medication like Adderall. But over the years, concern in the medical community about overprescribing the potentially addictive medications has risen.

Adderall, arguably the most commonly prescribed ADHD medication in the US, is banned in many European countries as well as Japan.

Doctors in peer countries seem less eager to prescribe the medications. While a whopping 41 million Adderall prescriptions were dispensed in the U.S. in 2021, Britain’s National Health Service doled out a total of just 2.23 million ADHD drugs from July 2021 to June 2022.

Still, there have been reports nationwide of kids acting out in class, disrupting fellow students, and increasing disciplinary calls to parents over the past year.

The ongoing problem has been attributed to worker and supply shortages at the Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals, which made one out of four branded and generic Adderall pills dispensed at US pharmacies last year.

It is also linked to soaring rates of new prescriptions being doled out during the pandemic when telehealth services proliferated and more bad actors were able to supply the drugs to people with little to no consultation.

Thanks VS