An account of the widespread misdiagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—and how its unchecked growth over half a century has made ADHD one of the most controversial conditions in medicine, with serious effects on children, adults, and society.
...an important, humane and compellingly written new book ... ADHD Nation focuses on an unholy alliance between drugmakers, academic psychiatrists, policy makers and celebrity shills like Glenn Beck that Schwarz brands the 'A.D.H.D. industrial complex' ... should be required reading.
[Schwarz] makes a persuasive case that too many children have been swept into the vortex of a perfect cultural storm ... ADHD Nation doesn’t attempt a broad cultural analysis. But Mr. Schwarz’s disciplined focus gives his book clarity and even utility.
...as Schwarz’s book makes distressingly clear, the pharmaceutical industry apparently learned nothing from the first amphetamine epidemic it helped cause, when it began setting the research agenda for ADHD ... His book—a dazzling piece of journalism, based on extensive research and an enormous number of interviews—sheds some much needed light on what he calls a new 'American epidemic' ... While Schwarz’s book is an outstanding exposé, he has only seven pages on solutions, which feels tacked on to the end of the book.”
