“… The anxiety study wasn’t the only one the report cites that appears to be mysteriously absent from the scientific literature. A section describing the “corporate capture of media” highlights two studies that it says are “broadly illustrative” of how a rise in direct-to-consumer drug advertisements has led to more prescriptions being written for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids.
The catch? Neither of those studies is anywhere to be found. Here are the two citations:
Shah, M. B., et al. (2008). Direct-to-consumer advertising and the rise in ADHD medication use among children.
Pediatrics, 122(5), e1055- e1060.
Findling, R. L., et al. (2009). Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern.
Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 19(5), 487-492.
Those articles don’t appear in the table of contents for the journals listed in their citations. A spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, where
psychiatric researcher Robert L. Findling currently teaches, confirmed to NOTUS that he never authored such an article. The author of the first study doesn’t appear to be a real ADHD researcher at all — at least, not one with a Google Scholar profile.
In another section titled, “American Children are on Too Much Medicine – A Recent and Emerging Crisis,” the report claims that 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed. But searching Google for the exact title of the paper it cites to back up that figure — “Overprescribing of oral corticosteroids for children with asthma” — leads to only one result: the MAHA report.
The corticosteroids study’s supposed first author, pediatric pulmonologist Harold J. Farber, denied writing it or ever working with the other listed authors. He pointed to
similar research he’s conducted, but said that even if the MAHA report cited that study correctly, its conclusions are “clearly an overgeneralization” of the findings.…”
