Backfired: Attention Deficit

De: Leon Neyfakh, Prologue Projects

Narrado por: Leon Neyfakh, Arielle Pardes

ADHD may be the defining diagnosis of our time. According to the latest data, more than 10 percent of American children (that’s 7.1 million kids) have been diagnosed with ADHD. And the number of stimulant prescriptions for adults in their 30s has shot up nearly threefold since 2012, hitting 15.3 million in 2021. It’s increasingly common to hear people who haven’t been diagnosed at all say they’re “so ADHD,” as if it’s more of a personality trait—or a zodiac sign—than a medical condition. In recent years, this explosion in demand has combined with other factors—including federally mandated limits on production—to create a widespread stimulant shortage in the US.

In the second installment of Backfired, cohosts Leon Neyfakh and Arielle Pardes look at the unintended consequences of the ADHD industry and trace the surprising path that brought us here.

Backfired: Attention Deficit is the latest podcast from Prologue Projects, the award-winning team behind Slow Burn, Fiasco, and Think Twice: Michael Jackson, and the second season of the Backfired franchise, a show about what happens when solving one problem inadvertently leads to a host of new ones. Backfired: Attention Deficit follows the acclaimed first season Backfired: The Vaping Wars.

For a list of books, articles, and documentaries used to research Backfired: Attention Deficit, please visit bit.ly/backfiredbib.

Backfired: Attention Deficit was hosted and produced by Leon Neyfakh and Arielle Pardes. The executive producer was Andrew Parsons. The senior producer and story editor was Madeline Kaplan. Producers were Dustin Desoto and Danielle Hewitt. Fact-checking by Maggie Duffy. Research by Frank Zhou. Archival research by Francis Carr. Theme song and score composed by Emma Munger. Audio mix by Aman Sahota. Backfired was co-created for Prologue Projects by Kim Gittleson.

©2024 Prologue Projects (P)2024 Audible Originals, LLC.

Thurough & well rounded research

The piece was well researched and presented multiple points of view, leaving The Listener to draw their own conclusions. A fascinating history of ADHD.

well researched, well presented.

I listen to a lot of podcasts. this one has been outstanding in the depth of research, the clarity of presentation, tiny, the waving together of disparate threads, and the pacing, which kept it very understandable but also very dynamic.

Feel pumped listening to this! Want rounded follow up!

Engaging take down - hit piece about how Pharma, Med Health, and Social Media industries conspire to confuse folks into believing that synthetic Rx meth and coke alternatives are good for us - while retaining that they do actually help a lot of people. Way to ride the line! Loved it! I signed up for more with another episode.

Feels like listening to the most entertaining audio- docuseries with music and great sound bites from direct sources, but they leave some key sources and facts out and by the end it drags on like an indictment of the medical, social media & Pharma industries for like tricking anxious or depressed people into hoarding all the best psych meds for themselves, causing shortages “for people who really need them”.

I’d press them to interview old guard Stanford University professors and researchers who can define and explain ADHD so clearly and concisely according to medical definitions that even a monkey like me could understand.

They also leave out the new research on alternative treatments and how much diet and physical exercise, fresh air & sunlight, can impact ADHD, especially processed foods like red and blue dyes, sugar compounds…

Love the fact that this audiobook’s not just medical jargon and it goes deep into the social and historic waves of research and products, and urges us to ask the bigger questions about what ADHD means and will mean to society’s future.

I wish they’d add chapters about the possible link to autism…

I wanted to hear more.
Loved it! So comprehensive with the zoom ins on case studies and zoom outs of societal historic and socioeconomic changes!

But in the end I felt no better equipped for the decision of whether or not to medicate my 7 y/o who has such mysterious psych issues from a complicated birth that we’re on our way to Amen Clinics to get him scanned.

Did SPECT brain scans or EEGs or Cat scans or extensive 4 hour ADHD testing make it into your series? I might have missed those chapters.

Thanks. Please fill in the blanks with a follow up!!! Loved this! I felt pumped listening to it!

Excellent!

Incredibly well researched and excellently presented on a seriously growing topic. Thank you for bringing awareness.

Unbiased and Professional

There’s so many good things to say about this! I love the way they spun the story and connected their various interviews. I thought the hosts did an awesome job of going back to the beginning and getting interviews even from people in that time period. They presented both sides of ADHD really well, both with interviews in support and against the medications. I was hooked from start to finish; they have a knack for podcasting and audiobooks.

Good details, but lacking some intellectual rigor

Hearing the details of various semi-recent historical developments was well worth the time, and interesting. Like Dr. Collins (discussed in the program), I have focused on the actual medical science and experience of all who know well the struggles of those with ADHD and the proven benefits of medications as tools aiding patients when taken as researched, approved by regulators and prescribed. One point the show makes is that such a focus can miss the extent of the simultaneous abuse of the tools by some-- generally not the actual and proper ADHD patient population. This world of worrisome consequences of the availability of the medications is worth discussing more, with the important caveat that such should not be done at the expense of truth and trust in the research and expertise behind recommended treatments for ADHD.
This program does a good job (but could do an even better job) at making clear that misuse and abuse is not use. It problematizes well many issues, for example the controversy that arose with respect to ADHD-- but not, say, blood pressure or cancer-- when a patient support and awareness group accepted some financial support from a pharmaceutical company, as groups and conferences focused many health issues do routinely.
On the other hand, at one point a speaker describes characteristics of writing done in a hypomanic state -- quite well, very classically -- but attributes those (undesirable, dysfunctional) features as typical of writing done on an ADHD medication, never mentioning the distinction (or hypomania). It is clear scientifically and clinically that prescribed doses of such medication do not as a rule lead to induced hypomania. The speaker was referring to writing done by someone abusing such medication, very likely at higher doses than would ever be prescribed. But that dosage distinction is not made either-- which is a large part of the problem in public discourse about this issue. Many medications and even household items can do terrible things when used completely incorrectly, but in this area the proper versus improper use discussion gets blurred.
What we know scientifically about the history of and nature of skepticism and rejection in mental health care could be covered a bit better, in my view. Still, this program is full of excellent details and no one interested in the topic of ADHD and it's treatment in the US should miss it. It simply could have gone further to prevent harm to legitimate patients and to counter stigma and misunderstanding (still prevalent in society at large) about what real ADHD and its treatment are like, told through more of the eyes of patients, parents, teachers and doctors.

Nuanced

I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner and dealing with the surge of ADHD diagnosis requests and stimulant shortages has been the most challenging work of my career. This comprehensive overview of the culture and history of ADHD and stimulants should be required for any psychiatric provider who strives to provide the best possible care for their patients. We cannot practice in a vacuum.

Informative and personal

A diverse set of views, conflicting motivations and corporate profiteering, Enjoyable all the way through.

Background of ADHD meds

It was insightful. A bit more science behind other literature. Something very useful in a disorder is : it’s only a disorder if you can’t manage it.

I appreciate that the full investigative story was given.

I like hearing all sides of the story. I don't like that this review has a 15 word minimum. why is this box still red and says '15 word minimum'