For Immediate Release

November 29, 2005

 

Patricia Weathers

845-677-4118

Sheila Matthews

203-966-8419

Founders

Visit www.ablechild.org

To be fully informed before consent

 

Deceptive Interview Demands Response from Ablechild

 

Pharmaceuticals Chief Focuses His Attention on Drug Deficit and Away from Drug Abuse Reality, in an Interview with Matt Emmens, CEO of Shire Pharmaceuticals by Stephen Foley.

 

Ablechild could simply not ignore the recent U.K. interview with Mat Emmens, CEO of Shire pharmaceutical, when discussing attention deficit disorder and it’s “validity”...  Mr. Emmens tells the many of us who don’t buy into the ADHD label, “That the people who say ADHD is not real don’t use data and the people who say it is real use data.” If we didn’t know any better this statement would be taken at face value, except for its “minor” glitch; that being, Shire Pharmaceutical, and its financial stake, aka financial conflict of interest, in promoting a biased marketing campaign to push its products, aka drugs.

 

The simple reality is that scientific data doesn’t support ADHD as a disease warranting these conveniently marketed drugs.  “Scientific double talk” by all those profiting off of subjective labels and coined drugs is a marketing tool and nothing more. Buyer beware is the term we often hear when we sense something amiss, but can’t quite put our finger on it. 

 

We only have to look a little deeper at Shire’s motivating factors for its recent promotion of ADHD and its “validity”.  Shire’s profitable ADHD drug Adderall is coming off patent soon and the company is obviously and eagerly looking to expand its interests in ADHD drugs. It has already initiated an agreement with New Rivers Pharmaceuticals to launch a drug for ADHD specifically made to reduce the potential for amphetamine addiction in children. 

 

Mr. Emmens failed to mention that drugs like Shire’s Adderall are central nervous stimulants listed by the Drug Enforcement Administration as Class II category drugs, which are in essence equivalent to cocaine, with the same abuse potential.  Could this be why America has an epidemic of high school and college kids abusing these drugs, using them as enhancement agents, study aids, and even grinding pills down to snort for a greater high?  As reported by United Press International, a study that came out this July revealed that the number of teens who have abused prescription drugs has tripled in the past 10 years.  Drugs that were reported abused were stimulants such as Adderall.  “Today more people are abusing controlled prescription drugs than the combined number who use cocaine, hallucinogens, amphetamines and heroine,” Joseph A. Califano, president of the National Center on Addiction and Drug Abuse at Columbia University. On top of this The News Tribune reported on September 13th that the Drug Effectiveness Review Project, based at Oregon State University published a 731-page report on the safety and efficacy of ADHD drugs.  This report was based on the group analyzing 2, 287 extensive studies of drugs to include Adderall.  Their conclusion was that there was no scientific proof to say that these ADHD drugs were either safe or helpful. 

 

We can certainly understand that Mr. Emmens would say just about anything to protect his rapidly growing pharmaceutical company, of which has made a not so insignificant profit of $550m on Adderall alone this year. Emmens is certainly paying for the drug data, evaluating it, concealing it, modifying it, and selling it without losing a night’s sleep.  Therefore, it comes as no surprise that he would push and defend the same data that results in drug promotion, and increased sales and revenues. Protect his interests, so to speak.

 

With the billion dollar pharmaceutical industry and its choke hold on an American public who has fallen into what resembles a kind of stupor, an alarming, overly relaxed state of acceptance of drug company advice, Matt Emmens comments don’t seem all in all out of the ordinary. The U.K. has every reason to be wary of this pharmaceutical giant’s game plan and its stealthy attempt to mask its motivations and leave another country in the dark. 

 

As an American non-profit organization representing parents that have been victimized by those with conflicts of interests in both medical, mental health, and pharmaceutical establishments, we applaud the U.K. for being rightly skeptical. America ’s embrace of junk science is rather sickening. Our children and families have been harmed by drugs in the guise of “treatment” long enough. The U.K. should not follow in our folly.

 

For more information on psychiatric labels and drugs, please visit us at www.ablechild.org .

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