By Yasmin Tayag, Illustration: The Atlantic/Getty, The Atlantic, April 14, 2023
In October, when the FDA first announced a shortage of Adderall in America, the agency expected it to resolve quickly. But five months in, the effects of the shortage are still making life tough for people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder who rely on the drug. Stories abound of frustrated people going to dozens of pharmacies in search of medication each month, only to come up short every time. Without treatment, students have had a hard time in school, and adults have struggled to keep up at work and maintain relationships. The Adderall shortage has ended, but the widely used generic versions of the drug, known as amphetamine mixed salts, are still scarce.
A “perfect storm” of factors—manufacturing delays, labor shortages, tight regulations—is to blame for the shortage, David Goodman, an ADHD expert and a psychiatry professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told me. And they have all been compounded by the fact that the pandemic produced a surge in Americans who want Adderall. The most dramatic changes occurred among adults, according to a recent CDC report on stimulant prescriptions, with increases in some age groups of more than 10 percent in just a single year, from 2020 to 2021. It’s the nature of the spike in demand for Adderall—among adults—that has some ADHD experts worried about “whether the demand is legitimate,” Goodman said. It’s possible that at least some of these new Adderall patients, he said, are getting prescriptions they do not need.
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