Will Adderall Hurt Your Child?

You might want to pause before ordering a refill on your child’s prescription. A federal study released today evaluates the long-term use of ADHD and hyperactivity medication, and there is widespread evidence that they’re not as helpful as once thought. The findings show that while medications including Adderall and Concerta are useful in the short term, they prove ineffective over 24 months, and children who took the drugs for 36 months were about an inch shorter than those who did not, reports The Washington Post. Further troubling: Some psychologists tried to explain away the results to avoid embarrassment because the original study, published in 1999, hailed the drugs as wholly positive and led to a sharp rise in the drug’s popularity at time when ADHD diagnoses were becoming more common.