Backfired: Attention Deficit

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 ofBackfired, 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 Deficitis the latest podcast from Prologue Projects, the award-winning team behindSlow Burn,Fiasco, andThink Twice: Michael Jackson, and the second season of theBackfiredfranchise, a show about what happens when solving one problem inadvertently leads to a host of new ones.Backfired: Attention Deficitfollows the acclaimed first seasonBackfired: The Vaping Wars.For a list of books, articles, and documentaries used to researchBackfired: Attention Deficit, please visit bit.ly/backfiredbib.Backfired: Attention Deficitwas 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.Backfiredwas co-created for Prologue Projects by Kim Gittleson.Read more