Backfired: Attention Deficit
Backfired: Attention Deficit Audiobook By Leon Neyfakh, Prologue Projects cover art

Backfired: Attention Deficit

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Backfired: Attention Deficit

By: Leon Neyfakh, Prologue Projects
Narrated by: Leon Neyfakh, Arielle Pardes
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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. Medicine & Health Care Industry Politics & Government Public Health Public Policy Sociology

Interview: ADHD—and its meds—are everywhere. Has that "Backfired" for sufferers?

Backfired: Attention Deficit
'I think ADHD is unique in that the boundaries that we can draw around it are so porous and so unstable.'
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  • Backfired: Attention Deficit
  • 'I think ADHD is unique in that the boundaries that we can draw around it are so porous and so unstable.'

About the Host

Leon Neyfakh is a journalist best known as the co-creator of Slow Burn, the host of Fiasco, and the co-host of Think Twice: Michael Jackson. Before starting Prologue Projects, a podcast production company based in New York, he was a reporter for Slate, The Boston Globe, and The New York Observer. He is the author of the book The Next Next Level.

About the Host

Arielle Pardes is a Bay Area-based journalist who specializes in stories about technology and business. Before launching the Backfired podcast, she was a features writer for The Information and a senior writer for WIRED Magazine. She has reported on some of the most influential companies in Silicon Valley, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tinder, Airbnb, and WeWork. She was previously a co-host of WIRED's Gadget Lab podcast.

Balanced Perspective • Thorough Research • Expert Editing • Engaging Storytelling • Insightful Interviews

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I am a child psychiatrist retired one. Seen and lived with ADHD throughout my practice, starting from Connor to Adler. Interesting presentation, listen to every word of your discussion, and I believe all psychiatrist, including child. Psychiatrist should listen to this.

Dilemma of ADHD

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“Backfired: Attention Deficit” was a good podcast series. I like that they showed the good of ADHD and associated medicines for those who truly have ADHD. It also revealed the dark side of those who abuse the medications related to ADHD. I appreciate the history behind the schools and past research practices. As an educator, it is good to understand why there are certain things we can’t “recommend” or “advise,” but understanding how the families choose to support their child with amazing ADHD will help you know the areas you can empower the student. My advice is to discover what areas of executive functioning and social skills the child is lacking, teach them those skills, and give them many opportunities to choose from. And… if you see a child is very wiggly at or around their desk, they are most likely a child who processed information through movement. Help that child by getting the class up and moving while learning to help support all your students’ academic success.

Good Historical View of ADHD

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Got audible to listen to this . Very good . Always wish there was more . The sound quality is great and I enjoy first person accounts and interviews.

Well made

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

Thurough & well rounded research

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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.

well researched, well presented.

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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!

Feel pumped listening to this! Want rounded follow up!

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

Excellent!

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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.

Unbiased and Professional

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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.

Good details, but lacking some intellectual rigor

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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.

Nuanced

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