TikTok supports “sketchy” new telemedicine startups that offer prescription drugs like Adderall to teens and young adults. Prescriptions for Adderall rose 25 percent for the 24- to 44-year-olds during the pandemic, which some experts attribute to the “emergence of digital mental health platforms.”
Recode tells the story of a TikTok user named Nick S., a 25-year-old food service worker from western Iowa who started watching the content of TikTok influencer Connor DeWulf. Much of DeWolfe’s content is about Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, and his experience with diagnosis.
Shuzi Chu, CEO of TikTok Inc. Photographer: Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg
Photographer: Justin Chin/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Nick came to recognize many of the symptoms DeWolfe described. “I came close to all the content and watched almost all of it,” Nick told Recode. “Then more ADHD content started coming out.” Although Nick was never formally diagnosed with ADHD due to continued exposure, Nick was convinced he had the disorder and that stimulants would help his mental state.
TikTok has started running ads for Nick for Done, a telemedicine startup that says its vendors can diagnose people with ADHD and prescribe “treatments”, often stimulants like Adderall. Over the course of several days, Nick had a 15-minute check-up with one of Don’s nurse practitioners, was prescribed Adderall, and left the local pharmacy with pills.
“It’s scary simple. It’s sketchy as hell. But it worked for me,” he said in a post on Reddit. “God bless TikTok for taking me on this journey.” Between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2021, the number of prescriptions for Adderall and its generic equivalent increased by almost 25 percent for the 22-44 age group during the pandemic. health platforms
Now, some digital health platforms, Bloomberg and Wall Street Magazine Earlier this year, it was alleged that some telemedicine companies were diagnosing paid patients with ADHD and prescribing medication too quickly. Major pharmacy chains have even stopped prescribing some of the most popular ADHD telemedicine services due to doubts about the legitimacy of the establishments.
Cerebral, one of the largest telemedicine providers, has even stopped prescribing ADHD drugs to new patients following federal investigations into its practice, and will stop prescribing them altogether in October.
TikTok has reportedly led to a significant increase in people claiming to have ADHD or other conditions. Ari Tuckman, a psychologist specializing in ADHD, said, “There’s a lot of misinformation about TikTok. Most of those who do it aren’t clinicians. They can talk about their experience, but that doesn’t mean it’s about the experience of others. ADHD is not the same for every person who has it.
A recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry analyzed 100 TikTok videos about ADHD and found that more than half were misleading and only one-fifth were “helpful.”
Read more about Recode here.
Source: Breitbart
