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A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week confirmed what many have suspected: more than 10,000 2- and 3-year-olds in the U.S. are being dosed with drugs like Ritalin and Adderall for “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.” You read that right.

There is no medical basis to the dosing. American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines for ADHD “do not even address the diagnosis in children 3 and younger-let alone the use of such stimulant medications,” reported the New York Times, especially because “hyperactivity and impulsivity are developmentally appropriate for toddlers.”

Toddlers on Medicaid are especially targeted for ADHD meds, commensurate with Big Pharma’s heisting of government funds as its main source of revenue, a marketing plan also seen with Medicare, TRICARE and the VA prescriptions.

Why does the richest nation in the world have so many children afflicted with ADHD, conduct disorders, depression, “spectrum” disorders, oppositional defiant disorder, mixed manias, social phobia and bipolar disorder?

Because children are good customers.

“Children are known to be compliant patients and that makes them a highly desirable market for drugs,” says former Pharma rep Gwen Olsen, author of Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher. “Children are forced by school personnel to take their drugs, they are forced by their parents to take their drugs, and they are forced by their doctors to take their drugs. So, children are the ideal patient-type because they represent refilled prescription compliance and ‘longevity.’ In other words, they will be lifelong patients and repeat customers for Pharma.”

Pathologizing kids for money is so insidious, psychiatrist Phillip Sinaikin recounts reading a scientific article in which it was debated whether a 3-year-old girl who ran out in traffic had oppositional defiant disorder or bipolar disorder! The latter is marked by the “grandiose delusions” that she was special and cars could not harm her, said the article.