Florida Becomes Third State To Witness End of Ritalin Suit

A class-action lawsuit filed in Florida against APA and Novartis Pharmaceuticals has come to a dead end, a fate it now shares with similar suits in California and Texas.

In Florida the plaintiffs who initiated the litigation withdrew their suit before a judge had the opportunity to rule on its merits. In California and Texas, where federal judges questioned the charges contained in the suits on both statutory and procedural grounds, the judges dismissed the suits before they could proceed to trial (Psychiatric News, May 18; June 15).

The Florida plaintiffs informed the court on July 5 that they planned to withdraw their suit, which was filed last November.

In all three suits, parents who purchased Ritalin (methylphenidate) for children who had been given an ADHD diagnosis alleged that APA developed the diagnosis of attention deficit disorder—and later attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder—for its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in an overly broad manner and then conspired with Novartis and the consumer advocacy group Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) to promote the diagnosis. They charged that the organizations were motivated by a desire to boost sales of Ritalin, which for many years was the only form of methylphenidate available in the U.S. market.

Nearly identical suits are still active in Puerto Rico, where APA and other defendants are waiting to hear the results of a motion to dismiss, and in New Jersey, where a motion to dismiss will be filed by APA and other defendants if plaintiffs file an amended complaint.

APA President Richard Harding, M.D., believes that the court’s dismissal of the Texas and California lawsuits “sent a message to the plaintiffs in Florida” that their allegations were “unfounded and part of an antiscience, antimedicine agenda that could not succeed.”

In a July 24 press release, Harding called the demise of the Florida lawsuit “an important victory for parents and children and a victory for good medicine and sound science.”

“The litigation was an assault on the rights of patients to act in the best interests of their children and get them the help they need and deserve,” said APA Medical Director Steven Mirin, M.D., in the press release. He condemned the plaintiffs for trying to deny the existence of a psychiatric disorder “that affects millions of children.”

Novartis also hailed the end of the Florida suit, saying that it is “extremely pleased” that the plaintiffs decided to withdraw their legal action. Their decision “supports Novartis’s position that this lawsuit and others like it are an unmerited attempt to promote an agenda that contradicts scientific and medical consensus” about ADHD and its treatments, the company’s general counsel, Dorothy Watson, stated in a July 23 press release.

Ritalin was introduced in 1955 by Ciba-Geigy, which in 1997 merged with Sandoz Pharmaceuticals to form Novartis. The company is headquartered in Switzerland, and its U.S. operation is based in New Jersey. ▪