Second Judge Rejects Ritalin-Conspiracy Suit
A second federal judge has thrown a monkey wrench into the plans of some lawyers and activists to turn Ritalin-related lawsuits into a nationwide crusade against APA and one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms.
On May 17, Judge Hilda Tagle of the U.S. District Court in Brownsville, Tex., dismissed a lawsuit against APA and Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Ritalin’s manufacturer, finding that the class-action suit failed to state a legal claim.
Tagle had previously told the plaintiffs that they needed to allege sufficient facts on which to base their legal claims, which she indicated were too vague. The plaintiffs, however, failed to do so. She then followed through on her threat to dismiss the suit.
The lawsuit alleged that APA and Novartis engaged in an illegal conspiracy to increase sales of Novartis’s drug Ritalin. APA’s part, the plaintiffs argued, was in the development of the diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, and more recently, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
The plaintiffs, who sued on behalf of all parents and guardians who bought Ritalin prescribed by a physician to treat their child for ADHD, accused APA and Novartis of then “promoting” that diagnosis in an effort to boost Ritalin sales and thus Novartis’s profits.
They also sued the advocacy organization CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), which works on behalf of children and adults with ADHD, accusing it of taking money from Novartis to promote the ADHD diagnosis and thus being part of the conspiracy.
This action follows by two months a California judge’s dismissal of an almost identical suit in that state (Psychiatric News, May 18). The California judge was also skeptical about the legal basis of the charges and had given the plaintiffs the opportunity to bolster the claims on which they built their suit. As in Texas, the plaintiffs failed to meet the judge’s challenge, and the judge then threw out the suit.
On learning of the Texas judge’s decision, APA President Richard Harding, M.D., a child psychiatrist, issued a statement in which he called it “an important victory for parents and children. It is also a victory for good medicine and sound science.”
APA Medical Director Steven Mirin, M.D., condemned the plaintiffs’ attempt to portray ADHD as a sham diagnosis. “ADHD is a serious ailment that affects millions of children,” he said, “and the litigation was an assault on the right of parents, working in cooperation with their physicians, to act in the best interest of their children.”
In fact, after filing their suit, the Texas plaintiffs later amended it to delete their contention that ADHD was not a valid, scientifically substantiated disorder. Judge Tagle clearly recognized in her ruling that the plaintiffs had come to acknowledge “that a subset of children does exist who can be effectively treated with Ritalin.”
Mirin hopes that the rulings by the Texas and California judges will “send a message” to plaintiffs in two similar cases filed in New Jersey and Puerto Rico as well as to lawyers and others contemplating identical suits. “These claims are part of an antiscience, antimedicine agenda,” Mirin emphasized, “and we are pleased that they have now been rejected by two different judges.”
Novartis also applauded Tagle’s ruling, with Dorothy Watson, the company’s general counsel, stating in a press release, “Ritalin has been shown to be an effective and safe medication for more than 45 years and has been scientifically evaluated in more than 200 studies involving over 6,000 school-aged children.”
And CHADD’s executive officer, E. Clarke Ross, said that the judge’s dismissal decision “speaks volumes about the irresponsible actions of those who filed suits against CHADD.” The organization, he added, “stands in an even stronger position to continue sharing with the public the evidence-based, science-based information that is core to CHADD’s mission.” ▪
