Dr. Linda Sonna

Nutritional Deficiencies.  Anxiety.  Unbounded creativity. Allergies. An exceptionally high energy level. Lead poisoning. And more... 

Before you medicate your child, explore the many causes and cures for the collection of symptoms that commonly lead to an ADHD or ADD diagnosis.  

As I was writing this book, I placed a frantic call to my mother. “I’m scared that the drug companies are going to come after me!” I said.

“No, they won’t come after you!” Mom replied. “You’re not that important!”

“Of course,” I said, suddenly embarrassed.

Mother was right. The drug companies didn’t come after me. The publisher did!

The book had been on the bookshelves for over a year when my editor called.

“It has come to our attention,” he said, “that your book is an anti-medication book. We hired a psychiatrist to go over it. He has made notes about items you need to change.”

Over the next few months, I changed some of my more inflammatory phrases - “drugging your child to control his or her behavior” became “medicating your child to control his or her behavior.”

The editor and I hit an impasse when he insisted that I delete the FDAs blackbox warning - the one alerting consumers that Ritalin could cause instant death in otherwise healthy children.

“The need for the FDA warning is debatable,” he said. “My wife is a social worker. She thinks medicating kids with ADHD is fine.”

The company found someone else to make the rest of the “corrections,” put another author’s name on the cover, and released the “new edition” of the book.

I went from the company’s best-selling parenting author who had been feted at a the National Book Fair to persona non grata.

When I discovered that the publisher was using my name to promote the revised ADHD book, I threatened to sue.

The company returned the book rights to me.

The moral of this particular story: Big Pharma is alive and well!