“The FDA has issued a nationwide recall of lisdexamfetamine capsules.”
That sentence in Newsweek journal ought to have triggered alerts, steerage, and coordinated response. As an alternative, the silence from pediatric management has been deafening. Newsweek turned to the FDA and the American Academy of Household Physicians. The place are the management of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics? Silent. Why?
The recall that ought to have sparked motion
In November 2025, the FDA categorised a nationwide recall of lisdexamfetamine dimesylate capsules (generally often called Vyvanse) as a Class II recall. This implies the product could trigger short-term or medically reversible hostile well being penalties. The producer, Solar Pharmaceutical Industries, initiated the recall. The FDA confirmed the chance.
This isn’t a fringe remedy. Lisdexamfetamine is a first-line therapy for ADHD, prescribed to thousands and thousands of kids and adults. It anchors college routines, household stability, and medical care. A recall of this magnitude ought to have triggered quick alerts from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (SDBP).
However they mentioned nothing.
Medical fallout: danger with out steerage
Households managing ADHD now face:
- Pharmacy confusion
- Abrupt remedy modifications
- Uncertainty about security and provide
- Silence from the very establishments meant to information them
Clinicians should now navigate danger with out a compass. They need to clarify a recall with out institutional backing. They need to reassure households with out knowledge, context, or coordinated messaging. This isn’t only a missed alternative. It’s a dereliction of responsibility.
I used to be focused; I resisted
I bear in mind the pitch whereas I used to be Director of Analysis on the Arizona Baby Examine Heart. A pharmaceutical rep (pleased with her basketball grit) spoke glowingly about Adderall. She knew the sport. She knew Dianna Taurasi from UCONN. She additionally knew methods to promote.
When Vyvanse entered the market, she flipped the script. All of a sudden, Adderall turned unreliable. She lambasted its pharmacokinetics and pushed Vyvanse because the superior answer. She didn’t cite knowledge. She carried out allegiance.
I had already seen Adderall’s variability firsthand. I knew its period of motion may very well be erratic. However I additionally knew the gross sales pitch wasn’t about science. It was about market share.
I resisted. I didn’t take the dinners. I didn’t settle for the items. I didn’t let Large Pharma choreograph my prescribing habits.
A lot of my colleagues did. They accepted the meals, the branded pens, the convention perks. They let the advertising form their medical selections. Now, when a nationwide recall hits, they keep silent. They don’t warn households. They don’t problem the producers. They don’t communicate, as a result of they’ve already been purchased.
The AAFP nonetheless holds the road. As for the AAP and SDBP, their continued silence raises tough questions concerning the potential affect of trade funding, leaving households to navigate these dangers alone.
The broader collapse: measles, misinformation, and institutional retreat
This recall arrives amid a broader collapse in pediatric public well being. The CDC not too long ago revised its vaccine security language, stating that “the declare ‘vaccines don’t trigger autism’ will not be evidence-based as a result of research haven’t dominated out the likelihood.” This rhetorical retreat mirrors the identical institutional cowardice.
In the meantime, the U.S. is getting ready to shedding its measles elimination standing, simply as Canada did final week. The outbreak that started in Texas in January exhibits no indicators of slowing. If it continues into January 2026, measles will likely be reclassified as endemic.
This yr alone:
- Over 1,700 measles circumstances
- 45 outbreaks
- 211 hospitalizations, together with 100 youngsters below age 5
- Three deaths
Whooping cough circumstances are additionally surging. This isn’t only a public well being failure. It’s a collapse of coordinated care, fueled by rhetorical sabotage and institutional retreat.
The price of silence
As a developmental pediatrician, I’ve watched households unravel below the load of uncertainty. As a historian, I’ve documented what occurs when establishments retreat from their mission. When pediatric management refuses to talk, others fill the void, with misinformation, concern, and opportunism.
We can’t afford that void. Not now. Not with ADHD care below siege. Not with measles returning. Not with belief in drugs hanging by a thread.
Ronald L. Lindsay is a retired developmental-behavioral pediatrician whose profession spanned army service, tutorial management, and public well being reform. His skilled trajectory, detailed on LinkedIn, displays a lifelong dedication to advancing neurodevelopmental science and equitable techniques of care.
Dr. Lindsay’s analysis has appeared in main journals, together with The New England Journal of Medication, The American Journal of Psychiatry, Archives of Basic Psychiatry, The Journal of Baby and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, and Medical Pediatrics. His NIH-funded work with the Analysis Models on Pediatric Psychopharmacology (RUPP) Community helped outline evidence-based approaches to autism and associated developmental issues.
As medical director of the Nisonger Heart at The Ohio State College, he led the Management Schooling in Neurodevelopmental and Associated Disabilities (LEND) Program, coaching future leaders in interdisciplinary care. His Ohio Rural DBP Clinic Initiative earned nationwide recognition for increasing entry in underserved counties, and at Madigan Military Medical Heart, he based Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) CARES, a $10 million autism useful resource heart for army households.
Dr. Lindsay’s scholarship, profiled on ResearchGate and Doximity, extends throughout seventeen peer-reviewed articles, eleven ebook chapters, and forty-five invited lectures, in addition to contributions to main tutorial publishers similar to Oxford College Press and McGraw-Hill. His memoir-in-progress, The Quiet Architect, threads testimony, resistance, and civic responsibility right into a reckoning with techniques retreat.
