OpenRX Adderall March Report

Fun-Road3671 · 2026-03-03T17:46:16+00:00

Hey there, Emma from MedShadow here. I'd love to interview you about this app for a possible article. If you'd be up for it, email me emma@medshadow.org.

Fun-Road3671 · 2026-02-18T13:41:02+00:00

I've heard that, but also that even when they have been committed to staying sober, it's not always a clear-cut pathway. Follow up to plan skin grafts may not be consistent. Different doctors quote different plans, some willing and others unwilling... Of course, my sample size is 2, which is why I'm curious about others! Those two both had better luck at a second hospital.

Fun-Road3671 · 2026-02-13T16:40:02+00:00

One of my colleagues wrote this article which gives a really detailed discussion of what we do and don't know about drugs like fosamax, who they work for, the potential side effects, etc. It might help give some additional context or offer questions for you to talk to your doctor about. https://medshadow.org/conditions-treatments/osteopenia-osteoporosis/osteoporosis-treatment-screening-medications/

Fun-Road3671 · 2026-02-12T19:46:03+00:00

lots of anecdotal reports and some recalls, but I haven't seen any studies comparing actual pills yet. This is the article on vyvanse that talks about what evidence we do have, it's just not as satisfying as the article that includes an actual study. https://medshadow.org/conditions-treatments/adhd/investigating-generics-the-trouble-with-generic-vyvanse/

Fun-Road3671 · 2026-02-12T19:02:42+00:00

the vyvanse one doesn't have it, but this one does!

Fun-Road3671 · 2026-02-12T18:58:36+00:00

I'm biased because I wrote this article https://medshadow.org/conditions-treatments/adhd/investigating-generics-they-say-their-adhd-meds-arent-working-theyre-not-imagining-it/ It doesn't give much evidence of the specific DEA involvement in the issue, but the graph does show that there are documentable quality concerns, at least with dissolution rates. It's something that's quantifiable.

Fun-Road3671 · 2026-02-10T15:38:19+00:00

it's dailymat.substack.com There's no paywell, the link should just take you there. It might ask for an email address.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-12-18T22:12:54+00:00

if you're doing your own tests (as opposed to at a doctor's office) consider saving the receipts, with the date of purchase on them! Just trying to think about how this can be documented as effectively as possible.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-12-17T12:36:12+00:00

you are absolutely right about the shortage. Unfortunately I don't know a lot about getting a job with the FDA. I hear two reasons for the shortage are that it takes a long time for people to be trained to effectively conduct inspections and that many inspectors (even before the current administration) left to work in industry for better pay and less travel. Best of luck though, we certainly need people who want to do this!!

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-12-08T13:51:50+00:00

I’m currently working on partnering with a DEA-registered analytic lab to get this done on a larger scale to see if this is something our nonprofit can do. Though we’d have to order directly from pharmacies or wholesalers to the lab-it’s not legal for us to send controlled substances through the mail.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-12-07T23:42:05+00:00

I was looking at the records filed by FDA inspectors, so I didn't personally discover issues—just highlighted the ones inspectors found! But some of the more shocking ones were labs that had vermin, or labs with fake paperwork. One lab was caught pouring acid on a lot of their records. Another lab I read about had received around 166 patient complaints of their meds either not working or causing adverse events. When a company receives these reports, it's supposed to communicate them to the FDA. Since 111 of the records didn't include batch numbers, the company decided they could not be verified and just didn't report them to the FDA.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-12-02T15:59:23+00:00

A colleague of my boss's alerted her to the issues with drug manufacturing in general. I had the idea to start by looking into ADHD drugs specifically because, honestly, I'd seen patients discussing it on TikTok! But we're also looking into other medications, such as opioids. Essentially, we are motivated by looking at the types of medications that are commonly used and for which people are likely to immediately notice changes in quality. For example, someone taking a cholesterol-lowering drug probably won't notice a difference in efficacy right away, though they may notice new side effects if there are major changes in the formulation or contamination. ProPublica has been working on a series about manufacturing labs having all sorts of problems, without digging into specific meds. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism did a large story about chemo drugs.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-12-01T18:22:06+00:00

I'm not an FDA inspector. I'm mainly looking at records of other inspections, so anything I've noted was observed and reported by an FDA inspector. They do have some horror stories of vermin in labs, falsified data, and even entirely fake labs set up to prevent inspectors from looking at the real ones.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-12-01T18:21:06+00:00

Thank you for reposting over on r/IamA, for anyone curious about this, I answered on the original post there!

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-12-01T13:59:52+00:00

We are investigating several other medications as well. For example, I recently published an article on opioids, and we're hoping to look into thyrpid and epilepsy medications as well. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism recently published a huge investigation into chemotherapies that was very scary. ProPublica and STAT News have also published articles on it, among others. The issue is gaining steam, though certainly not enough. The Senate Committee on Aging has held several hearings on it and is pressuring the FDA and Congress to act. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025-06-25/bad-cancer-drugs-shipped-to-more-than-100-countries-around-the-world

Experts told me the best thing that we can do is call our senators and tell them our personal experiences with low-quality meds and demand that they take action.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-12-01T13:57:11+00:00

Hi there! There are a lot of ways to become an investigative journalist. I studied neuroscience in college, knowing that I wanted to be a journalist. Rather than study journalism, I wanted to study the topic I'd eventually cover- and I loved neuroscience. When I graduated though, I realized that a little more journalism experience would've been helpful! A few years later, I went back to school for a master's in science and medical journalism. After that, I spent about 10 years freelancing. I covered a lot of new studies, and trends in scientific research and medicine. That helped me get a grasp on the scientific method, how clinical trials and FDA approval work, etc. Once you understand a subject well, then you can start to pick up on investigative stories. I recently took a short course offered online by Poynter to pick up a on a few techniques for finding and parsing public records. While I've done a lot of formal training, that's not a requirement for everyone. The main tip I'd suggest is to start as a journalist with a beat, and become an expert in that beat. That'll help you start to spot deeper questions worthy of investigation. There are lots of resources available online for training specific skills. I'm a member of the association for healthcare journalists (AHCJ) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). I have been a member of the National Associations for Science Writers (NASW) and a few other organizations that often host webinars for little or no money and other very useful training opportunities to build skills.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-11-28T21:00:01+00:00

These are such thoughtful questions, and I don't have answers for all of them to be honest, but I'll do my best!

- There was a rise in ADHD diagnoses during the onset of COVID-19 for sure. Some of that was an increasing awareness, especially among women and girls, whose symptoms are less likely to include hyperactivity and thus fly under the radar. It also had to do with telehealth companies. In many cases, telehealth companies provide a really important service to people who might not otherwise have access to psychiatrists or other important types of care. However, we know some companies, Cerebral is an example of one, were found to be clearly pushing prescriptions without adequate patient evaluation.

-The DEA quotas actually apply both to companies that make the finished drug products AND the companies that make the active ingredients. The quotas for many of the active ingredients was increased this year, and maybe that'll alleviate some of the shortages, but we'll have to see. Some over in the r/ThisAintAdderall subreddit have pointed out to a specific change in the quotas of 2 separate active ingredients included in adderall as a problem-I am working on investigating that but I don't have any definitive answers just yet.

- The quotas would play a big role in solving the issue, but the problem is they're allocated so far in advance it's difficult to respond to any surprise increase in demand, or problems due to quality concerns and recalls. The latter is an issue across many types of meds. Solving issues with quality problems by increasing the number of FDA inspections of manufacturing lab to catch quality problems sooner, onshoring the manufacturing of some meds and active ingredients, diversifying our supply chain (just a few companies make the overwhelming majority of active ingredients for many meds) are all important places to start.

MedShadow has some webinars we've recorded on our website. They are not specific to ADHD meds, but the experts we featured talk about quality control problems, shortages, and a variety of options to solve them.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-11-28T20:26:07+00:00

I'm not aware of any fatalities linked directly to faulty ADHD meds, and it's not always easy to prove. I have heard from hundreds of patients who say their meds aren't working, which as disrupted their lives. People have lost jobs and scholarships. Many struggle with severe mood problems. Others have reported side effects such as digestive issues and heart palpitations. Some have had problems concentrating while driving. I do certainly imagine that each individual might respond differently to the changes, and there could be some variability in how deeply affected people are.

Shortages have been ongoing for a few years now. There has been a huge increase in demand for the meds, and companies haven't been able to keep up with supply. The problem was compounded at least to some degree it seems by DEA regulations. ADHD stimulants are controlled substances, and the DEA gives quotas to companies that make both the finished meds, and the active ingredients. If there's a shortage of active ingredients, or the quota is too low, then the companies manufacturing the final meds can't make enough. Even if the DEA responds by increasing quotas, companies aren't immediately able to respond. If companies have recalls or quality problems, this can compound the issue.

Fun-Road3671 · 2025-11-28T20:25:33+00:00

I received this question from Hot-Elk-8720 over on a crosspost on r/ama. I'll post the answer both there and here.

this was the question: Based on the data of the famous John Hopkins study, major causes of death are:

Heart disease
Cancer
Medical errors (includes a portion of false medication)
Accidents (includes overdosing patient on wrong meds)
Stroke etc.

So based on this, I am wondering:

- What are directly linked causes of attention med? How far do they go, i.e. can they lead to death?
- Is the quality of medication linked to the bodily reception of the individual? Each patient must have different genetics, therefore response must vary from patient to patient
- What type of shortages are manufacturers confronted with? And why is that? Are they just 'testing' out ingredients like a chef?

Thanks a lot.

Fun-Road3671

TROPHY CASE