Discrepancies in Studies on ADHD and COVID-19 Raise Concerns Regarding the Risks of Stimulant Treatments During an Active Pandemic

Two publications by Merzon and colleagues at the Journal of Attention Disorders (JAD) suggest that ADHD increases risks for COVID-19 infections (2020) and severe outcomes (2021). Adherence to stimulant treatments was recommended to attenuate the pandemic spread (2020). The conclusions of these timely studies attracted considerable attention, probably because of their wide-scope implications for the public health, but how valid are they? Furthering an earlier critique published in this journal (Ophir & Shir-Raz, 2020), the current article outlines seven severe gaps in these publications, including: Inconsistencies in definitions and rates of ADHD; inadequate definition for treated individuals; omissions of crucial information; unsuitable analyses; and unmet declarations regarding conflicts of interests and data-availability. In fact, the latter, which constitutes a repeated avoidance from data-sharing (to this day, July 10, 2022), seems to have led the editor-in-chief of JAD to propose the write-up of the current article (which he then judged, after the peer-review process, as: “worthy of publication,” but also that JAD is “not the best placement” for its publication—despite its specific focus on several JAD articles). To complete the picture regarding this burning public-health issue, this article also provides a glimpse into the problematic happenings that took place behind the scenes, which included a personal defamation and various stalling tactics, along with an elaborated response that was sent to the reviewers and the editor-in-chief of JAD in real time (Appendix). Together, the revealed discrepancies and problematic ethical conducts, suggest that the speculation regarding links between a neurodevelopmental diagnosis (ADHD) and a respiratory virus (COVID-19) has not been subjected to adequate scientific inquiry. On the contrary, the lack of transparency, the observed gaps, and the existing, extensive literature on stimulant-related cardiovascular risks, including the recently published guidelines for starting ADHD medications by one of the authors of the 2021 study, raise concerns regarding the potentially dangerous implications of stimulant use during an active pandemic.