Ten percent of American children are diagnosed with ADHD, vs. 0.4 percent of kids in Britain."There's been a great deal of resistance to even believing there is a disease" in Europe says Mary Baker, president of the European Brain Council. "Parents are loath to get their child labeled." According to Ilina Singh, a professor of science and ethics at King's College London,

"There's more skepticism of the influence of pharma companies in Europe than there is in America.

Increasing the diagnosis rate in Europe-and the subsequent drug sales that often follow-would be lucrative for Shire, which had $1.8 billion in ADHD drug revenue last year. Vyvanse contributed $1 billion of that, surging 28 percent, and analysts predict the pill's sales will reach $1.77 billion in 2016. That's been great news for Shire (SHPG), the world's biggest seller of ADHD drugs. More than 90 percent of the company's sales of ADHD medicines are in the U.S., where demand since 2007 more than doubled. But as Shire tries to roll out its flagship ADHD pill, Vyvanse, in eight European countries, it faces significant difficulties convincing people the condition really exists. Many European parents, teachers, and doctors are reluctant to use medication to treat what they see as routine childhood behavioral problems. Accordingly, ADHD is diagnosed about 25 times more often in the U.S. than in the U.K.

According to Dr Levinson's almost 50 yrs experience with ADHD and dyslexia, "he UK and European trend is similar to that initially experienced in the US many years ago. However, education and research sponsored by pharma has accelerated our understanding and treatment ofADHD, especially in the US. Europe will quickly catch up, since overcoming their resistance is apparently accelerating faster than it initially did our resistance in the US. Because ADHD is now recognized as medically treatable and it's understanding among physicians is thus sponsored by pharma, ADHD has replaced dyslexia as the number one recognized learning disability. However, Levinson has found the two disorders significantly overlap and share a common origin. Moreover, he has discovered that dyslexia responds as favorably to inner-ear enhancing medications as ADHD to stimulants. Perhaps pharma will now be similarly motivated to help clarify and medically treat dyslexia by sponsoring dyslexia research as it did ADHD. It would certainly help their bottom lines."

About Harold Levinson, M.D.

Formerly Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, Dr. Harold Levinson is currently Director of the Levinson Medical Center for Learning Disabilities in Great Neck, New York. He is a well known neuropsychiatrist, clinical researcher and author. His "highly original" research into the cerebellar-vestibular (inner-ear) origins and treatment of dyslexia and related learning, attention-deficit/hyperactivity and anxiety or phobic disorders has evolved over the past four decades. Levinson's concepts encompass the collective insights derived from the examinations, follow-up and successful treatment of over 35,000 children, adults and even seniors and have led to new methods of screening, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. His expanded theories appear capable of encompassing and/or explaining all reported symptoms as well as most other concepts and experimental data, thus resulting in a truly holistic perspective.

For more information, call 1(800) 334-7323 or visit www.dyslexiaonline.com