Report says number of baseball players approved for ADHD medication rose last year.

The Los Angeles Times (1/10, Shaikin) reported that, according to a report released last week by Major League Baseball’s (MLB) drug-testing administrator, “the number of” baseball “players approved for” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) “medication rose last year.” Specifically, the report found that “106 therapeutic use exemptions for” AD/HD medications “were issued last year, up from the 103 exemptions reported to Congress in 2007.” Physician Gary Walder, M.D., advisor to the World Anti-Doping Agency, was “dismayed” by the fact that “eight percent of players would require” such medications, particularly when “the disorder is diagnosed in three to five percent of children, and a smaller percentage of adults.”
        But, according to the AP (1/11, Blum), Rob Manfred, MLB’s executive vice president of labor relations, “said it would be a mistake to compare AD/HD in baseball with statistics for the general population.” Manfred stated, “We are all male. We are far younger than the general population, and we have far better access to medical care than the general population.” Meanwhile, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), “who chaired hearings into drug use in baseball, said he remained concerned about the large number of exemptions.” The AP noted that MLB “toughened its testing program after the 2007 season following recommendations by former Senate majority leader George Mitchell (D-ME), who spent” about eighteen months “investigating performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.”

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