THE committee setting guidelines for the treatment of ADHD is dominated by members who have financial connections to drugmakers, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Seven of the 10 group members, including doctors, have declared receiving grants, airfares, hotels or overseas trips from companies making drugs to treat the disorder. One non-medical member, former teacher Geraldine Moore, had the bill for her book launch picked up Lilly, which makes Stattera.

The committee’s guidelines, currently with the Federal Department of Heath, have endorsed Ritalin, Strattera and other ADHD drugs as the “first-line treatment” for children. They have warned parents to ignore alternative treatments, such as diet and exercise, citing a lack of evidence as to their benefits.

Their report comes as the prescription rates for ADHD drugs has soared by 43.4 per cent in the past 12 months to 390,474 scripts nationwide for all drugs to treat the condition. But group chairman and pediatrician David Forbes, says accepting funds from drugmakers was a reality of modern medicine.

“There is absolutely no concern raised that any person on the working group has in any way acted inappropriately and I have every confidence in their professionalism,” Forbes, an associate professor at the University of Western Australia school of paediatrics, tells the paper.

The Department of Health last year refused a Freedom of Information application to identify the members of the committee, set up by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. The Daily Telegraph has obtained the conflict of interest declarations made by nine of the 10 members of working group. The 10th demanded their details remain secret.

The documents show that Perth paediatrician Brad Jongeling headed a study funded by Celltech, which developed the once-a-day ADHD medication Metadate R. And psychology professor David Hay declared he was funded by Shire Pharmeceuticals, which makes Adderall, to attend a Shire conference in Amsterdam in 2005.