Canton doctor under scrutiny for child prescriptions

CANTON, Ga. — The phone is ringing off the hook at Dr. Michael Anderson's Canton pediatric office after a New York Times article put him in the spotlight. 

He's getting a lot of inquiries after the article implied he prescribes medicines to boost a child's school performance. Anderson said he would never prescribe stimulants for parents just wanting a child to have better grades.

"No, but a parent crying and a child crying, and they are suffering because they can't get through school, and they are being held back or people are making fun of them, there's a lot more of that than people think," Anderson said. 

He told Channel 2's Linda Stouffer he follows a diagnostic checklist, but there's no clinical screening for Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

"There's no X-ray. There's no broken bone that's bent. There's no lab test," Anderson said.

He said he finds ADHD patients often find great improvement with drugs like Adderall, Concerta and Ritalin.

Hundreds of commenters posted on the online version of the New York Times article about Anderson. At issue is when it's appropriate to put a child on medication. Some said it was horrifying, while others called it a complicated issue.

Anderson also told Stouffer a child's problem behavior can be traced to school conditions, which he said is harder to correct, especially for low-income families in struggling schools.

"The increase in the number of diagnoses with children or students on treatment correlates very tightly with increasing classroom sizes," Anderson said.

WSBTV