Medicalizing schools

My mom sent me the article Medicine Goes to School: Teachers as Sickness Brokers for ADHD, which concluded:

The organised penetration of the pharmaceutical industry associated with ADHD into the education domain is a new phenomenon. While there has been extensive discussion about the ethics of fast-food marketing within schools, there has been little about the consequences of the pharmaceutical industry's infiltration of schools.

These consequences include the fact that about half of all ADHD diagnoses originate with the child's teacher, that teachers often administer medications, and that teachers "educate" parents and students about ADHD. On a supposedly "educational" web page aimed at teachers, Novartis (maker of Ritalin) advises teachers to handle parents' questions as follows:

Make it clear that it is important for them—and for their child—to understand and follow the doctor's medical advice about medication and other therapies for ADHD. ADHD is a serious condition that may require the child to be on medication and undergo counseling for a long duration.

Why is it the teacher's job to tell parents ADHD is a "serious condition"? What the hell is the teacher doing answering parents' medical questions in the first place? It is one thing to discuss classroom behavior or learning, but Novartis is clearly attempting to use teachers to increase "patient compliance."

Even if you agree with the historical collaboration between schools and doctors (it's a rich history), surely it is cause for concern if school staff are now being manipulated by big pharma propaganda campaigns. Doctors are influenced by such campaigns. Teachers will be no different. I wouldn't be at all surprised if in 10 more years, teachers were advising parents to seek medication for social phobia, separation anxiety, or oppositional defiant disorder on the basis of their "expert" observation.

[UPDATE: My mom posted on big pharma's "disease-mongering." Take a gander.]