 |
|
|
Back to Prozac Truth Home page Nor will the epidemic end when 100 percent of the children have been diagnosed—ADHD—and a treated. As we are already seeing, more all the time are getting other ‘comorbid’ labels/ ‘diseases’ and other drugs—polypharmacy—to treat them. Buitelaar and Bergsma, 37;2: “…(the) slogan of a Dutch association for people with depressive disorders: ‘a depression is a disease, not a sign of weakness.’
The concept of disease lessens the feeling of guilt.
With depression, it is the patient who profits from the change of focus, and with ADHD it is mainly the parents. …So, whilst the question of whether ADHD is a disease may not have many consequences within child psychiatry it is taken very seriously by the general public.
Lay people may feel cheated if ADHD is not really a disease after all.”
Here, as is standard practice in the US, that psychiatric
‘disease’ organizations, CHADD foremost among them, spread the ‘disease’ propaganda
that makes medical patients of normal children
and adults so that once labeled/diagnosed, they can be ‘prescribed’ for through
their ‘life-span.’
Through the ‘life-span’ is a favored
expression in present-day ‘biological’ psychiatry, referring to the fact that
once labeled, their psychiatric diseases stay with them for life.
Buitelaar and Bergsma, 37;3: “The ‘power’ of the disease concept also has one big advantage and one serious side effect for child psychiatrists,
If a certain psychiatrist claims that ADHD is a disease, he or she will lessen the stigma on the parent.
This is important, because it is not uncommon for the disruptive actions of the child to lead to the social isolation of the parents.” Here we label/diagnose the child saying his brain is defective and totally to blame, without ever giving the child the benefit of un-ending parent/teacher love, belief, hope, or, effort; without ever taking responsibility for how they behave, or whether or not they learn to read, do math, and are educable, educated
and prepared for life.
Such is the seductive appeal of the ‘disease’ interpretation to parents and teachers.
They are off the hook!
“It’s Nobody’s Fault,” say New York University (my alma mater),
author/child psychiatrist, Harold S. Koplewicz [37]. Six million in the US have bought into the ADHD label alone.
That’s a lot of psychiatry, a lot of ‘mental health,’ a lot of Ritalin, a lot of Schedule II, addictive, dangerous, deadly amphetamines.
Peter Breggin [38], a US psychiatrist, true to science, and true to his patients, states--39;2:
“…we abuse our children with drugs rather than making the effort to find better ways to meet their needs.
In the end, we are giving out children a very bad lesson—that drugs are the answer to emotional problems.
We are encouraging a generation of youngsters to grow up relying on psychiatric drugs rather than on themselves and other human resources.” In spuriously making ‘medical patients’ of our normal children and treating them, first and foremost with medications, these are the absolutely essential human things that we are failing to do. Is it any wonder that the ‘prognosis’ of ADHD, especially with Ritalin/amphetamine treatment, is so abysmal. Think of all of the essential things they fail to get, once labeled and drugged. Buitelaar and Bergsma, 39;4: “…the ADHD syndrome has serious consequences for the children involved and that the available non-pharmacological treatment only offer solace to a certain extent. This justifies the use of effective pharmacological treatment.” This would be true if there was a demonstrable medical problem/physical abnormality/disease—but there is none. On November 3, 2001, I appeared before the Medical Board of California, and testified as follows:
“In the November 20, 2001 (already on the news-stands), Family Circle magazine, the psycho-pharmaceutical cartel has a 7-page "special advertising supplement" in which its leaders, including the Richard K. Harding, President of the American Psychiatric Assn. and Surgeon General,
David Satcher, cast aside the term "disorders" and forthrightly proclaim that they diagnose and treat "diseases"—brain diseases.
So saying they lie to all Americans and trample their right to informed consent and self-determination.
Claims such as those I have cited from Family Circle, and such as are posited daily by organized psychiatry are in violation of Senate Bill (California) 836 (Figueroa) under which: ‘… it is unlawful for any person licensed in the healing arts to disseminate or cause to be
disseminated any form of public communication, as defined, containing a false, fraudulent, misleading, or deceptive statement or claim, for the purpose of inducing the rendering of professional services or furnishing of products in connection with the licensed person's professional practice or business, as specified.’
It is also, in violation of the California Uniform Controlled Substances Act which states (page 36, Article 2, 11190. Prescriber’s Record for Schedule II Substance): ‘The prescriber’s record shall show the pathology and purpose for which the prescription is issued, or the
controlled substance administered, prescribed, or dispensed.’ As we all know, there is no pathology/objective abnormality/disease in ADHD—for which Schedule II, controlled substances are invariably prescribed.
There is no pathology in any psychiatric condition/diagnosis.”
Between 1990 and the present, the ADHD “epidemic” in the US has grown from one million (1,000,000) to six million (6,000,000)--virtually all of them on stimulant drugs.
All the while, psychiatry’s leadership, and ‘experts’ from CHADD and the NIMH have parried questioners/critics/doubters with claims they were from one anti-psychiatric group or the other, or that they were not true ADHD “experts.”
At no time do they answer the “Is it a disease—Yes or No?” question, and they continually assert, regarding the phenomenal size of the epidemic, that the only problems are those of ‘misdiagnosis’ and ‘over-diagnosis.’ It was for this reason that I [39] responded to the Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association (AMA): “Once children are labeled with ADHD, they are no longer treated as normal.
Once methylphenidate hydrochloride, or any psychiatric drug, courses through their brain and body, they are, for the first time, physically, neurologically, and biologically abnormal.”
It was for this reason, that on April 15, 1998, I wrote Attorney General, Janet Reno: “The single, biggest heath care fraud in US history—the representation of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to be an actual disease, and the drugging of millions of entirely normal American children, as “treatment,” is spreading
like a plague—still.” It was for this reason that I testified to the US Congress, September 29, 2000 [40]: “It would be a fraud for any physician to call ADHD or any psychiatric condition an actual disease.” Ladies and gentlemen of Europe, you have it within your power to permanently end the ADHD epidemic. Never forget: there is no abnormality; there is no disease—the children are normal.
Do this, most of all, for your children.
But do it also for all of your families, who could never imagine such a deception in the name of ‘medical treatment.’
_____________ BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Baughman, F. A., Jr., Hirsch, B.: Karyotyping of Cells from Cerebrospinal Fluid. The Lancet, 2:417, 1963. 2. Benda, C. E., Baughman, F. A., Jr.: Chromosomes and Thalidomide Med. Welt., 34:16161, 1963. 3. Hardman, J. S., Allen, L. W., Baughman, F. A., Jr., Waterman, D. F.: Subacute Necrotizing Encephalopathy in Late Adolescence. Archives of Neurology, 18:478-487, 1968. 4. Baughman, F. A., Jr., Vanderkolk, K. J., Mann, J. D., Valdmanis, A.: Two Cases of Primary Amenorrhea with Deletion of the Long Arm of the X-Chromosome (46, XXq), American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 102:1065-1069, 1968. 5. Forster, F.M., Paulsen, W. A., Baughman, F. A., Jr.: Clinical Therapeutic Conditioning in Reading Epilepsy, Neurology, 19:717-723, 1969. 6. Baughman, F. A., Jr., List, C. F., Williams, J. R., Muldoon, J. P., Segarra, J. M.: The Glioma-Polyposis Syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine, 281:1345-1346, 1969. 7. Baughman, F. A., Jr., Klinefelter’s Syndrome and Essential Tremor. The Lancet, Letter to the Editor, 545, 1969. 8. Baughman, F. A., Jr., Worchester, D. D.: Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum in a Case of Focal Dermal Hypoplasia. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, Volume XXXVII, No. 6, Nov.-Dec., 1970. 9. Baughman, F. A., Jr.: CHANDS: The Curly Hair-Ankylogle-pharon-Nail Dysplasia Syndrome. The Clinical Delineation of Birth Defects, Volume XII, 100, 1972. 10. Baughman, F. A., Jr., Mann, J. D.: Ascertainment of Seven YY Males in a Private Neurology Practice. JAMA 222:446-448, 1972. 11. Baughman, F. A., Jr., Higgins, J. V., Mann, J. D.: Sex Chromosome Anomalies and Essential Tremor. Neurology 23:623-625, 1973. 12. Baughman, F. A., Jr., Papp, J. P.: Wernicke’s Encephalopathy with Intravenous Hyperalimentation: Remarks on Similarities Betwen Wernicke’s Encephalopathy and the Phosphate Depletion Syndrome. Mount Sinai Journal of medicine, Volume 43:48, 1976. 13. Toriello, H. V., Lindstrom, J. A., Waterman, D. F., Baughman, F. A., Jr.: Re-Evaluation of CHANDS. Journal of Medical Genetics, 16:316, 1979. 14. Jensen PS. Announcement of the Consensus Development Conference on ADHD , National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, in the Spring,1998 ATTENTION magazine, published quarterly by Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorders—CHADD. 15. Griffith JD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Testimony to: Federal Involvement in the Use of Behavior Modification Drugs on Grammar School Children of The Right to Privacy Inquiry Hearing Before Subcommittee on The Committee on Government Operations House of Representatives 91st Congress, Second Session September 29, 1970. 16. Baughman FA Jr. Testimony at the NIH Consensus Development Conference on ADHD (transcript), November 16-18, 1998, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. 17. Jan Buitelaar and Ad Bergsma. Sociocultural factors and the treatment of ADHD. Attention Deficit/Hyperkinetic Disorders: Their Diagnosis and Treatment with Stimulants. Council of Europe; 2000:19-54. 18. Swanson J, Castellanos FX. Biological Bases of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. NIH Consensus Development Conference on ADHD (p 37-42, program and abstracts), November 16-18, 1998, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. 19. Swanson J. Transcript of presentation to the American Association of Adolescent Psychiatry (ASAP), March 7, 1998. 20. Castellanos FX, Giedd JN, March WL, et al. Quantitative brain magnetic resonance imaging in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1996;53:607-616. 21. Filipek PA, Semrud-Clikeman M, Steingard RJ, Renshaw PF, Kennedy DN, Biederman J. Volumetric MRI analysis comparing subjects having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder with normal controls. Neurology. 1997;48:589-601. 22. Swanson JM, Sergeant JA, Taylor E, Sonuga-Barke EJS, Jensen PS, Cantwell DP. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and hyperkinetic disorder. Lancet. 1998;351:429-433 23. DeGrandpre R. Ritalin Nation; Rapid-fire Culture and the Transformation of Human Consciousness, New York, WW Norton and Company;1999 24. Carey, WB. Is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder a Valid Disorder? Invited presentation to the NIH Consensus Development Conference on ADHD, November 16-18, 1998, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. 25. Balaban E, Alper JS, Kasamon YL. Mean Genes and the Biology of Aggression: A critical Review of Recent Animal and Human Research. 26. Baughman F. (comments on presentation of J. Swanson, November 16, 1998) NIH Consensus Development Conference on ADHD (transcript), November 16-18, 1998, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. 27. Vastag B. Pay Attention: Ritalin Acts Much Like Cocaine, JAMA, August 23, 2001 28. METHYLPHENIDATE (A Background Paper) US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration. October,1995, pps. 4,7] 29. Lambert N, Hartsough CS. Prospective study of tobacco smoking and substance dependence among samples of ADHD and non-ADHD subjects. J Learn. Disabil. 1998;31:533-544 30. Biederman J, Wilens T, Mick E, Spencer T, Faraone SV. Pharmacotherapy of Attention-deficit/HyperactivityDisorder Reduces Risk for Substance Use Disorder. PEDIATRICS Vol. 104 No. 2 August 1999, p. e20. 31. American Academy of Neurology: The First 50 Years, 1948-1998. Cohen MM (ed). AAN, St. Paul, MN. 1998:1-8. 32. Pearlman T. Clinical Psychiatric News (letters). December, 1994. 33. Armstrong T. The Myth of the ADD Child. New York, Plume:1997. 34. Feussner G, quoted in Dizon NZ. Recreational Use of Ritalin Feared, Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) May 5, 2000. 35. “Practice Trends,” Clinical Psychiatric News, May 2000, page 49 the Bazelon Center for Mental Health reports.” 36. Baughman FA Jr. Diagnosis and Evaluation of the Cjhild With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. PEDIATRICS, May, 2001:1239. 37. Koplewicz HS. It’s Nobody’s Fault—New Hope and Help for Difficult Children and Their Parents. Time Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, 1996. 38. Breggin PR. Psychostimulants in treatment of children diagnosed with ADHD: Risks and mechanism of action. International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine. 1999;12 39. Baughman FA. Treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. JAMA, 1999;281:1490. 40.
Baughman FA Jr.
THE MILLIONS OF CHILDREN LABELED ADD/ADHD WERE NORMAL ALL ALONG.
Testimony to Committee on Education and the Workforce, hearing entitled “Behavioral Drugs in Schools: Questions and Concerns,” held September 29, 2000, 9:00 a.m.,
in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, 20515-6100
P.S. It would be helpful in reading the writings of modern-day, psychiatric researchers, if a detailed financial statement was appended—one disclosing all sources of financial support both for the spokesperson/researcher and for all of his/her sponsoring institutions/organizations/companies. I am 98 percent self-supporting. I have occasionally received funding for travel to meetings and to testify before hearings from a variety of individuals and organizations.
|