APRIL 12, 2004. I continue to receive queries about Ritalin. It doesn't quit. It seems more parents are waking up to the fact that this is psychiatric drugging of children based on fake science and based on an eroded condition of the Bill of Rights.
If medical associations and drug companies seeking more $$$ and more CONTROL create a disease label (like ADHD), and if the government seeks to cement this label into place by APPLYING ONE IOTA OF COERCION to get a child to take Ritalin and submit to the diagnosis of a mental disorder, that is a crime in progress.
Who cares whether people like H. Clinton parade around urging a more graceful obedience to medical dictates vis-a-vis so-called mental disorders? There are idiots everywhere. Some occupy high place! s. They know nothing. They have their own agendas. They are themselves suckers who have bought into propaganda on the subject of "mental disorders."
The "kinder, gentler" approach to "mental disorders" is, at one level, nothing more than PR bought and paid for by drug companies. At a much higher level, it is an attempt to brainwash society into believing that all of us have some mental disorder or another. In other words, we're all a little sick, and we need drugs to get better.
This latter control strategy has the goal of making all dissident opinion about ANYTHING into a symptom of a disease which needs to be treated.
In 1986, The International Journal of the Addictions published a most important literature review by Richard Scarnati. It was called �An Outline of Hazardous Side Effects of Ritalin (Methylphenidate)� [v.21(7), pp. 837-841].
Scarnati listed a large number of adverse affects of ! Ritalin and cited published journal articles which reported each of these symptoms.
For every one of the following (selected and quoted verbatim) Ritalin effects, there is at least one confirming source in the medical literature:
Brain damage may be seen with amphetamine abuse.
Many parents around the country have discovered that Ritalin has become a condition for their children continuing in school. There are even reports, by parents, of threats from social agencies: �If you don't allow us to prescribe Ritalin for your ADD child, we may decide that you are an unfit parent. We may decide to take your child away.�
This mind-boggling state of affairs is fueled by teachers, principals, and school counselors, none of whom have medical training. Yet even if they did�
The very definition of the �illnesses� for which Ritalin would be prescribed is in doubt, especially at the highest levels of the medical profession. This doubt, however, has not filtered down to most public schools.
In commenting on Dr. Lawrence Diller's book, Running on Ritalin, Dr. William Carey, Director of Behaviora! l Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has written, �Dr. Diller has correctly described... the disturbing trend of blaming children's social, behavioral, and academic performance problems entirely on an unproven brain deficit...�
On November 16-18, 1998, the National Institute of Mental Health held the prestigious �NIH Consensus Development Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD].� The conference was explicitly aimed at ending all debate about the diagnoses of ADD, ADHD, and about the prescription of Ritalin. It was hoped that at the highest levels of medical research and bureaucracy, a clear position would be taken: this is what ADHD is, this is where it comes from, and these are the drugs it should be treated with. That didn't happen, amazingly. Instead, the official panel responsible for drawing conclusions from the conference threw cold water on the whole attempt to reach a comfortable consensus.
! Panel member Mark Vonnegut, a Massachusetts pediatrician, said, �The diagnosis [of ADHD] is a mess.�
The panel essentially said it was not sure ADHD was even a �valid� diagnosis. In other words, ADD and ADHD might be nothing more than attempts to categorize certain children's behaviors - with no organic cause, no clear-cut biological basis, no provable reason for even using the ADD or ADHD labels.
The panel found �no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction [which malfunction had been the whole psychiatric assumption].�
The panel found that Ritalin has not been shown to have long-term benefits. In fact, the panel stated that Ritalin has resulted in �little improvement on academic achievement or social skills.�
Panel chairman, David Kupfer, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, said, �There is no current validated diagnostic test [for ADHD].�
Yet at e! very level of public education in America, there remains what can only be called a voracious desire to give children Ritalin (or other similar drugs) for ADD or ADHD.
The following pronouncement makes a number of things clear: The 1994 Textbook of Psychiatry, published by the American Psychiatric Press, contains this review (Popper and Steingard) �Stimulants [such as Ritalin] do not produce lasting improvements in aggressivity, conduct disorder, criminality, education achievement, job functioning, marital relationships, or long-term adjustment.�
Parents should also wake up to the fact that, in the aftermath of the Littleton, Colorado, school-shooting tragedy, pundits and doctors began urging much more extensive �mental health� services for children. Whether you have noticed it or not, this no longer means, for the most part, therapy with a caring professional. It means drugs. Drugs like Ritalin.
In December 1996, the US Drug Enforcement Agency held a co! nference on ADHD and Ritalin. Surprisingly, it issued a sensible statement about drugs being a bad substitute for the presence of caring parents: �[T]he use of stimulants [such as Ritalin] for the short-term improvement of behavior and underachievement may be thwarting efforts to address the children's real issues, both on an individual and societal level. The lack of long-term positive results with the use of stimulants and the specter of previous and potential stimulant abuse epidemics, give cause to worry about the future. The dramatic increase in the use of methylphenidate [Ritalin] in the 1990s should be viewed as a marker or warning to society about the problems children are having and how we view and address them.�
In his book, Talking Back to Ritalin, Dr. Peter Breggin expands on the drug's effects: �Stimulants such as Ritalin and amphetamine... have grossly harmful impacts on the brain -- reducing overall blood flow, disturbing glucose metabolism, and possibly! causing permanent shrinkage or atrophy of the brain.�
In the American press, although many articles have appeared covering �the debate� about Ritalin and ADHD, no newspaper or TV network has taken it upon itself to hammer on all the lies, day after day, month after month. That kind of campaign could turn around the whole nation on this vital subject---but of course, pharmaceutical advertising is a more powerful force.
And one should not forget that Ritalin came out of a Swiss drug giant called Ciba Geigy (now Novartis) fifty years ago. That company once had very close business ties with the infamous Nazi cartel, IG Farben. Farben stood for inhuman experiments on human beings. Read the adverse effects of Ritalin again, and consider that millions of little kids take those pills every day.
JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com
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