Adult ADD

What is everyones oppinon on Adult ADD? My opinion is that it’s crap but based on my own “Situation” i’m starting to think it’s a real issue with some people, perhaps myself.

La’
redsol1

So you think it is crap but you are starting to think that it isn’t crap? im not trying to sound like dick.

I personally think I have it.

tr

[quote]trailrash wrote:
So you think it is crap but you are starting to think that it isn’t crap? im not trying to sound like dick.

I personally think I have it.

tr[/quote]

I thought it was crap but now i’m starting to think diferently based on some frustrations i’m having with my own behavior and performance.

One of the best things about being human is the ability to change our minds. I just wish someone would change mine out with a better moddel.

La’

REdsol1

I see…

I personally can hardly read a book anymore. I cant stay focused on what I am reading and it is tough to stay focused on specific tasks at hand. I never seem to finish projects before I move to the next either. I can carry on a conversation and my mind will wander during the whole thing because I am thinking of other things.

To sum it up, I have the attention span of a 2 year old a lot of the time. I’m not sure if this is ADD but whatever it is it sucks. While my performance at work is good I think I could do much better if I didnt have these problems. Or maybe I just have too much going on… who knows

TR

If it is any consolation, I think you are retarded. What was this thread about?

Dan

[quote]Dan Fouts wrote:
If it is any consolation, I think you are retarded. What was this thread about?

Dan[/quote]

What was that again??

La’
Redsol1

I understand the feeling. I find it difficult to stick to doing just one thing, and I’ve always been like that. I also find myself thinking of other things while reading or listening to someone else speak.

I don’t know to what extent those behaviors are normal, and I’m not sure that medication is really the solution. I’m generally of the opinion that one can train oneself to pay better attention, but I don’t have any empirical evidence to support that claim.

[quote]nephorm wrote:
I understand the feeling. I find it difficult to stick to doing just one thing, and I’ve always been like that. I also find myself thinking of other things while reading or listening to someone else speak.

I don’t know to what extent those behaviors are normal, and I’m not sure that medication is really the solution. I’m generally of the opinion that one can train oneself to pay better attention, but I don’t have any empirical evidence to support that claim.[/quote]

I agree with Nephorm. I definitely wouldn’t head in the medication direction right away.

First I’d make a conscious effort to improve your concentration, kind of like the way you make an effort to improve your body. Take a mental task you want to accomplish like reading a book or playing chess and then set aside a specific length of time each day to concentrate on that activity.

After it becomes easier to focus, you can slowly lengthen the time you require yourself to concentrate for, much like you’d up the volume for a given program when you’re just getting into weightlifting.

I personally think it’s crap. I work with kids as a career and a good 85% have some diagnosis of some sort. I hate it. I hate labels and it’s way too easy to get saddled with one. As soon as a kid picks up this or any diagnosis it becomes a crutch and excuse for their behaviors. I don’t believe a word of it and I especially don’t believe in ADD for adults. Please don’t buy into this.

I also…wait…um…what were we talking about again?

I was diganosed with ADD when I was 9 or so…I’m also dyslexic. You play the hand you’re dealt, I suppose…

If you want to read a book about it, try “Delivered from Distraction” by Hallowell.

I got about halfway through it before I got distracted and started reading something else, but the first half was good.

Thanks for all your imput guys. I’m certinly not looking for a pill for ingerety, but at this point i’m looking for some more concrete answers so I can look in the right direction. One of the main reasons i’ve not gone to a doctor or talked to a professional is i’m terified that they will put me on meds. I agree that almost all kids diagnosed with ADD don’t realy have a psycological problem, it’s more parenting and self-control.

La’
Redsol1

[quote]Anthony Roberts wrote:
I was diganosed with ADD when I was 9 or so…I’m also dyslexic. You play the hand you’re dealt, I suppose…[/quote]

Yea, i’m dyslexic as well. I have Transpositional dyslexia, which is where numbers and letters flip position, instead of invert.

La’
Redsol1

I hear there is a type of brain scan you can get that can identify problems in the brain. The cause of ADD is supposedly when a certain part of your brain responsible for producting seratonin, is not fully developed.

I am by no means an expert but I am a psych grad student and have worked with neuropsychologists who diagnose ADD in adults. I also have (at least) one family member with it. I’m as skeptical as anyone of over-diagnosis but I have seen the effect of ADD in standardized, clinical situations as well as in everyday life. It’s not just a collection of bad habits although having them can excarbate the situation. In my experience, medication is never enough and often unnecessary. Most of the brightest adults with ADD that I know choose not to be on medication and instead use other strategies to compensate.

I personally don’t like the term “Adult ADD” because it is the same ADD that children have; you don’t develop it later in life. There is just more awareness that it can affect adults. If your symptoms are totally new, it is NOT ADD. It can be missed in bright children until later in life–if they are not hyperactive (and hyperactivity is not essential), they can often use their intelligence to compensate until there is more of a demand–like in college, grad school or when working. Adults often grow out of the hyperactivity but continue to have the inattentive symptoms.

As far as I know, brain scans aren’t enough for a diagnosis. Usually a neuropsych eval is needed. Sometimes if mentioned to a primary care doc, they will just prescribe meds and nothing else. One unofficial way to test if it’s a possibility is to gauge your reaction to stimulants–ritalin is a stimulant and CALMS people with ADD (my understanding is that it excites inhibitory pathways) while others who take it will be more energized. Same goes with caffeine.

Hope that helps!

Schools get paid money for every student they have that is labled adhd. That is why there has been an epdemic of add in America.

Add is medical fraud check out this website. http://www.adhdfraud.org/

Articles, essays, and other information pertaining to the fraud of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)–Compiled by Dr. Fred Baughman
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD has been an adult & child neurologist, in private practice, for 35 years. Making “disease” (real diseases–epilepsy, brain tumor, multiple sclerosis, etc.) or “no disease” (emotional, psychological, psychiatric) diagnoses daily, he has discovered and described real, bona fide diseases.

It is this particular medical and scientific background that has led him to view the “epidemic” of one particular “disease”–Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)–with increasing alarm. Dr. Baughman describes this himself. Referring to psychiatry, he says:

“They made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive–termed them a ‘disease.’ Twenty five years of research, not deserving of the term ‘research.,’ has failed to validate ADD/ADHD as a disease. Tragically–the “epidemic” having grown from 500 thousand in 1985 to between 5 and 7 million today–this remains the state of the ‘science’ of ADHD.”

In addition to scientific articles that have appeared in leading national and international medical journals, Dr. Baughman has testified for victimized parents and children in ADHD/Ritalin legal cases, writes for the print media and appears on talk radio shows, always making the point that ADHD is fraudulent–a creation of the psychiatric-pharmaceutical cartel, without which they would have nothing to prescribe their dangerous, addictive, Schedule II, stimulants for–namely, Ritalin (methylphenindate), Dexedrine (dextro-amphetamine), Adderall (mixed dextro- and levo-amphetamine) and, Gradumet, and Desoxyn (both of which are methamphetamine, ‘speed,’ ‘ice’).

The entire country, including all 5-7 million with the ADHD diagnosis today, have been deceived and victimized; deprived of their informed consent rights and drugged–for profit! It must be stopped. Now!

THE CASE AGAINST DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF ADHD AND RELATED DISORDERS AND THEIR TREATMENT WITH STIMULANTS

(presentation to the Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe, November 23, 2001)

by Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD?Neurologist/Pediatric Neurologist

El Cajon, California, USA

First, I must explain that I am a neurologist, not a psychiatrist. It is essential that the reader know this, because neurologists, not psychiatrists, are medically and legally responsible for the diagnosis and treatment of actual abnormalities/diseases of the brain. Psychiatrists, on the other hand are responsible only for the emotional and behavioral problems of physically/medically normal children/persons. Actual abnormalities/diseases, are ruled out by non-psychiatric physicians before they refer them to psychiatrists or to other ?mental health? practitioners.

Throughout the eighties and nineties, I witnessed the exploding ADHD epidemic. Just as it was my duty to my every patient to diagnose actual disease when it was present, it was equally my duty to make clear to them that they had no disease, when that was the case?when no abnormality could be found. That was the case with every child and adult referred with a diagnosis of ADHD. Moreover, it was my duty to know the scientific literature concerning every real, neurological disease, and every purported neurological disease as well. Neither could I find validation of ADHD in the medical/scientific literature. Finally, I am a neurologist who has discovered and reported real neurological and genetic diseases [1-13]. By contrast, in 40 years of pseudo-scientific research, ?biological psychiatry,? has yet to validate a single psychiatric condition/diagnosis as an abnormality/disease, or as anything ?neurological,? ?biological,? ?chemically-imbalanced? or ?genetic.? Out of deference to the almighty, psychiatric-pharmaceutical cartel, other neurologists and neurological associations neglect to speak of these false representations of emotional and behavioral patterns as ?brain diseases? due to ?chemical imbalances of the brain.?

Announcing the November, 1998, National Institutes of Health (NIH), ADHD-Consensus Conference, Planning Committee Chairman, Peter Jensen [14] , of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), also a member of the Professional Advisory Board of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorders (CHADD), wrote:

??AD/HD has been surrounded by long-standing controversy. This controversy surrounds the actual diagnosis of AD/HD?that is, whether the diagnosis simply ?pathologizes? (labels abnormal/diseased) normal child behavior and whether it is a function of large (school) classes, to busy parents, or the machinations of a medical/pharmaceutical cabal.?

Here, Jensen defines the essence of the controversy–not Ritalin or amphetamines and the risks they bear?all drugs bear risks-- but whether or not ADHD is a bona fide disease.

In testimony at 1970 Congressional Hearings on whether or not to fund research into pharmacological (drug) treatment for school problems, Dr. John D. Griffith [15], Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, posited:

?I would like to point out that every drug, however innocuous, has some degree of toxicity. A drug, therefore, is a type of poison and its poisonous qualities must be carefully weighed against its therapeutic usefulness. A problem, now being considered in most of the Capitols of the Free World, is whether the benefits derived from Amphetamines outweigh their toxicity. It is the consensus of the World Scientific Literature that the Amphetamines are of very little benefit to mankind. They are, however, quite toxic.?

Nor is the essence of the controversy whether or not ADHD is ?misdiagnosed? or ?over-diagnosed.? If it doesn?t exist (as a physical abnormality/disease)?and it does not?it is, as I [16] testified at the National Institutes of Health, November, 16-18, 1998, Consensus Conference on ADHD, a ?total, 100% fraud.?

I am against the treatment of ADHD and of all psychiatric conditions with Schedule II, stimulants because none are actual diseases having confirmatory, demonstrable/diagnosable, objective, abnormalities. For simplicity?s sake, I urge all non-physicians to remember that the abnormality is the disease; no abnormality, no disease.

[slide #1: no abnormality = no disease = normal; whole body/brain abnormality (diabetes); focal body abnormality (stomach cancer); focal brain abnormality (stroke, cancer); psychiatric conditions (all) = no abnormality = no disease = medically/physically normal.]

The first duty of all physicians, with the notable exception of psychiatrists, is to determine whether a disease/abnormality is present, or not present. A third to a half of all persons who visit their physician have complaints/symptoms (subjective), but no abnormality/disease (objective). It is from this group, in whom abnormality/disease has been ruled out/excluded, that patients in need of psychiatric/mental health referral are found.

The fundamental issue before us, and before all countries of the developed world is whether or not ADHD is a bona fide, diagnosable disease or not. If not, if the children are normal, as I know them to be, they are not medical patients and no medical treatment is necessary, or justified. Rather, their unmet needs lie, as in generations-past, with their parents, teachers, and with their communities. In my generation, fortunately, psychiatry and psychology had not yet invaded the schools, and literacy-, achievement-, and graduation- rates were infinitely higher than they are today.

Debate of the issue of whether or not ADHD and other psychiatric conditions/diagnoses are abnormalities/diseases, as psychiatry claims, is well-framed in the presentation of Jan Buitelaar and Ad Bergsma [17] to the Pompidou Group, December 8-10, 1999. I will refer to and comment upon the main point they make

Buitelaar and Bergsma, page 19, paragraph 2:

?From the standpoint of child psychiatry, ADHD is a categorical (absolute, unequivocal) diagnosis that may be conferred following a systematic evaluation and eventually using validated behavior checklists and interview procedures. ADHD is associated with functional and morphological abnormalities of the brain and is predominantly due to genetic factors.?

The diagnostic tools of psychiatry: behavior checklists, structured interviews, achievement and aptitude tests, never seek or demonstrate actual physical abnormalities/diseases. And yet, having proven no such things, they claim: ?ADHD is associated with functional and morphological abnormalities of the brain and that it is due, predominantly, to genetic factors.?

Swanson, a psychologist, presenting for he and Castellanos [18], spoke at the ADHD Consensus Conference (1998) on the subject of ?Biological Bases of ADHD: Neuroanatomy, Genetics, and Pathophysiology.? In fact there is no one or several biological bases of ADHD?not anatomic, not genetic, and not physiologic. Nor are there today. Did Swanson intend to deceive?

As a speaker at the American Society of Adolescent Psychiatry, March 6-8, 1998, Swanson [19] reported that the MRI (brain scan) research of Castellanos, et al [20] and Filipek, et al [21] showed brain atrophy in children with ADHD, but not in controls.

From a floor microphone, I pointed out that 93% of the subjects in the Castellanos [20] study had been on chronic stimulant therapy, and inquired as to the stimulant status of those in the Filipek [21] study, which I had not yet read. Swanson acknowledged that the ADHD subjects in the Filipek study, as well, had been on chronic stimulant therapy–an acknowledgment not heard in his lecture or seen in his review of the same research in a February, 1998, Lancet article [22]. Instead of confirmation of brain atrophy due to ADHD, i.e., an ADHD phenotype?we had strong, replicated, evidence that it was the stimulant therapy (methylphenidate/amphetamine) that was the cause of the brain atrophy. Swanson [19] lamented:

?I would like to have an objective diagnosis for the disorder (ADHD). Right now psychiatric diagnosis is completely subjective?We would like to have biological tests–a dream of psychiatry for many years.?

Saying ?psychiatric diagnosis is completely subjective,? when–absent an objective abnormality, there is no disease–is a confession, from Swanson–a leading ADHD researcher-- that there is no such thing as a psychiatric/psychological disease.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, page 19, paragraph 2:

?From a different standpoint?one that has been popularized in the media?ADHD is viewed as a stigmatizing and harmful label attached to children who are difficult to handle.?

Finding no abnormality in the ?ADHD child? the pseudo-medical label is nothing but ?stigmatizing; ? the unwarranted drug treatment that invariably follows–nothing but ?harmful??a physical assault.

[slide #2: ?ADHD? = no abnormality = no disease = NORMAL = ?stigmatizing and harmful?]

Buitelaar and Bergsma,19;2:

??ADHD is a manifestation of a ?deficiency in family, school, society and medicine? [23]. These words show that there are serious doubts about the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD…one should investigate if there is something wrong with child psychiatry. The claim that children are harmed is serious enough to investigate.?

Absent evidence of an abnormality/disease, DeGrandpre is entirely correct. Claiming these are diseases, with no proof whatsoever, there is, undoubtedly, something wrong with child psychiatry.

All who are ?diagnosed? and ?treated??6 million previously normal schoolchildren, in the US?are being harmed. Surely this is serious enough to launch a criminal investigation.

The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), MedWatch* program, a wholly voluntary system for the reporting of post-marketing complications of drugs, reported the following adverse reactions (AR) from methylphenidate (Ritalin and all generic and proprietary forms), from 1990-1997:

160 deaths**

569 hospitalizations--36 life-threatening.

949 central or peripheral nervous system occurrences

126 cardiovascular occurrences:     

     6 cases of  "cardiomyopathy"

   12 of "arrhythmia"

     7 of "bradycardia" (slow pulse) 

     5 of "bundle branch block" (impairment of heart?s conduction apparatus) 

     4 of "EKG abnormality"

     5 "extrasystole" (heart rhythm abnormalities) 

     3 "heart arrest"

     2 heart failure, right"

   10 "hypotension," (low BP) 

     1 "myocardial infarction"

   15 "tachycardia" (rapid pulse).

*Figures from post-marketing, voluntary reporting systems, such as this, in which the physicians having had bad luck with a drug are the one’s deciding whether to report or not, are estimated to report no more than 1 to10 percent of actual adverse reactions. All of these are real, bona fide instances of abnormality/disease, while, by comparison, no psychiatric condition/diagnosis for which the drug treatment was undertaken, is.

**Between 1997 and 2000 there have been an additional 26 deaths attributed to methylphenidate (all prescription forms of it) bringing the total reported to FDA, MedWatch for the decade, 1990-2000, to 186.

The following children are no longer hyperactive or inattentive–they are dead. Between 1994 and the present I have been consulted, medically or legally, formally or informally, in the following death cases.

Stephanie Hall, 11 y.o., Canton, OH. ?ADHD,? Ritalin, cardiac arrhythmia.

Matthew Smith, 13 y.o., Clawson, MI. ?ADHD,? Ritalin, cardiomyopathy.

Macauley Showalter, 7 y.o. Ritalin and 3 other psychiatric drugs. Cardiac arrest.

Travis Neal 13 y.o., Chattanooga, TN. Ritalin, cardiomyopathy

Randy Steel, 9 y.o. San Antonio, TX. Dexedrine + several drugs, cardiac arrest.

Cameron Pettus, 12 y.o, Austin, TX. Desipramine, hyper-eosinophilic syndrome.

In the Ventura County (California) Star, Friday, October 19, 2001, we learned of another such death. The article read:

?California heart death of 17 year old Ritalin case?Ventura High teen’s death a mystery, tests pending. Many mourn popular senior found dead in bed by stepbrother at Oxnard home?She functioned with attention deficit disorder (ADD) all her life. From age 10, she was on Ritalin for three years before she was taken off it because it caused severe heart problems.?

This is a high price to pay for the ?treatment? of a ?disease? that does not exist. Much to the liking of the psycho-pharm cartel, we, in the US, have no nation-wide data- gathering system that allows us to know the exact number of Ritalin-induced deaths, or, of those induced by any other psychiatric medications.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 22;2:

?The first of the three core symptoms of ADHD is a developmentally inappropriate level of attention and concentration.?

Saying ?developmentally inappropriate? they mean subnormal/abnormal/diseased, as they must to make ?medical patients? of normal children. Addressing the subject: Is ADHD a Valid Disorder? at the November 16-18, 1998, NIH, Consensus Conference on ADHD, Carey [24] concluded:

"?common assumptions about ADHD include that it is clearly

distinguishable from normal behavior, constitutes a neurodevelopmental

disability, is relatively uninfluenced by the environment? All of these

assumptions?must be challenged because of the weakness of empirical

(research) support and the strength of contrary evidence?What is now

most often described as ADHD in the United States appears to be a set of

normal behavioral variations? This discrepancy leaves the validity of

the construct (ADD/ADHD) in doubt?"

With no proof with which to counter Carey’s assertions, the final statement of the Consensus Conference Panel read (p.3, lines 10-13):

“?we do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there are no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction.”

Remarkably, this wording appeared in the version of the final statement of the Consensus Conference Panel distributed at the press conference, the final session of the conference, November, 18, 1998. This ?confession? appeared for an indeterminate few weeks on the NIH web site, but was subsequently removed and replaced with wording claiming ?validity? for ADHD.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 22;4-23;1:

??ADHD can co-occur with various other child psychiatric disorders. This is called comorbidity ? forty percent may also meet the diagnostic criteria for ?oppositional defiant disorder? (ODD)? twenty percent?have a conduct disorder (CD)?Learning disorders, especially trouble with reading?are more prevalent. To put it simply: when ADHD children are in trouble they know only one way out: violence.?

They refer to each behavior pattern as a disease. None of them are. When ADHD is comorbid with CD and ODD, violence–biologically determined–they would have you believe–is inevitable. In 1972, Baughman and Mann [10], reported that XYY was not a ?criminal? genotype, as previously thought. Nor have, ?mean genes? or a criminal genotype otherwise, ever been validated [25]. Writing: ?ADHD children know only one way out: violence? could not possibly be more demonizing/stigmatizing. And they do it with not a shred of scientific evidence.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 24;3:

?The evidence suggests that ADHD is caused by interplay between genetic and environmental factors, with the genetic factors being most important [18,19].?

Again, they refer to behavioral patterns–as separate diseases, each with it?s own causal, genetic defect. None are abnormalities/diseases/abnormal phenotypes due to a gene defect–an abnormal genotype. Normal women have a 46 XX genotype and a normal physique/phenotype. In psychiatry there is no abnormality/no abnormal phenotype, begot by an abnormal genotype?not even one!

[slide: no abnormality = no disease = normal phenotype = normal genotype = NORMAL]

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 25;1:

?It has been shown that ADHD is associated with several abnormalities of the brain. The frontal lobes of the brain?are about seven percent smaller than average in children with ADHD.?

The title of the Swanson and Castellanos, [18] Consensus Conference presentation was ?Biological Bases of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,? as if there was a biological basis or bases. Reviewing the brain scanning literature, they reported that the brains of ADHD subjects were, on average, 10% smaller than those of normal controls. What they neglected to say, until Baughman [26] challenged Swanson (presenting), from a floor microphone, was that virtually all ADHD subjects, in the 12 years of brain scanning research reviewed, 1986-1998, had been on long-term methylphenidate/amphetamine therapy, and, that this?their medication–was the only physical difference between the ADHD subjects and normal controls, and the probable cause of their brain atrophy.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 25; 3:

?The medication (stimulants) is addictive for animals, but surprisingly, not for children with ADHD when prescribed and used appropriately.?

Incredibly, they claim that methyphenidate/amphetamines, classified, since 1971, as highly addictive, Schedule II, are not addictive by virtue of their being ?prescribed and used appropriately.? Regarding the addictive potential of methylphenidate, Vastag [27] recently wrote, in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA):

?Taken orally, in pill form, methylphenidate rarely produces a high and has not been reported to be addictive.?

The US Drug Enforcement Administration [28] makes no such exception:

?In reality? there is an abundance of scientific literature which indicates that methylphenidate shares the same abuse potential as other Schedule II stimulants.?

In a prospective, longitudinal study of 492 ADHD subjects, Lambert [29] finds that childhood use of stimulant treatment ?is significantly and pervasively implicated in the uptake of regular smoking, in daily smoking in adulthood, in cocaine dependence, and in lifetime use of cocaine and stimulants.

Biederman [30], assessing substance use disorders (SUD) in 56 medicated subjects (with ADHD) and in a mere 19 (nineteen) non-medicated, subjects, conclude (1) that untreated ADHD?a non-disease, mind you?was a risk factor for SUD in adolescence, and (2) that treatment with psychostimulants was associated with an 85% reduction in risk for SUD in ADHD youth. In other words, the greater the percentage of those with ADHD who take their Schedule II, controlled, methylphenidate/amphetamine, ?appropriately,? and, ?as prescribed,? the fewer who will develop SUD. Those who favor this view regularly site Biederman [30], while failing to site Lambert [29] .

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 26; 2:

?The overall aim of psychosocial treatments is to try to change the environment in a way that compensates for ADHD children?s lack of self-regulation?

Here, psychiatry reiterates that we are dealing with an abnormality within the child. ?It?s Nobody?s Fault.? This is the name of a popular book by NYU psychiatrist, Harold S. Koplewicz who says such ?no-fault? brain disorders? are the result of ?DNA Roulette??psychiatry?s mysterious, never proved, genetic abnormality. They cite the high prevalence of familial cases, ignoring the fact that classrooms and whole elementary schools with more than 50% affected, abound in the US, defying scientific explanation.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 29;1 (regarding the evolution of psychiatry):

?Mental disorders changed from being intra-psychic problems, to the consequences of unhealthy social environments, and finally to biological abnormalities in the neurotransmitter balances of the brain. Psychotropic medication is the product of biological psychiatry and has revolutionized the treatment of psychiatric patients.?

In 1948 the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology [31] decreed that ?neuropsychiatry,? be split into the two, new, specialties: ?neurology? and ?psychiatry.? By mutual understanding, neurology would deal with physical abnormalities/diseases of the brain/nervous system, while psychiatry would confine it?s attention to the emotional and behavioral problems of physically/medically normal persons. All non-psychiatric physicians know it is they who do the ruling out of abnormalities/diseases before referring patients to a psychiatrists. Only the public is deceived. Psychiatry?s claims of ?diseases? and ?chemical imbalances? have no basis in medical science and is nothing more than a contrived, market-place deception?one authored and orchestrated by the American Psychiatric Association in collusion with Big Pharma (the world-wide pharmaceutical industry. In this scenario every emotional/behavioral problem becomes a ?brain disease? due to a ?chemical imbalance of the brain,? needing a ?chemical balancer??a pill.

Pearlman [32], a concerned psychiatrist, wrote to the American Psychiatric Association:

??elimination of the term ?organic? (from DSM-IV) conveys the impression that psychiatry wishes to conceal the nonorganic character of many behavioral problems that were, in previous DSM publications, clearly differentiated from known central nervous system diseases.?

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 30;2:

?While a child psychiatrist claims that ADHD has to do with genetically determined deficiencies in?the brain, parents or teachers may think the real problem is lack of motivation.?

All that matters are the scientific facts. In calling ADHD an abnormality/disease, without scientific facts, psychiatry knowingly lies, and violates the informed consent rights of the patient and his parents. This is de facto medical malpractice.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 31;1:

?Armstrong [33] has found an emotional way of saying that all the scientific talk about ADHD just does not feel right. Texts like this are not uncommon among authors opposed to the medical treatment of ADHD??

Psychiatry has demonstrated no abnormality/disease within the children, but proceeds to drug them nonetheless?by the millions. An emotional reaction, even outrage, seems entirely appropriate.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 32;1:

?The first question is whether ADHD is a disease or not. The second is the situation specificity of ADHD. The third subject is at the heart of the controversy and deals with medication for ADHD.?

There is no abnormality/disease to treat–to make normal. The disease/no disease question is the heart of the controversy. Claims that ADHD and all other psychiatric conditions/diagnoses are abnormalities/diseases is the lynch-pin of the psycho-pharmaceutical fraud.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 32; Table. ?Summary of opposing views of the concept of ADHD and its treatment with stimulants? (herein, Buitelaar and Bergsma provide the text for ?Opposing? and ?Psychiatry? and I (Baughman) append my opinion)

Opposing: ?ADHD is not a real disease or disorder but a social stigma??

Psychiatry: ??well-defined ADHD is associated with brain abnormalities??

Baughman: no abnormality/disease has been proven in untreated subjects with ADHD. The only brain abnormalities/dysfunction in ADHD are those due to it?s drug treatment.

Opposing: ?there is no biological or psychological test available to diagnose ADHD.?

Psychiatry: ?true, but (this) applies to all psychiatric syndromes like schizophrenia, depression and even dementia.?

Baughman: the term ?syndrome,? in medicine means the same thing as disease. There must be an objective abnormality. No psychiatric condition is an abnormality/syndrome/disease. The dementias, as in Alzheimer?s and Huntington?s disease, are neurological, not psychiatric entities?actual diseases. Diffuse, abnormality/disease of the brain can always be verified, if not during life, then at post-mortem examination. This cannot be said of any psychiatric condition/diagnosis, schizophrenia and depression included. A favored lexical stratagem of theirs is to co-mingle psychiatric names/terms with neurological, hoping the reader will think that the psychiatric entities of which they speak/write, are brain diseases, as well.

Opposing: ?treatment with medication medicalizes a psycho-social problem.?

Psychiatry: ?wrong.?

Baughman: ADHD is not at all an abnormality/disease/medical problem. To the extent it is believed to be, efforts to address it as the psycho-social-educational problem that it is, will be diverted. Treatment with medication, once begun, furthers the mistaken belief it is a medical problem.

Opposing: ?side-effects of treatment with psychostimulants are underestimated and outweigh beneficial effects.?

Psychiatry: ?wrong; the side-effects of stimulants have been thoroughly studied and found to be mild.?

Baughman: Both wrong. There is no abnormality/disease, the children are not medical patients; there is no justification for any drug treatment?all of which bear risks.

Opposing: ?the abuse potential of psychostimulants?is underestimated.?

Psychiatry: ?wrong; there are hardly any cases of ADHD reported who are abusing stimulants.?

Baughman: The DEA [28], observes:

?Whereas the majority of children experience only minor side effects under medically supervised controlled conditions, there are a significant number of case reports documenting more severe abuse. The reports and scientific studies of abuse potential are routinely down-played, if referenced at all. As a consequence, parents of children and adult patients are not being provided with the opportunity for informed consent or a true risk/benefit consideration in deciding whether methylphenidate therapy is appropriate.?

The largest such study, the prospective, longitudinal study of 492 ADHD subjects of Lambert [29] who finds that childhood use of stimulant treatment ?is significantly and pervasively implicated in the uptake of regular smoking, in daily smoking in adulthood, in cocaine dependence, and in lifetime use of cocaine and stimulants. Saying to individual patients and to the public-at-large that ?there are hardly any cases of ADHD reported who are abusing stimulants,? psychiatrists/psychiatry is violating the informed consent/self-determination rights of one and all. This, in most jurisdictions in the US, is tantamount to medical malpractice. More fundamental, by far than claiming these drugs are not addictive or dangerous is the total, 100% fraud of saying that ADHD is a disease, for the purpose of making normal children into medical patients and then, medicating them.

?A significant amount of data from school surveys, emergency room reports, poison control centers, adolescent drug treatment and law enforcement encounters all indicate a growing problem with the abuse of MPH among school children,? wrote Gretchen Feussner [34], a DEA pharmacologist, in a recent report. The DEA cited a 1997, Indiana University survey of 44,232 students that included a question about the non-medical use of Ritalin. Nearly 7 percent of high school students surveyed reported using Ritalin recreationally at least once in the previous year, and 2.5 percent reported using it monthly or more often. The DEA also counted nearly 2,000 cases of methylphenidate theft from January 1990 to May 1995 - ranking the drug among the top 10 controlled pharmaceuticals most frequently reported stolen. Emergency room admissions studied by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that in 1995 and 1996, patients ages 10 to 14 were just as likely to mention methylphenidate as cocaine in a drug-related emergency room episode. Nearly 75 percent said they had been using the drug for psychic effects or recreation.

Assessing substance use disorders (SUD), in ADHD in 56 medicated, and 19 (nineteen) non-medicated, subjects, Biederman, et al [30], conclude (1) that untreated ADHD (a non-disease) was a risk factor for SUD in adolescence, and (2) that treatment with psychostimulants was associated with an 85% reduction in risk for SUD in ADHD youth. They would have us believe that the greater the number of ADHD patients who take their Schedule II, controlled, methylphenidate/amphetamine, ?appropriately,? and, ?as prescribed,? the fewer who will develop SUD. Those who favor this view regularly site Biederman, et al [30], while failing to site Lambert [29] .

Opposing: ?the risk of promoting substance abuse is underestimated.?

Psychiatry: ?wrong, treatment with stimulants by contrast may decrease the risk for later substance-abuse.

Baughman: Here again, we have not just a denial of the truth–a statement that the Schedule II, psychostimulants are not addictive?but an inversion of the truth, a claim that ?treatment? with these substances of addiction for a disease that does not exist, will result in less addiction??substance use disorder??than would result were there no such ?treatment.? This is the view promulgated by Biederman et al [30] with follow-up of just 19 (nineteen) non-medicated ADHD subjects. This same view, always citing the Biederman study, is championed by none other than Alan I. Leshner, Director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), just as he pushes ADHD (the non-disease) itself, as a disease/physical variable which predisposes to addiction (just as obesity predisposes to diabetes).

The burden of proof always lies with those who say an abnormality/disease is present; with those who would start treatment without having first demonstrated the abnormality/disease. In diabetes we do not inject insulin before having proven the blood sugar is low, and exactly how low. We do not remove the amino acid phenylalanine from the diet of the newborn without having proved they have the real chemical imbalance?phenylketonuria (PKU). The burden of proof never rests with the questioning parents or patients, or their advocates who say ?show me proof of the abnormality; proof of the disease.? It always resides with those who say an abnormality/disease is present that must be treated, and before treatment is begun

A young father-of-divorce, a podiatrist, was meeting his son?s psychiatrist for the first time. He asked the psychiatrist why his son was on Ritalin. The psychiatrist responded, ?that?s because he has a ?chemical imbalance of the brain.? To that, the father responded: ?Please show me the laboratory results.? The psychiatrist, immediately uncomfortable, managed: ?Those charts are filed away?I can?t get to them just now.? But the father persisted in his demands to see confirmatory laboratory tests. To this, the psychiatrist became increasingly flustered, finally ?losing it,? banishing father and son from his office?permanently. Exposing the fraud was that simple.

(end of table)

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 34;5:

??it is certainly untrue that the diagnostic criteria apply to almost any normal active child.?

To this Carey [24] responds:

?What is now most often described as ADHD in the United States appears to be a set of normal behavioral variations?This discrepancy leaves the validity of the construct (ADHD) in doubt.?

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 36;2:

?For child psychiatry the question of whether or not ADHD is a disease, cannot be answered for certain, but this should not be an obstruction. The answer is simply not that important.?

It is absolutely unbelieveable that they?psychiatry–would say such a thing and at the same time press ADHD, and all psychiatric conditions/diagnoses, upon troubled, but normal ,children and adults as a diseases, with no purpose in mind other than to make ?medical patients? of them and drug them, throughout their life-span.

Consider the July 15, 1996, statement from influential, US Congressman, Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut:

?In ADHD, we are trying to draw the line between personality and pathology, and we are placing millions of children and adults on either side of the social, medical and legal boundary that divides the healthy from the sick. We should do so only with the greatest care, and with particular reticence to make our children medical patients…?

We, in the US, have said one thing and done the opposite. Nor would it have been possible, in the US, without the federal government legitimizing, in law, that which science and medicine cannot possibly validate.

To what extent do we legitimize ADHD? Consider this, from Clinical Psychiatric News [35].

?Approximately 2.1 - 4.1 million children, aged 9-17 years have a serious mental or emotional disorder. Last year, 23% of parents of children with behavioral disorders were told that they needed to relinquish custody to obtain intensive mental health services for their children; 20% actually gave up custody.?

This–as if they had severe diabetes, otherwise fatal heart disease, or tuberculosis, and would die without treatment which they had to be sent away for. But as we know not a single psychiatric condition/diagnosis is an actual disease; not a single one has an essential form of medical treatment, much less one that needs to be court-ordered and enforced.

Buitelaar and Bergsma, 36;3:

?Nowadays, child psychiatrists would say that the children are suffering from a neurobiological disorder and that punishment is not nearly as effective as treatment with medication.?

Clearly, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has also adopted the ?making-patients-of-normal-children? brand of ?mental health.? In the May, 2001 issue of PEDIATRICS, the journal of the AAP, Baughman [36] wrote:

?Clinical Practice Guideline (of the AAP) opens: ?Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is the most common neurobehavioral disorder of childhood.? ?Neurobehavioral,? implies an abnormality of the brain; a disease. And yet, no confirmatory, diagnostic, abnormality has been found. With six million children said to have it, most of them on addictive, dangerous, stimulants, ambiguity as to the scientific status of ADHD is not acceptable. ? It is apparent that virtually all professionals of the extended ADHD ?industry? convey to parents, and to the public-at-large, that ADHD is a ?disease? and that children said to have it are ?diseased?-?abnormal.? This is a perversion of the scientific record and a violation of the informed consent rights of all patients and of the public-at-large. The wording of the AAP Guideline should be changed, forthwith, to reflect the scientific and medical facts of the matter.?

No one from the AAP responded, not even it?s president, Steven Berman, MD, to whom I wrote separately, of this stark medical/scientific deception.

Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit Disorders?CHADD, is the nation?s largest ?disease? support group with over 600 chapters and 28,000 members nationwide. CHADD sponsors parent support groups, convenes meetings?both local and national, and works closely with schools, nationwide. CHADD calls ADHD a ?neurobiological disorder;? an abnormality/disease within the child/person. And they do so with their professional advisory board dominated, through the years, by researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health, who know, full-well, that no ?neurological? or ?biological? abnormality has ever been found in children/persons, diagnosed by DSM-IV or any other criteria, as having ADHD. Further, Ciba-Geigy, manufacturer of Ritalin contributed $748,000 to CHADD in the 1991-1994 period alone. They continue to garner financial support from virtually all who manufacture drugs prescribed for the invented disease?ADHD?without which there would be nothing to prescribe them for.

In 1995, the DEA [28] reported:

?A recent communication from the UN-INCB, expressed concern about non-governmental organizations and parental associations in the United States that are actively lobbying for the medical use of methylphenidate for children with ADHD. The INCB further stated that ?financial transfer from a pharmaceutical company with the purpose to promote sales of an internationally controlled substance would be identified as hidden advertisement and in contradiction with the provisions of the 1971 Convention (Article 10, para 3).??

The only bona fide neurological disease for which Schedule II, psychostimulants can legally be prescribed is narcolepsy, which accounts for no more than a fraction of one percent of all such prescriptions. The remaining 99-plus percent is prescribed, for US schoolchildren, for the fraudulent, invented, ?disease?–ADHD.

In the November 10, 2001, San Diego Union-Tribune, a parent wrote to psychologist/columnist, John Rosemond:

?This is my son?s first year in a new, private school. Already, his third-grade teacher has suggested that we have him tested for attention deficit disorder. I discovered that 65 (sixty-five) percent of the kids in the fifth grade at his school have been diagnosed with ADD and are taking medication.?

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/parents 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.

Good shit SiFu, seems right on to me…Although, does that get the record for longest post reply?

[quote]Sifu wrote a bunch of stuff including:

In my generation, fortunately, psychiatry and psychology had not yet invaded the schools, and literacy-, achievement-, and graduation- rates were infinitely higher than they are today.
[/quote]

I stopped reading when I got to this part, because I imagine that it’s indicative of the sloppy thinking that goes into the rest of the article. First of all, these rates were certainly not “infinitely higher” than current rates. Does the man even know what infinite means? Obviously not.

Further, any analysis of declining graduation or “achievement” rates would have to account for a multitude of other factors, including higher enrollment rates in poverty striken areas, change in curricula, etc. Also, I was under the impression that literacy rates have risen in the past 20 years. Finally, what the hell is a rate of “achievement?”

If you’re going to make this sort of argument, you have to define your terms and back things up with statistics.

It’s not crap. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was an adult. I had a very structured, organized home during childhood. Mom was a teacher and we were all of us on a routine and a schedule. Perfect for an ADD kid. But there were things I just could NOT get. I would try and try and would do the wrong thing or fail. When I started on Ritalin as an adult, all the stuff I couldn’t do, but knew I should do, I could suddenly do.

Most adults go to a professional and tell them what they have. The professional then goes through a few checklists, or asks a few questions and then you start on meds. I got mine at first from a shrink, but she wasn’t very good. (New out of college) Now I go to my regular GP doc and he’s great at adjusting dosages and meds.

Here’s an interesting tidbit. For a person with uncontrolled ADD, anything gets boring after fifteen minutes. Even sex. Good, bad, great, it didn’t matter. Fifteen minutes and I was done with it. I like being under control now!

Jean

I would encourage you to read the whole text of Dr. Baughmans testimony nephorm.

He might have overstated a point there, but he goes on to show how there has been some serious manipulation of data by the pharmaceutical industry.

How are you going to argue with these numbers.

The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), MedWatch* program, a wholly voluntary system for the reporting of post-marketing complications of drugs, reported the following adverse reactions (AR) from methylphenidate (Ritalin and all generic and proprietary forms), from 1990-1997:

160 deaths**

569 hospitalizations–36 life-threatening.

949 central or peripheral nervous system occurrences

126 cardiovascular occurrences:

6 cases of “cardiomyopathy”

12 of “arrhythmia”

7 of “bradycardia” (slow pulse)

5 of “bundle branch block” (impairment of heart?s conduction apparatus)

4 of “EKG abnormality”

5 “extrasystole” (heart rhythm abnormalities)

3 “heart arrest”

2 heart failure, right"

10 “hypotension,” (low BP)

1 “myocardial infarction”

15 “tachycardia” (rapid pulse).

*Figures from post-marketing, voluntary reporting systems, such as this, in which the physicians having had bad luck with a drug are the one’s deciding whether to report or not, are estimated to report no more than 1 to10 percent of actual adverse reactions. All of these are real, bona fide instances of abnormality/disease, while, by comparison, no psychiatric condition/diagnosis for which the drug treatment was undertaken, is.