COMMENTARY (9/15/00) OF FRED A. BAUGHMAN JR., MD REGARDING
Conspiracy Theory Suits Filed Against Ritalin Manufacturer, Doctors
By John McKenzie
N E W Y O R K, Sept. 14 Ritalin is the
psychiatric medication most commonly
prescribed to American children. Last year,
more than 9 million prescriptions were filled,
almost all of them to treat attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
But Ritalin is at the center of lawsuits
filed yesterday in New Jersey and
California, as well as one filed earlier this
summer in Texas.
The families behind the lawsuits claim
the rapid rise in the use of Ritalin is the
result of a conspiracy between Novartis
Pharmaceuticals Corporation, the
company that makes the drug, and some
of the doctors who prescribe it.
The suit alleges that, "Novartis, in
combination with the American
Psychiatric Association, conspired to create and promote
the diagnoses of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and
ADHD in a highly successful effort to increase the market
for Ritalin."
"The conspiracy is to create business for the
pharmaceutical company by overdefining or loosely
defining the disease such that it would fit every child in
America, and creating a market for clinical Psychologists
to treat these kids," says Dick Scruggs, the plaintiffs
attorney.
[Dr. Baughman:
and for adult and child psychiatrists, psychologists, all in
mental health, general and family practice physicians, pediatricians,
neurologists, educators, special educators]
Doctors Defend Themselves
The defendants respond by citing the Surgeon Generals
report, which says 3 to 5 percent of American children
have an attention deficit disorder. They argue the
symptoms doctors look for in making the diagnosis are
scientifically established.
[Dr. Baughman:
The lynch-pin of the fraud is that ADD/ADHD, since its first
conceptualization, in-committee, at the American Psychiatric
Association, in 1980, has been stridently represented to one and all in
the US to be a disease, due to an abnormalitya chemical
imbalance--within the brain of the child. Claiming ADHD to be a
disease, they would then have a disease on the risk side of the
risk/ benefit equation, just as in treatment equations in the rest
of medicine. Take, for example, the treatment of diabetes with insulin.
Diabetes is a real disease and is the main source of risk in the
diabetes/insulin treatment equation. However all treatments, be they
medical/pharmaceutical or surgical bear risks as well, and ought not to
be initiated unless their is a true probability of net physical
benefit. Without a disease (or an illusion of a disease) psychiatry,
in collusion with the pharmaceutical industry, would have no disease
to treat and would have no justification or appearance of justification
for treating with drugs, which are foreign substances; poisons; which in
the absence of disease would be the only source of physical risk to the
child/person. Treatment with insulin is always fraught with dangers,
but in the face of uncontrolled diabetes, is justifiable. In the
Ritalin/amphetamine treatment of ADHD what we have are dangerous,
addictive, sometime deadly, drugs on the benefit side of the equation
and a normal child/person; one having no abnormality, no disease ( =
normal) on the risk side of the risk benefit equation. Quite simply
there is no justification for recommending that such treatment
proceed. With no disease in the risk/ benefit computation there
is no scientific, medical, ethical or moral justification to proceed
with such treatment. With no disease there is no patient and no
treatment whatsoever is called for.]
"There is absolutely no conspiracy here," says Dr.
Steven Mirin of the American Psychiatric Association.
"The diagnosis of attention deficit disorder is supported by
a mountain of scientific evidence going back more than 50
years."
[Dr. Baughman:
psychiatrists go to medical school and learn there that
neurology, my specialty, deals with physical/organic/biological
abnormalities/diseases of the central and peripheral nervous system, and
that psychiatry deals with all things emotional and behavior in normal
human beings, that is, with the mind. They know, both Dr. Mirin
(above) and Dr. Jensen (below) and all in the leadership of psychiatry
that diseases (if they are diseases) are confirmed, not by a mountain
of evidence, a show of hands, or consensus, but by a single description
in a single article in the scientific literature. They also, know
despite claims ADHD is a disease from throughout psychiatry, the
pharmaceutical industry, and all of the for-profit mental health
industry, that there has been no single article in the scientific
literature of a confirmatory, characteristic physical or chemical
abnormality making of it a bona fide disease. They seek to snow us,
to deceive us by pointing to 30 years of neurobiological research,
when nowhere in that 30 years is there proof of anything neurological,
biological, physical, or organic. There is no abnormality in the six
plus million children made to wear the label, made to take the drugs,
they were normal children until these dangerous, addictive sometimes
deadly drugs began circulating through their brains (and bodies), and,
having gone to medical school, despite their later choice to go into
non-organic, non-medical psychiatry, Dr. Mirin and Dr. Jensen, and all
in the leadership of psychiatry and psychiatric research are fully aware
of their drum-beat message to the public, relayed by the like of CHADD
and NAMI, that all psychiatric disorders are diseases. Most persons
writing to the NIMH get long, rambling non-responses. To hold them
accountable on this, most fundamental of point of medical science, and
to prevent them from being evasive, the query should be worded as
follows:
"Is ADHD a bona fide disease with a confirmatory physical or chemical
abnormality demonstrable within the patient? Circle yes or no."
(do not write in this space)
If yes, cite the article constituting proof of the confirmatory
physical or chemical abnormality, with:
the author(s): __________________
title of the article: __________________
journal name: __________________
date: __________________
volume: __________________
page numbers: __________________.
(do not write anything else in this section)
Examples:
1. Baughman FA. CHANDS: the curly hair-ankyloblepharon-nail dysplasia
syndrome. Birth Defects: Original Article Series. 1971;7:100-102.
(this was the original description of a never-before described disease,
validated as such by its confirmatory, distinctive, combination of
physical abnormalities.
2. Toriello HV, Lindstrom JA, Waterman, DF, Baughman FA. Re-evaluation
of CHANDS. Journal of Medical Genetics. 1979;16:316-317. (this study
proved that CHANDS is a genetic disease)
As you can see, nothing more or less is required. I suggest you write
to both Dr. Stephen E. Hyman and Dr. F.X. Castellanos at the NIMH
(addresses and phone numbers below). They are government employees
which means they work for you and I. Copy your Congressperson, Senator
and Donna Shalala, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human
Services (DHHS). Also copy Surgeon General David Satcher, for he has
joined in, in spreading the propaganda that ADHD and all psychiatric
disorders are diseases, while putting forth absolutely no scientific
proof, disorder-by-disorder.
Find out for yourself: Is ADHD a disease, as biological psychiatry has
told the children, the public, the judiciary and the legislature, or is
it a fraud? If you get a reply and are not sure whether they have been
responsive or not, send a copy of their reply to me and I will analyze
it for you. In fact, I would be interested in hearing of everyones
experience in seeking an answer to this question. After all, 6-7
million US children are said to have it and are on dangerous, addictive,
sometimes deadly medications for it.
The addresses:
Dr. Steven Hyman, DIRECTOR
6001 Executive Blvd.
Rm # 8235 MSC 9669
Bethesda, MD 20892-9669
301-435-4670
Dr. F. Xavier Castellanos
c/o Child Psych Branch, NIMH
Bldg 10 Room 3B-19
Bethesda, MD 20892-1251
301-496-4319
Good luck.
Sincerely yours,
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
fred-alden@worldnet.att.net
1303 Hidden Mountain Drive
El Cajon, CA 92019]
While some scientists, and some parents, have argued
that ADHD is being over-diagnosed, and medications
over-prescribed, child psychiatrists today expressed
confidence in the diagnostic guidelines when properly
applied.
"They are sufficiently narrow to identify a set of
children who have a severe syndrome with long-term bad
outcomes if you dont do something about it," says Dr.
Peter Jensen of Columbia University.
[Dr. Baughman:
whether deceived parents/patients still believe or not has
nothing to do with science. Jensen, in saying it is a syndrome is
implying it is a disease. Medically speaking, syndrome and
disease mean the same thing and are often used interchangeably.
Leaving no doubt that this is his meaning, Jensen (1996), with Swanson
and Schiller stated: "Once parents and teachers
recognize that children
with ADD are not lazy or "bad," but have a biological disorder, they can
stop blaming themselves or their children and take appropriate steps to
prevent a pattern of failure." This is the none-to occult message from
all of psychiatry to the public, this is why fathers and mothers and
even grandparents, have ceased to understand the essence and needs of
normal children and see them as 'disordered', 'diseased', 'chemically
imbalanced' and in need of 'chemical balancers' which is where the
paymaster, pharmaceutical industry comes in.]
Lawyers filing these lawsuits say their next step is
trying to convince a judge to make them class-action
lawsuits on behalf of consumers across the country. The
lawyers say they will seek billions of dollars in damages.
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