FRED A. BAUGHMAN JR., MD RESPONDS TO NOVARTIS PRESS RELEASE OF 7/23/01
To:
July 26, 2001
Regina Moran
Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation
regina.moran@pharma.novartis.com
From:
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
1303 Hidden Mountain Dr.
El Cajon, CA
92019
www.adhdfraud.com
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As per your Press Release of July 23, 2001 (attached), plaintiffs in
Florida have announced dismissal of the ADHD/Ritalin, class action law
suit against defendants, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation,
(manufacturer of Ritalin) the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and
Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
(CHADD. The lawsuit had claimed the defendants had conspired to promote
the diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Novartis General Counsel, Dorothy Watson, said:
This action supports Novartis' position that this lawsuit and others
like it are an unmerited attempt to promote an agenda that contradicts
scientific and medical consensus.
On May 18, a Texas judge, U. S. District Judge Hilda G. Tagle dismissed
a similar class action suit, finding that the plaintiffs there had
failed to state their claims of fraud and conspiracy with sufficient
particularity.
The first class action suit of this type was dismissed in California on
April 23. In addition to dismissing the suit, the California court also
ordered that the plaintiffs pay the legal fees for defendants, Novartis,
APA and CHADD.
Similar suits have been filed in New Jersey and Puerto Rico. The
defendants (Novartis, APA, CHADD) have filed motions to dismiss those
cases and rulings are pending.
In your press release of July 23, you (Novartis) state:
Contrary to the position advanced in the lawsuits, ADHD is a real and
serious disorder. It is a well-established and valid diagnosis
recognized by the leading medical authorities in the U.S. including the
American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American
Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the U.S. Food and Drug Aministration (FDA)
and the U.S. Surgeon General
Ritalin and similar treatments are among
the most widely studied therapies available. We're heartened that an
overwhelming body of scientific evidence cannot just be litigated away
by lawyers and anti- psychiatry advocates. Ritalin is a mild central
nervous system stimulant that helps to address the neurochemical
problems underlying Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
You speak of "the neurochemical problems underlying
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder," when absolutely no physical
or chemical abnormality has yet been identified in children said to meet
the DSM-IV, DSM-III-R, or DSM-III versions/editions of ADHD.
As an adult and child neurologist it is my duty to know whether or not
patients have a disease, and whether or not previously rendered
diagnoses, such as ADHD, are proven diseases--then to articulate the
answer clearly to persons seeking my professional opinion on the
matter. As a published researcher, discoverer of real diseases, Fellow
of the American Academy of Neurology, member of the AMA, member of the
Child Neurology Society, I have been unable to validate/demonstrate, a
disease/objective physical abnormalityany disease/objective physical
abnormality--in children said to have ADHD. Finding no objective
physical abnormality (including chemical) means they have no disease;
that they are physically, medically, neurologically normal.
That the class action suits has failed, thus far, does nothing to
validate ADHD as a disease. Although judges and courts are duty-bound
to see that the true science is aired, not junk science, this has yet to
be done where ADHD is concerned. The medical/scientific record, speaks
resoundingly on the issue: nowhere does proof exist in the
peer-reviewed, medical/scientific literature, that the criteria in the
American Psychiatric Associations (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual (DSM) IV., or the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) diagnostic
Guidelines [1], as diagnostic of ADHD, identifies a bona fide disease,
having a confirmatory, objective, physical abnormality.
Nor is the validation of disease, either in practice or research a
matter of "consensus." Nor does stating that ADHD is a "real and
serious disorder," establish that it is a disease/physical abnormality.
When, in my own private practice, I discovered and authored the second,
confirmatory, description of the Glioma-Polyposis Syndrome [2] in 1969,
the original description of the Curly Hair-Ankyloblepharon-Nail
Dysplasia Syndrome (CHANDS) [3] in 1971, and the elucidation, with
Toriello, et al [4], in 1979 of the autosomal recessive mode of
transmission of CHANDS, there was no consensus required. The only
requirement was that a scientific, ethical, not bought, not paid-for
journal editor confirmed my claims, including that none such pre-existed
my reports in the world literature. It can also be seen here that
confirming a new disease, or a new finding about an existing disease,
has nothing to do with the total volume, width, breadth or age of that
literature.
While academic professors of neurology, pathology, pediatrics and even
psychiatry, are not heard confessing as muchthe reason being that all
of medical academia, not just psychiatry, are bought, paid for, and, are
beholden, to the pharmaceutical industry--it would be a simple affair to
subpoena and swear them, and put the "disease" vs. "no disease" question
to them regarding ADHD, or any or all of "biological" psychiatrys
"diseases." The question is simple:
"What and where is the confirming, objective, demonstrable, diagnosable
abnormality in ADHD (any psychiatric disorder)?" "You are telling me
there is none!" "Witness excused."
Why have the media and the courts refused to elicit, write, hear, the
elements of science? Why do they continue to validate junk science and
the victimizing of normal children/individuals in the name of
"medicine?"
CHADD:
Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorders (CHADD), was
referred to in a DEA publication [5] by a spokesman for Ciba-Geigy (now
Novartis) as being "essentially a conduit for providing information to
the patient population." Routinely, and without scientific proof,
CHADD tells the US public that ADHD is a "neurobiologic disorder." So
doing, they leave no doubt that there is something abnormal about the
brain/biology of the individual in question; that they have a disease.
The US public-at-large harbors this notion and there is no doubt that
they came by it primarily through CHADD, acting as "essentially a
conduit for providing information to the patient population," for
Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis).
CHADD or anyone else who tells the public that ADHD is a "neurobiologic
disorder" or who otherwise imparts to patients, parents and the
public, by way of informed consent, that it is a disease, is lying. And
this applies to the public information campaigns, today, of all of the
plaintiffs and of all who support them, comprising their consensus of
supporters in ADHD as a "real and serious disorder," a "neurobiological
disorder," or a "neurobehavioral" disorder--the American Medical
Association (AMA), the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the U.S. Food and Drug
Aministration (FDA) and U.S. Surgeon General, David Satcher. All
imply, or stated forthrightly, that ADHD (and other psychiatric
conditions/disorders as well) is a disease, due to
abnormalities/chemical imbalances within the individual, when no such
proof exists.
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (AMA)
In 1998, with no proof that ADHD was a disease with a confirmatory,
physical abnormality, and with the ADHD "epidemic," having grown from
150,000 in 1970, to approximately five million in 1997, the AMA,
Council on Scientific Affairs [6] concluded:
"
there is little evidence of widespread overdiagnosis or misdiagnosis
of ADHD or of widespread overprescription of methylphenidate."
Writing in JAMA [7], I responded:
"Once children are labeled with ADHD, they are no longer treated as
normal. Once methylphenidate hydrochloride or any psychotropic drug
courses through their brain and body, they are for the first time,
physically, neurologically, and biologically abnormal."
AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION (APA)
Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), in
1995, APA spokesmen, Marzuk and Barchas [8] stated:
"Perhaps the most significant conceptual shift (from DSM-III-R, 1987, to
DSM-IV, 1994) was the elimination of the rubric organic mental
disorders, which had suggested improperly that most psychiatric
disorders
had no organic basis."
Notice that these authors have assumed, but not proven, that "most
psychiatric disorders" have an organic basis, making it improper for
anyone to suggest otherwise. They would shift the burden of proof to
those who doubt and question, hardly in keeping with science. What they
and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), with its DSM-IV, have
done, was to absolve psychiatry of every physicians obligation to make
a fundamental, patient-by-patient, "organic"/ "not organic," "disease"/
"no disease" determination. They have absolved themselves, and, anyone
wishing to join them in such diagnosing (in this case, the AMA, AAP,
FDA, and Surgeon General Satcher) of having to demonstrate an
abnormalitypathology, by way of proving that psychiatric "disorders"/
"diseases" are actual diseases.
In fact, the essential first step in all diagnosis, even in the
diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, is to make the fundamental "Is it a
disease or isnt it?" determination. This determination is usually made
by physicians other than psychiatrists; usually by those referring
patients to the psychiatrist (or psychologist, or other mental health
professional). What psychiatrists do from that point on, is nothing,
more or less, than, semantic classification, based upon subjective
symptoms, alone, in patients already-proven to have no disease. The
absence of organic disease, over time, stands as the strongest evidence
that a patients symptoms are psychogenic.
Pearlman [9], a psychiatrist, wrote:
"I take issue with
Pincus (DSM-IV Task Force ) assertion that the
elimination of the term organic in DSM-IV has served a useful purpose
for psychiatry
elimination of the term organic 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."
Pincus, of the American Psychiatric Associations DSM Task Force, has
chosen not respond to my queries on psychiatrys claims, implications,
allegations that it diagnoses and treats real diseases/organic
diseases/neurological diseases.
FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA)
Leber [10] of the FDA responded to my "disease" vs. "no disease"
question, as follows:
"
as yet no distinctive pathophysiology for the disorder has been
delineated."
Nonetheless, in the 1993 Physicians Desk Reference under Ritalin in the
paragraph on "indications" it says that Attention Deficit Disorder is a
behavioral syndrome characterized by the following group of
developmentally inappropriate symptoms: moderate to severe
distractibility, short attention span, hyperactivity, emotional
lability, and impulsivity. Under special diagnostic considerations, it
says, "Stimulants are not intended for use in the (normal) child who
exhibits symptoms secondary to environmental factors. Theythe
manufacturer and the FDA, those jointly responsible for the wording of
the product insert, are saying that Ritalin is not for normal children,
having symptoms secondary to environmental factors, but that it is for
ADD children, children it alleges are intrinsically abnormal, diseased,
even though no proof of such an abnormality existed then or now. Even
later versions of the insert clearly lead the reader to believe they are
reading of children with brain/neurological abnormalities, actual
diseases.
NOVARTIS (formerly, CIBA-GEIGY)
On September 1l, 1996, as if unfamiliar with the concept of scientific
proof, Joyce Moscaritola, MD, Medical Affairs Vice President, Ciba-Geigy
wrote to me:
"A comprehensive computer search of the literature yielded several
articles which discuss the various hypotheses for the etiology (cause)
of ADHD."
None of the 4 articles she sent or any in the worlds literature to the
present day, cite proof that ADHD is a disease, that children meeting
DSM-IV criteria for that psychiatric/psychological diagnosis, are other
than physically and medically normal.
CHADD
On December 5, 1997, I wrote and faxed James M. Swanson, Ph.D., a member
of CHADDs Professional Advisory Board, and author of a
"soon
forthcoming" Lancet article [11]:
"please send me a copy or reprint of the article referred to by Dr.
Jensen in his letter to me of October 12, 1997 (enclosed). Can you cite
final, confirmatory proof that ADHD is a disease/medical syndrome with a
definite, discernible (patient by patient) physical or chemical
abnormality/ marker?"
Getting no response from Swanson, I re-sent my original letter (that of
December 5, 1997) on January 12, 1998, this time by registered mail. In
so doing, I learned that the address I had been using was correct and
that the registered letter had been received and signed for. But still,
no response to my scientific, collegial inquiry.
Next, Swanson appeared as a substitute speaker at a meeting I was
attending in San Diego, that of the American Society for Adolescent
Psychiatry, March 5-8, 1998. He spoke, among other things, of the MRI
brain scan research of Castellanos, et al [12,13], and Filipek, et al
[14], alleged to show brain atrophy in subjects with ADHD, but not in
controls.
I spoke from the audience, pointing out that 93% of the subjects in the
Castellanos [12,13] studies had been on chronic stimulant therapy, and
inquired as to the stimulant status of those in the Filipek [141]
study. Swanson acknowledged that Filipek et al, also utilized ADHD
subjects who had been on chronic stimulant therapyan acknowledgment
nowhere to be found in a review of this research either in the
Lancet article [11] or in the more recent Report of the Council of
Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association [6].
Here, we had strong, replicated evidence that chronic stimulant therapy
(methylphenidate, amphetamine) causes brain atrophy, not confirmation
that ADHD was a brain disease as we were led to believe.
Next--much to my surprise--came the answer to the AD/HD "disease"/ "no
disease" question. Swanson (from the tape recording of the session):
"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 testsa dream of psychiatry for many years
I think
we will validate it. I do not think these drugs are dangerous or
addictive when used this way."
"I think we will validate it," he said. At long lastan open, honest,
truly scientific appraisal from one within the ADHD industry! What
Swanson neglected to say was how he describes ADHD, today, in obtaining
informed consent from the parents of children he treats with stimulants
and from those of children in their research studies using positron
emission tomography (PET) scans, spinal taps and indwelling venous
catheters, from which to draw blood drug levels. I have written him
requesting copies. I am still waiting.
On May 13, 1998, F. Xavier Castellanos, another member of CHADDs
Professional Advisory Board, wrote to me:
"
I have noted your critiques of the diagnostic validity of ADHD. I
agree that we have not yet met the burden of demonstrating the specific
pathophysiology that we believe underlies this condition. However, my
colleagues and I are certainly motivated by the belief that it will be
possible in the near future to do so."
Swanson (CHADD) thinks "we will validate it!" Meanwhile, Castellanos
(CHADD) and his colleagues are "
motivated by the belief that it will
be possible in the near future to do so." Neither has Swanson,
Castellanos, or Peter S. Jensen (also of CHADDs Professional Advisory
Board), or anyone, anywhere, yet validated ADHD as a disease with a
confirmatory, diagnosable, objective, physical abnormality. Absent such
an abnormality, individuals said to have it are normal and cannot,
legally, be put on Schedule II, controlled, psychostimulants. The FDA
knows that! The DEA know that! The International Narcotics Control
Board knows that!
SURGEON GENERAL, DAVID SATCHER, M.D.
In a press release, February 11, 2000, I asked Surgeon General David
Satcher to resign over his report on mental health which I described as
an "infomercial for biopsychiatry and the pharmaceutical cartel." I
wrote saying that psychiatrists and psychologists who use interviews
and psychometric tests to tell patients they have a real, organic
diseases, "biologically-based" brain diseases, are "charlatans" (At
the US Congress Hearing on Behavioral Drugs in Our Schools, September
29, 2000, I testified in rebuttal to APA, AACAP, representative, David
Fassler, MD: "Anyone calling any psychiatric condition a disease is
committing a fraud").
I wrote to Dr. Satcher:
"
you (have) put the considerable weight of your office behind
representing the scientifically unproven 'disorders' of the
pychiatric/pharmaceutical cartel to be actual diseases
The fact that
psychiatrists do not perform physical examinations or neurological
examinations by which disease of the brain and nervous system is
determined, makes their claims of diagnosing and treating
'biologically-based brain diseases' not only unbelievable but a fraud.
There is no physical or chemical abnormality to be found in life, or at
autopsy, in 'depression,' 'bipolar disorder,' 'Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder '(ADHD), or any other 'mental illness.'"
Dr. Satcher has not resigned, answered me, nor has he published proof
that ADHD or any psychiatric disorder/disease, is an actual disease
having a confirming, objective physical/chemical abnormality within the
brain or body of the individual. No one has.
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS (AAP)
Leaving no doubt that US medicine, generally, has added this brand of
"mental health" to its portfolio, the (1) American Academy of
Pediatrics, in collaboration with the (2) American Psychiatric
Association, the (3) American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry, the (4) American Academy of Neurology, the (5) American
Academy of Family Practice and the (6) Child Neurology Society,
published its year 2000, "Clinical Practice Guideline, entitled,
Diagnosis and Evaluation of the Child with
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" [1]. In it, as throughout
virtually all industry-published materials, ADHD is referred to as "the
most common neurobehavioral disorder of childhood.." In a letter to the
editor, published, in the May, 2001, journal PEDIATRICS [15], I wrote:
The Clinical Practice Guideline 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. Goodwin [16], acknowledged the:
narrow definition of
disease that requires the presence of a biological abnormality. Carey
[17] testified at the 1998, Consensus Conference (CC): "
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 in doubt
" The Consensus Conference Panel [18] concluded:
"
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." In January,
2000, Castellanos, [19], of CHADD, confessed: "Incontrovertible evidence
is still lacking!"
..Carey [17] observed: "ADHD behaviors are assumed to
be largely or entirely due to abnormal brain function. The DSM-IV
does not say so, but textbooks and journals do." If not science, what
are textbooks and journals to purvey? Later in the conference, Carey
[17] issued the plea: "
we see
that the causes of these behaviors
called ADHD are entirely speculative. And yet
parents and children are
being told that these behaviors are due to a brain malfunction. Can you
not please strengthen the statement to discourage practitioners from
making this statement when there is not adequate proof to support that
at this time?"
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.
The authors of the "Guidelines" sought to block publication of my letter
to the editor of PEDIATRICS, and had no response to it.
AFTERWORD
In a letter dated February 27, 2001, to the Special Committee on the Use
of Prescription Drugs for Children of the Wisconsin State Legislature,
Novartis Vice President, Greg Baird, not copying me, wrote:
Dr. Fred Baughman, a phone participant, made a number of unfortunate and
misleading statements about ADHD
Baughmans charge that ADHD is not a
valid medical disorder contradicts extensive published scientific
evidence from a large and respected body of medical and scientific
organizations including the AAP, the AMA, the NIH and the FDA.
According to the AMA, ADHD is one of the best-researched disorders in
medicine
Other well-respected organizations have further validated this
disorder (see attached).
We see that the political and semantic stratagems are the same. In the
page attached, not one of the articles or documents alluded to, most of
them addressed in the body of my letter, constitute proof that ADHD is a
real, actual, bona fide disease, having an objective, demonstrable,
diagnosable physical (including chemical) abnormality.
CONCLUSION
Neither the defendants; Novartis, the American Psychiatric Association and CHADD,
nor the organizations, agencies and agents that they cite; the American Medical
Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, the Food and Drug Administration
and the Surgeon General of the US (or anyone else), has proof with which
to support their fraudulent representations to the public that ADHD is a
disease/abnormality; that children (and adults) with it are
diseased/abnormal, and are in need of medical treatment--Ritalin.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Quality Improvement and
Subcommittee on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Clinical
practice; diagnosis and evaluation of the child with
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Pediatrics. 2000;
105:1158-1170.
2. Baughman FA, List CF, Williams JR, Muldoon JP, Segarra JM, Volkel
JS. The Glioma-Polyposis Syndrome. N Engl J Med. 1969;281:1345-1346
3. Baughman FA. CHANDS: the curly hair-ankyloblepharon-nail dysplasia
syndrome. Birth Defects: Original Article Series. 1971;7:100-102.
4. Toriello HV, Lindstrom JA, Waterman, DF, Baughman FA. Re-evaluation
of CHANDS. Journal of Medical Genetics. 1979;16:316-317.
5. Background Paper on Methylphenidate, Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA), US Department of Justice, October, 1995.
6. Goldman LS, Genel M, Bezman RJ, Slanetz PJ, for the Council on
Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association. JAMA. 1998;
279:1100-1107.
7. Baughman FA, Jr. Treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity
Disorder (letter). JAMA. 2000; 281:1490.
8. Marzuk PM, Barchas JD. Psychiatry. In Contempo,1995. JAMA. 1995;
273:1715-1716.
9. Pearlman T. Clinical Psychiatric News. December, 1994 (letters).
10. Leber, P. personal correspondence. December 22, 1994.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. Castellanos FX, et al. Cerebellum in attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder. Neurology. 1998; 50:1087-1093.
14. 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.
15. Baughman FA, Jr. Diagnosis and Evaluation of the Child With
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (letter). Pediatrics. 2001;
May:1239
16. Donald W. Goodwin, MD. Is Alcoholism Hereditary? Ballantine Books,
1988.
17. Carey WB. Is ADHD a Valid Disorder? NIH, Consensus Development
Conference on ADHD (Program and Abstracts), November 16, 1998:33-36.
18. Final Statement of the Panel of the NIH, Consensus Development
Conference on ADHD, Press Conference. November 18, 1998.
19. Castellanos FX. Quoted in "Making Sense of Ritalin" by Pekkanen, J.
Readers Digest, January, 2000: 159-168.
20. Baughman FA, Jr. Questioning the Treatment for ADHD. Science.
2001;291:595
---------------------
July 23, 2001 Press Release, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation
Plaintiffs' Attorneys Walk Away from Ritalin Litigation in Florida
Third Dismissal to Date of Suits Filed against Novartis, Makers of
Ritalin (R) (methylphenidate HCl)
ORLANDO, Fla., July 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Plaintiffs bringing class action
litigation against Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, manufacturer of
Ritalin (R) (methylphenidate HCl), the American Psychiatric Association
(APA) and Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
(CHADD) have notified the court that they are dismissing their case against
the defendants. The lawsuit, filed in November 2000, claimed the defendants
conspired to promote the diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD). The plaintiffs alerted the court of their intent to dismiss
on July 5; their decision follows dismissals by the courts in similar
lawsuits filed in California and Texas.
``We are extremely pleased with the plaintiffs' decision,'' said Novartis
General Counsel, Dorothy Watson. ``This action supports Novartis' position
that this lawsuit and others like it are an unmerited attempt to promote an
agenda that contradicts scientific and medical consensus.''
On May 18, a Texas judge dismissed a similar class action suit filed in that
state. U. S. District Judge Hilda G. Tagle found that the plaintiffs in that
class action failed to state their claims of fraud and conspiracy with
sufficient particularity. Additionally, she found that the plaintiffs' vague
mentions of side effects in their complaint failed to state a legal claim.
The plaintiffs had until June 20 to appeal the ruling; however, they did not
do so.
The first class action suit of this type was dismissed in California on
April 23. U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster dismissed the suit under
California's anti-SLAPP statute -- a statute designed to weed out of the
court system at their inception, lawsuits which are in reality political
actions designed to intimidate defendants from exercising their First
Amendment rights. Judge Brewster dismissed the suit stating that the
defendants' speech is "protected under both the United States and
California Constitutions" and that plaintiffs "failed to state a cause of
action." In addition to dismissing the suit, the court also ordered that
the plaintiffs pay the legal fees for Novartis, APA and CHADD. Similar suits
have been filed in New Jersey and Puerto Rico. The defendants have filed
motions to dismiss those cases and rulings are pending.
Contrary to the position advanced in the lawsuits, ADHD is a real and
serious disorder. It is a well-established and valid diagnosis recognized by
the leading medical authorities in the U.S. including the American Medical
Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of
Pediatrics, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Surgeon
General.
Ritalin has been shown to be an effective and safe medication for more than
45 years and has been scientifically evaluated in more than 200 studies
involving over 6,000 school-aged children.
"Ritalin and similar treatments are among the most widely studied therapies
available," said Watson. "We're heartened that an overwhelming body of
scientific evidence cannot just be litigated away by lawyers and anti-
psychiatry advocates."
Ritalin is a mild central nervous system stimulant that helps to address the
neurochemical problems underlying Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD).
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation researches, develops, manufactures and
markets leading innovative prescription drugs used to treat a number of
diseases and conditions, including central nervous system disorders, organ
transplantation, cardiovascular diseases, dermatological diseases,
respiratory disorders, cancer and arthritis. The company's mission is to
improve people's lives by pioneering novel healthcare solutions.
Located in East Hanover, New Jersey, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation is
an affiliate of the Novartis Group (NYSE: NVS
), a world
leader in healthcare with core businesses in pharmaceuticals, consumer
health, generics, eye-care, and animal health. In 2000, the Group's ongoing
businesses achieved sales of CHF 29.1 billion (USD 17.2 billion) and
invested approximately CHF 4.0 billion (USD 2.4 billion) in R&D.
Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis employs about 67,600 people
and operates in over 140 countries around the world. For further information
please consult .
Todd Ringler
Feinstein Kean Healthcare
617-761-6791
tringler@fkhealth.com
Regina Moran
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation
973-781-5567
regina.moran@pharma.novartis.com
Cathy Yarbrough
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation
973-781-5385
cathy.yarbrough@pharma.novartis.com
SOURCE: Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation