Fred Baughman Jr., MD responds (10/29/00) to LA Times article “Detour for Ritalin Issue”

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(revised from my testimony to the 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)

Saying that the clarification of ADHD–attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder, belongs in “laboratories of science, not the halls of
justice” indicates a failure to understand that psychiatry is not a
science and that what ‘biological psychiatry’ represents to be the
science has no purpose but to weave illusions of science and disease and
to deceive the public–for profit. Such is the nature of their every
psychiatric ‘disease’–not one of them validated, in 40 years of
‘biological psychiatry’ as anything biological, neurological,
biochemical, genetic, physical or, in any way organic.

Psychiatrists do not do physical or neurological examinations and do not
seek to demonstrate objective abnormalities, as do neurologists (like
myself) and all other types of physicians, using diagnostic laboratory,
imaging and pathological technologies. Psychiatry’s realm is the mind
not the brain. However they have deserted the mind for their fanciful,
profit-directed, pretense to the brain. Doing so, they desert the
patient as well. They deal—or at least, they should, not with diseases,
i.e., physical abnormalities, but with emotional and behavioral problems
and dilemmas, in normal human beings.

Consider ADHD, their prototypical, invented disease; their multi-billion
dollar, marketplace bonanza.

In 1948, The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (by mutual
agreement) divided ‘neuro-psychiatry’ into ‘neurology,’ dealing with
organic diseases of the brain, and ‘psychiatry,’ dealing with
psychological conditions in normal human beings [1].

However psychiatric drugs began their appearance in the fifties, and in
the sixties psychiatry, in league with the pharmaceutical industry,
authored a joint market strategy: they would call all emotional problems
“brain diseases,” due to “chemical imbalances” needing “chemical
balancers”—pills!

On October 12, 1970, Congressman, Cornelius Gallagher [2] wrote HEW
Secretary, Elliott Richardson: “I have received letters highly critical
of the focus of the medical side of minimal brain dysfunction (the
reigning designation at the time), which is, incidentally, one of at
least thirty-eight names attached to this condition…Such a high
incidence in the population–as high as thirty percent in ghetto
areas…may not be pathological (a disease with a confirmatory physical
abnormality) at all…”

In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association invented ADD (It was not
discovered as are real diseases in the plant and animal kingdom,
including humankind). [3] In 1987 they launched the first ADHD
conceptualization [4]. Eight of fourteen behaviors were said to be
diagnostic!

In 1994, they launched the second ADHD conceptualization, this one for
the DSM-IV [5]; six of the nine behaviors were said to diagnose 3
subtypes.

In December, 1994, Pearlman [6], wrote:
“I take issue with Pincus’ (for the APA) assertion that elimination of
the term “organic” in the 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 …

Here, was the deception of the people at work, implying that things
nonorganic were organic–were biologic–were diseases.

In 1996, leaving no doubt that they were representing ADHD to be a
disease, the children abnormal, Ellen Schiller, of the US Department of
Education, and Peter Jensen and James Swanson of the National Institute
of Health (NIMH) and Children and Adults with Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorders (CHADD) [7], wrote:


“Once parents and teachers…recognize that children with ADD are not
lazy or ‘bad’, but have a biological disorder, they can stop blaming
themselves…”
On October 8, 1996, Lawrence Diller [8], wrote:

“The reason you have been unable to obtain any articles presenting
clear … evidence of a physical or chemical abnormality… is.. there are
none… the search for a biological marker is doomed from the outset
because of the contradictions and ambiguities of the diagnostic
construct of ADHD…

On May, 13, 1998, Xavier Castellanos [9] of the NIMH confessed to me:
“… we have not yet met the burden of demonstrating the specific
pathophysiology that we believe underlies this condition.”
Opening the November 16-18, 1998, NIH, Consensus Conference on ADHD,
Steven Hyman [10], Director of the NIMH, posited:

“ADHD affects from 0-3% in some school districts up to 40% in others…
this cannot be right.”

William Carey [11], addressing the Consensus Conference on “Is ADHD a
Valid Disorder?” concluded:

“What is…described as ADHD in the United States appears to be a set of
normal behavioral variations…”

Richard Degrandpre [12], commenting on the Report of the Consensus
Conference Panel, observed:

“… it appears that you define disease as a maladaptive cluster of
characteristics. In the history of science and medicine, this would not
be a valid definition of disease.”

Failing to prove that ADHD is a disease, they—psychiatry–seek to
re-define the word ‘disease’.

Fred Baughman [13] testified as follows (to the Consensus Conference),
without rebuttal:

“Without an iota of proof … the NIMH proclaims the … children
“brain-diseased,” “abnormal” …ADHD is a total, 100% fraud.”

The final statement of Panel [14], November 18, 1998, read:

” …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.”

On December 13, 1999, Surgeon General, David Satcher [15] announced:

“Mental illness is no different than diabetes, asthma or other physical
ailments…Mental illnesses are physical illnesses…We know the chemical
disorders we are treating…”

Baughman [16] responded to Satcher:

“…all physicians, know that the presence of any bona fide disease… is
confirmed by an objective finding–a physical or chemical abnormality.
You…know… there is no … abnormality in life, or at autopsy, in
“depression, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses…” …Your role in
this deception is clear…you should resign.”

In January, 2000, twenty years after the start of the ADD/ADHD
epidemic, Castellanos [17], observed:

“Incontrovertible evidence is still lacking… I’m confident we’ll confirm
the case for organic causes.”

On May 1, 2000, the law firm of Waters and Kraus [18] of Dallas, Texas,
filed the first of several class action suits charging that the APA,
CHADD and Ciba-Giegy/Novartis:

” planned, conspired, and colluded to create, develop, promote and
confirm the diagnoses of Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, in a highly successful effort to
increase the market for its product Ritalin.”

Perhaps now, Ladies and Gentlemen, you can understand why the ‘halls of
justice,’ not psychiatric ‘science,’ are most likely to give us the true
answers we so urgently need, to stem the awful, incredible, epidemic of
psychiatric ‘diseases’ and drugging that effects millions who attend US
public schools, and, that claims, thousands more each day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. The American Academy of Neurology: The First Fifty Years, 1948-1998.
Maynard M. Cohen (ed.). The American Academy of Neurology, St. Paul,
MN.


2. Letter from Cornelius E. Gallagher, Chairman of the Right to Privacy
Inquiry Special Studies Subcommittee to the Honorable Elliott
Richardson, Secretary Department of Health Education and Welfare (HEW)
October 12, 1970.


3. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual
of mental disorders, 3rd edition. Washington: American Psychiatric
Association, 1980.


4. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders, 3rd edition-revised (DSM-III-R). Washington, DC.
1987.


5. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders, 4th edition. Washington, DC. 1994.


6. Pearlman, T. Letter to the editor in Clinical Psychiatric News
December, 1994.


7. Schiller E, Jensen PS, Swanson J. In magazine of the Parent Teachers
Association, from the Office of Special Education, US Department of
Education,1996.


8. Diller, L. personal correspondence to S. Parry, October 8, 1997.


9. Castellanos, FX. Personal correspondence to F.Baughman of May, 13,
1998.


10. Hyman SE. Opening remarks at the November 16-18, 1998, NIH,
Consensus Conference on ADHD.


11. Carey, WB. Invited presentation: “Is ADHD a Valid Disorder” at the
November 16-18, 1998, NIH, Consensus Conference on ADHD.


12. DeGrandpre, R. Quoted at the November 16-18, 1998, NIH, Consensus
Conference on ADHD.


13. Baughman, FA Jr. Testimony at the NIH, Consensus Conference on
ADHD, November 17, 1998.


14. Final Statement of the Panel of the NIH, Consensus Conference on
ADHD, November 18, 1998,


15. Report on Mental Health of the Surgeon General, December 13, 1999.


16. Baughman FA Jr., letter to Surgeon General, David Satcher, December
13, 1999.


17. Castellanos, FX. Interview in Making Sense of Ritalin, Readers
Digest, January, 2000.


18. Law firm of Waters and Kraus, Dallas, Texas, on