House OKs Ban on Forcing Kids’ Medication - Commentary by Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

  House OKs Ban on Forcing Kids' Medication
  By ELIZABETH WOLFE, Associated Press Writer

  WASHINGTON - The House voted Wednesday to prohibit schools from making
  children with behavioral problems take medication in order to attend class.
  Under the bill, passed 425-1, states receiving federal education money must
  make sure schools do not coerce parents into medicating their children.
  "School personnel may have good intentions, but parents should never be
  required to decide between their child's education and keeping them off
  potentially harmful drugs," said Rep. Max Burns, R-Ga., who sponsored the
  legislation.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Educators, nationwide, say the child cannot sit
still and pay attention, cannot be educated, and that the other children in
class cannot get an education. Teachers are the first to suggest
diagnosis--ADHD--and treatment--Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, etc., etc. If
the parent rejects their entreaties, Child Protective Services are called
in, the parents are deemed "negligent" , hailed into juvenile or family
court, and court-ordered to accept both the pseudo-scientific diagnosis and
treatment under threat of loss of custody of their child. Nothing less has
become standard procedure throughout the schools of the US. Tens to hundreds
of thousands of US children have been taken by their state to provide them
"essential" psychiatric treatment--a human rights disgrace]

  In recent decades, more children have been diagnosed with attention deficit
  or hyperactivity disorders and prescribed drugs such as Ritalin or Adderall.
  House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., a former schoolteacher, said he
  sympathizes with the need for orderly classrooms but said, "School personnel
  should never presume to know the medication needs of a child."

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
They have no medical qualifications, but are, nonetheless, urged by
all in psychiatry and mental health to label and refer to the benefit of the
psycho-pharm cartel. If you have any doubt of this, read the 1998 Report of
the Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical
Association]

  The prevalence of forced medication as a precondition for attending class
  has never been established. The bill, called the Child Medication Safety
  Act, provides for a congressional investigation into the use of psychotropic
  medication in schools.
  Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., who voted against the bill, "believed it was a
  solution looking for a problem," said her spokesman, Aaron Hunter.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: Either Rep. Davis has her head in the sand or is on the take from
the psycho-pharm cartel]

  Several states have already moved to ban schools from requiring medication.
  Mary Crosby, governmental affairs director at the American Academy of Child
  and Adolescent Psychiatry, called the bill unnecessary and thinks the issue
  could be better resolved at the local level. 

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Psychiatrists,
without exception, say normal children have psychiatic
disorders/diseases/chemical imbalances, when no such thing can be proved,
for purposes of "treating" them with "chemical balancers"--pills. None
escape without a label and a drug or drugs assuring they will be psychiatric
patients in perpetuity. Of course they want teachers kept as deputy
diagnosticians]

  She condemned the practice but
  questioned the necessity of federal legislation until the extent of the
  problem becomes clearer.
  Addressing concerns that such a law would stifle communication between
  schools and parents about a child's behavior or mental health, lawmakers
  added a provision that allows teachers to bring up any problems they
  observe.