To the Editor 9/13/01
INSIGHT MAGAZINE
Re: New Research Indicts Ritalin, by Kelly OMeara, Insight, September
8, 2001
Regarding the 6 million US children “treated” with Ritalin for the
never-validated “disease,” ADHD, National Institute of Mental Health,
Director, Stephen Hyman, MD, is quoted as saying, ” we can make correct
clinical diagnoses if the right kind of evaluation is available to
children. When proper diagnosis is made, methylphenidate/Ritalin can be
safe and effective.”
Speaking of “correct clinical diagnosis” there can be no doubt that
Director Hyman, a physician, is representing ADHD to be a diagnosable
medical entity, a disease; one, which, with the “right kind
evaluation”examination, laboratory test, x-ray or scan, can be proved
to exist in the individual at hand. The tools of psychiatrystructured
interviews, and pencil-paper, behavior scales and psychometric tests,
never adduce objective physical abnormalities/diseases.
There can be no doubt where the parents and the public-at-large gets the
impression that ADHD and all psychiatric diagnoses are
diseases/abnormalities, within the individual; they get it straight from
Hyman and from the entire research, academic and political leadership of
US psychiatry. And they are given and get this impression when there is
not a shred of proof that ADHD or any psychiatric
“disease”/”disorder”/”chemical imbalance” is a bona fide, diagnosable,
disease having a demonstrable, confirmatory, physical or chemical
abnormality within the individual.
The deception and violation of informed consent is across-the-board;
universal. All who are labeled “disordered,” “diseased,”
“chemically-imbalanced” who are then given a “chemical balancer,” a
drug, were normal to begin with. Their “chemical balancer”
prescription, pill is their first and only abnormality; their first and
only disease. When will the American people awake to the deception?
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
El Cajon, CA