Letter to Orange County District Attorney 5/29/01
Tony Rackaukas, District Attorney (Attention: Vickie Hix) May 29, 2001 Orange County 401 Civic Center Dr. Santa Ana, CA 92701 714-834-3600 Dear Mr. Rackaukas; Ms. Hix A November 17, 2000 article in the journal SCIENCE [1] announced the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Preschool ADHD Treatment Study (PATS), to commence, in December, 2000, AT 6 academic centers--UCLA and UC-Irvine, among them--to determine whether or not Ritalin is safe and effective in preschool children (3 to 6) with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD). The article acknowledged "ethical concerns about using young subjects in clinical trials," also that "science seems a bit thin when it comes to giving drugs to young children." Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Coyle worried, "psychoactive drugs might affect the development of visual processing, language, motor skills, and memory of young children." Marshall treated other critics dismissively, writing: "These doubters range from the die-hard variety, like .psychiatrist Peter Breggin, to moderate skeptics like pediatrician William Carey of the Philadelphia Children's Hospital." Carey has written that the "assumption that ADHD symptoms arise from cerebral malfunction has not been supported, even after extensive investigations." "Breggin," Marshall observed, "has signed up as an expert witness for parents of ADHD children who this year filed lawsuits against the manufacturer of Ritalin and psychiatric organizations in several states, alleging that they conspired to promote the drug. Breggin and California neurologist Fred Baughman Jr. blasted the use of Ritalin in congressional testimony on 29 September. Baughman called the ADHD diagnosis "a total fraud." Enrolling young children in a trial of MPH, he adds, is "outrageous" and "immoral." Writing in SCIENCE, Marshall avoided addressing the science, preferring, instead, to attack the "critics." The main question about AD/HD, today and throughout it's 21 year history, is whether it is an actual disease at all (abnormality = disease. No abnormality = no disease = normal). The controversy is not over the fact that the children to be studied are so young, but whether or not they have an actual disease--whether or not, they are normal? Marshall, the editors or SCIENCE, and the leaders of psychiatric research, left it for me, in a letter to the editor, January 26, 2001 [2], to address the science. I wrote (copy, complete with bibliography enclosed): "Regarding the Preschool Treatment Study that Marshall describes in his article--there is no disease. No proof exists that ADHD is a disease with a validating abnormality. Yet the public is told it is a "disease" (1), that it is neurobiologic" (2) or "neurobehavioral" (3). W.B. Carey, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, testified at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Conference on ADHD in 1998 that "ADHD.appears to be a set of normal behavioral variations" (4). The Consensus Conference Panel concluded: "we do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD.no data.indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction" (5). Every physician has the responsibility to distinguish disease from absence of disease and to communicate this to their patients and the public. In that children who would be the research subjects in the Preschool ADHD Treatment Study (PATS) have no demonstrable disease, there is no justification for giving them Schedule II, stimulant medications." James M. Swanson is Director of the Child Study Center at the University of California, Irvine, and director of the PATS there. Speaking at the American Society of Adolescent Psychiatry, May 7, 1998, Swanson deserted, if briefly, the psychiatric/pharmaceutical propaganda line that insists that all psychiatric "disorders" are "diseases" due to "chemical imbalances" of the brain. His unwitting mention of the truth (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 tests-a dream of psychiatry for many years. I think we will validate it." Nor has any single psychiatric "disorder"/ "disease" been validated, as such, between then and now. Completely subjective and without an objective abnormality by which to diagnose/confirm their presence-there is no such thing as a bona fide psychiatric disease. There is no abnormality to treat, medically or surgically, to make more nearly normal, or normal. This being the case there is no difference between children given Ritalin and other amphetamines within the confines of the school, legally, and those give the same drugs outside of school-illegally. The only thing that separates them is the illusory, fraudulent "disease" labels appended within the schools and throughout the psychiatric, psychological, mental health community. In Los Angeles County, in the year 2000, 3891, 2 year-olds, and 5,311, 3 year-olds were legally prescribed Ritalin and other Schedule II amphetamines. At the same time, in Orange County, 2,311, 2 year-olds and 2,873, 3 year-olds were legally prescribed drugs of the same category. From Drug Laws, 1998--California Edition (including the California Uniform Controlled Substances Act) we read (11190.): "The prescriber's record shall show the pathology and purpose for which the prescription is issued, or the controlled substance administered, prescribed or dispensed." The word "pathology" means disease or abnormality, of which there are none in ADHD, or in any psychiatric disorder/diagnosis in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV, of the American Psychiatric Association. My article Psychiatric drugs for infants and toddlers: Treatment or crime? Has just been published in the International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine [Vol. 23 Number 2]. It is time for a thorough, un-biased, analysis of all child-adolescent psychiatric practice practice where the prescribing of Schedule II, controlled substances is concerned. This analysis should begin with the Preschool ADHD Treatment Study (PATS) just launched in the Departments of Psychiatry both at UCLA and UC-Irvine. Sincerely, Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD--Neurology/Child Neurology 1303 Hidden Mountain Dr. El Cajon, CA 92019 619 440 8236 References: 1. Marshall, Eliot. Planned Ritalin Trial for Tots Heads Into Uncharted Waters. SCIENCE, November 17, 2000; 1280-1282 2. Baughman, FA. Questioning the Treatment for ADHD. SCIENCE. 2001;291:595