PARENTS IN THE U.S.A. NOT BELIEVING IN ADHD & RITALIN ARE HELD IN CONTEMPT, GO TO JAIL, LOSE CUSTODY OF THEIR CHILDREN - Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD, 8/5/00 (may be used, reprinted with attribution)

Saturday, August 5, 2000

[Dr. Baughman:
Here is an Associated Press article about parents being court
ordered to give their child a psychiatric drug, against the family's
wishes. This is going on in family/divorce courts all over the country
where it is often the pivotal, divisive issue. Virtually always, the
court sides with the parent believing in ADHD as a disease, when it is
nothing of the sort, and in it’s ‘essential’ treatment/drugging. The
parent doubting/resisting is deemed negligent and loses their share of
custody. Having testified in 15-20 such cases, virtually all on behalf
of such parents of divorce, I can attest that family court judges
invariably rule along the lines of reigning biological psychiatry
mythology, that is, they refuse to hear the legitimate science of the
matter. Hopefully, the science of the matter—that ADHD is not a proven
disease—that the children are NORMAL, will be aired in higher court
cases in the near future.
]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ASSOCIATED PRESS – JULY 19, 2000

Court orders boy kept on Ritalin

ALBANY, N.Y., July 19 – An Albany couple facing child abuse
charges
for taking their son off Ritalin must continue medicating him.
That’s
the ruling from a family court judge in the case of Jill and
Michael
Carroll.

SOCIAL SERVICES CHARGES against Jill and Michael Carroll were
dropped
last week on the condition that they keep 7-year-old Kyle on
Ritalin,
Jill Carroll said. Social Service workers will visit the family
throughout the next year.

The judge also ruled that the couple could seek a second opinion
on whether Kyle needs Ritalin. Carroll said a pediatrician and a
psychologist agreed that the medication be continued. However, if
another pediatrician examines Kyle and disagrees, the Carrolls could
appeal.

[Dr. Baughman-
it is well-nigh impossible to find a physician of any kind today
that does not ‘believe’ in ADHD and it’s ‘essential’ treatment with
Ritalin. It often constitutes a third, a half, or more of pediatric or
family practices; 75% of child psychiatry practices. With no proof, in
20 years, that it is a disease—children with it, other than NORMAL, it
has become the ‘standard of practice’. Physicians like myself, who
would invoke science, are pointed to as ‘out of the mainstream.’
Psychologists making determinations as to the presence or absence of
disease and the appropriateness of medication, are guilty of practicing
medicine without a license. But then school teachers, special
educators, therapists, principals, school ‘teams’ and departments of
social services, routinely practice medicine without a license.
]

The controversy began last year when an official from the
Berne-Knox-Westerlo School District that the boy attended
contacted
Albany County’s Department of Social Services, complaining that
the
parents wanted to stop giving Kyle the drug prescribed for
hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder.

The Carroll’s argued the Ritalin interfered with their son’s
appetite and sleep.

© 2000 Associated Press.

http://www.msnbc.com/local/WNYT/43314.asp?0na=2269190c

[Dr. Baughman-
these are real, deleterious, short-term side effects of an
addictive, dangerous, sometimes deadly drug. Had the Carroll’s
somewhere read a scientific assessment of ADHD—that, as F.X. Castellanos
stated in the January, 2000, Reader’s Digest: "Incontrovertible evidence
is still lacking…In time I’m confident we’ll confirm the case for
organic causes."

Dr. Castellanos, Dr. Jensen, Dr. Swanson, Dr. Hyman, Dr. Zametkin, Dr.
Rapoport (all purveyors of ADHD as a ‘disease’, all of the National
Institute of Mental Health), it’s been 20 years, since ADD/ADHD was
invented for the 1980, DSM-III—20 years, and 6 million children on
addictive (Schedule II), dangerous, sometimes deadly, drugs, and still
no proof that ADHD is a disease, that the children are other than
NORMAL. Were the Carroll’s told by the court or by any other
ADHD/Ritalin practitioner, on there way from their son’s school, to
court, what Dr. Castellanos has told us about ADHD—that it’s existence
is yet to be proven. Perhap, too, the Carroll’s saw news of the clearly
Ritalin-caused cardiac death of 14 year old Matthew Smith of Clawson,
Michigan.

It would be understandable if a court held parents in contempt—negligent
were they to refuse to give insulin to a severely ill, diabetic child,
or anti-siezure drugs to a child having frequent, uncontrolled,
epileptic siezures. It would be understandable too, if the child had
lost blood in an auto accident or a complicated operation and needed
blood by transfusion to save the child’s life—a transfusion, the parents
forbade. But today, in the US, bastion of freedom, justice, and
democracy, there are hundreds of thousands or a few million cases in the
family court’s of the nation in which parents, like Jill and Michael
Carroll are being told that the ‘disease’ that must, by order of the
court, be pharmacologically treated, is ADD/ADHD, not a disease at all,
but an arbitrarily constituted group of behaviors, all of them normal,
all of them regularly encountered in entirely normal schoolchildren,
mostly boys. Mind you, the country at large has been lead, contrary to
science, to believe that ADHD is a disease with a disease-confirming
physical/chemical abnormality in the child. But try as they might to
find that ‘disease’, that ‘chemical imbalance, they cannot—and they have
been hunting for it for 20 years. To understand why ADHD has not been
validated as a disease (a physical abnormality within the person),
never will be, and why not a single psychiatric disorder/ ‘disease’ has
been validated by the finding of a diagnosable abnormality within the
person, see my web-site article HISTORY OF THE FRAUD OF BIOLOGICAL
PSYCHIATRY.

Knowing full-well, that ADHD is not a disease, that children said to
have it are NORMAL, one would think, and trust, that the leadership of
US psychiatry, pediatrics and medicine would stop calling it a disease
and stop telling the public, educators, child protective services,
legislators, judges, etc. that it is a disease.. But they do not. The
ADHD industry is ‘hot’! Every NORMAL child is a potential patient—no
exams, no objective findings necessary. And it isn’t just school kids
anymore. Diagnosing and drugging from the crib to kindergarten is a
promising new sector of this multibillion-dollar marketplace, as all
semblance of ethics appears to have faded from the scene. These infant,
toddlers and preschoolers that are being drugged for fraudulent
‘diseases’ that cannot even be validated in schoolchildren, are also
NORMAL—NORMAL, that is until these drugs, doing God-only knows what
damage to these young brains and bodies, begins coursing through their
every system.

But it seems to me the ultimate in something or other when judges,
without benefit of scientific proof—beholden only to the pseudoscience
and fraud of ADHD, tell sensible, doubting parents that (1) they must
accept the ADHD label for their child and (2) they must give the Ritalin
or other amphetamine—regardless of whether of not the parent/parents,
exercising their common-sense, suspect, correctly, that it is a fraud
and that the drugs are addictive and dangerous and are for naught.

My experience testifying for parents, like the Carrolls, has been almost
uniformly disappointing. Local, family court judges, accept the
biological psychiatry model from the psychiatrists and psychologists who
practice it and help the court immeasurably, dispose of otherwise
sticky, complex, wrenching, human dilemmas. None of them want to hear
that the biological psychiatry that they practice, so neatly, so
expeditiously—a ‘chemical imbalance’—a ‘chemical balancer’, is a sham, a
fraud, a perversion of science and medicine and now--of politics and the
law.

ADHD—a serious, life threatening, endangering, ‘disease’ that must be
treated or else--
hardly! The or else, is that without pseudo-scientific, invented
illusions of diseases, biological psychiatry and their controlling
partner, the pharmaceutical industry would be out the $ 5 billion dollar
sector that is psychopharmacology—the drugging of unfortunate, poor,
deprived, down-trodden, troubled, but NORMAL human beings when such
drugging that leaves their miserable life’s-situation untouched, does
not a single thing to set them on a better life’s-course. In fact what
it does, deceiving them, having them believe they have a disease that
does not exist, leaves them without a true picture of their own life’s
course, unprepared to help themselves. Does the pill tell them? Do two
pills? Five? Let it be understood that this is all they get from
psychiatry with it’s biological paradigm, which, it just so happens,
coincides with their seamless, but dependent relationship with the
pharmaceutical industry.

On February 4, 2000, I wrote to Stephen E. Hyman, MD, Director, of
the
National Institute of Mental Health. That letter, dealing,
specifically, with the fact that parents all over the country are being
deceived as to the true nature of ADHD and then coerced, even legally
and judicially, to accept, unquestioningly, both diagnosis and treatment
is now appended in it’s entirety.

 Stephen E. Hyman, MD, Director                           February 4,
 2000 (mailed 2/4)
 National Institute of Mental Health
 5600 Fishers Lane, Room #18C-17
 Rockville, MD 20857
  
 Dear Dr. Hyman,

 The American people have been left to get a statement of the true nature
 of ADHD from—of all places—the Reader’s Digest (January 2000, p. 158).
 While the name of John Pekkanen’s article is Making Sense of Ritalin,
 the primary question—whether ADHD exists, at all, is asked and
 answered.  On page 160 we read:
 
  "Some observers suggest that ADHD is little more than a stigmatizing
 tag put on ‘normal’ kids who are simply distracted or act up in school.
 Others insist that ADHD is a very real and even underdiagnosed  medical
 disorder—and one that may require drug treatment."
 
 Following much discussion of biological research and theory, Pekkanen
 writes:
 
 "Incontrovertible evidence is still lacking.  But many researchers
 engaged in scientific studies of ADHD widely accept that it is a valid
 medical condition."
 
 Here we have it—the very latest as to efforts to validate ADHD as a
 brain disease, an abnormality within the child (and the
 adults)—Castellanos saying:
 
 "In time I’m confident we’ll confirm the case for organic causes."
 
 What this means, as you, I, and Dr. Castellanos understand with perfect
 clarity--even if the public remains confused and deceived on this point
 is that not a single one of the 5-6 million children in the US labeled
 "ADHD" bears objective evidence of a physical or chemical abnormality
 establishing that they are diseased—other than normal.  And, "No!" it is
 not O.K. to drug children because you believe they will be proved at
 some time in the future to have a disease.
 
 Nothing has changed since 1998!  Nothing has changed since 1980 when ADD
 was invented for inclusion in the American Psychiatric Association’s
 DSM-III!

 On May 13, 1998, Dr. Castellanos (NIMH) wrote to me (a duplicate of his
 signed letter to me can be seen on my web site
 (http://home.att.net/~fred-alden/)

 "…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."
 
 And this from NIMH, University of California, Irvine, researcher, James
 Swanson.   Swanson, who was the featured speaker on ADHD at a meeting I
 was attending in San Diego, that of the American Society for Adolescent
 Psychiatry, March 5-8, 1998. 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 tests—a dream of psychiatry for many years… I think
 we will validate it."

 And so it was with ADHD in 1998: Swanson thinks "we will validate it!"
 Meanwhile, Castellanos and his colleagues are "… motivated by the belief
 that it will be possible in the near future to do so."   So it is in
 January, 2000, as well.  There is never a biological proof in
 psychiatry.  There is never validation of a psychiatric "disorder" as a
 "disease".

 We all know—you, Dr. Hyman, Dr. Castellanos, Dr. Swanson and
 myself--that the search and the research for ADHD will go forward.  We
 also know that it will be never-ending for the simple, if unimaginable,
 reason that there is no abnormality, the children are normal, and that
 no matter what technology you apply, the results will always come up
 short.  But the search and the research will be to keep alive visions
 and illusions of real diseases in psychiatry and of "chemical
 imbalances" that must (even if by force) be treated with "chemical
 balancers" –those manufactured by psychiatry’s controlling partner, the
 all-powerful, infinitely wealthy (able to buy almost anything),
 world-wide, pharmaceutical industry.

 Another issue that got candid treatment in the Pekkanen article was that
 of the brain atrophy (shrinkage, shriveling) in children with ADHD and
 on amphetamines—always on amphetamines:
 "Castellanos and his group found three areas of the  brain to be
 ‘significantly’ smaller in ADHD kids than in normal children…this
 suggests that ADHD may arise from abnormalities in these parts of the
 brain."

 In the interests of keeping illusions of "diseases" and "treatments"
 alive, Dr. Castellanos and Dr. Jay Giedd, an NIMH associate of his, also
 interviewed by  Pekkanen, conveniently failed to mention the vast
 majority of the ADHD subjects—93 percent—in their research, were on
 amphetamine, stimulant "therapy" and that this was the only physical
 variable—the  only known, physical difference between the ADHD subjects
 and the normal control individuals.

 Pekkanen wrote of this as a mere possibility; the ramblings of
 disgruntled "critics":

 "Some critics claim that such brain differences in ADHD children might
 actually be caused by Ritalin—meaning these smaller areas of the  brain
 could be the result of the stimulant treatment."
 You know, Dr. Hyman, as surely as Dr. Castellanos, Dr. Giedd, myself,
 and all involved in such research, that this is the only plausible
 conclusion—that Ritalin itself, known to be brain-damaging,
 encephalopathic, is the likely cause of the brain atrophy (shrinkage,
 shriveling).  In that ADHD has never been validated as a disease or
 medical syndrome, the only physical variable, i.e., factor, operative in
 the ADHD group, not operative in the control group, is the
 Ritalin/stimulant treatment in the former (ADHD) but not in the latter
 (controls).

 In what amounts to a confession that all of the brain scanning research
 to date—that which shows the 10 percent (on average) brain atrophy, has
 always compared treated ADHD subjects to normal controls, we read:
  "To address this (the possibility that the  brain atrophy is
 drug-induced), Castellanos has now embarked on another study, imaging
 the  brains of ADHD youngsters who have not been treated with drugs."
 It is not just the public, but the judiciary and legislature, as well,
 that have been roundly deceived.   The notion that ADHD is an actual
 disease and that Ritalin/stimulant therapy is essential, proven, therapy
 prevails in juvenile and family courts across the country.
 
 At this very time I am physician-advisor to 12 parents-of-divorce, who
 have been told by family court judges that ADHD is an actual disease for
 which they must, by court order, administer Ritalin/stimulant and other
 psychotropic medication.  Resisting or failing to cooperate they have
 been threatened with or have already lost a portion of their custody
 rights.  There can be no doubt that hundreds of thousands to a few
 million of such cases have been, and are, being adjudicated, across the
 country.
 
 Nor can there be any doubt that the parents of virtually all of the 5-6
 million "diagnosed", "treated" cases across the country labor under the
 mistaken notion that ADHD actually exists and that it is a bona fide
 disease.  Without a doubt, the NIMH has been at the forefront of this
 deception, its "experts" and "researchers" regularly proclaiming this to
 be the fact of the matter when there is no proof or science in hand.
 
 In 1996, writing in the journal of  the PTA, Ellen Schiller of the US
 Department of Education, Peter Jensen, of the NIMH, and James Swanson
 proclaimed:
 
 "Once parents and teachers…recognize that children with ADD are not lazy
 or ‘bad’, but have a biological disorder, they can stop blaming
 themselves or their children and take appropriate steps to prevent a
 pattern of failure."
 
 This is not a legitimate medical endeavor.  It is a crime of monstrous
 proportions against the people and the youth of the whole of the US and
 now, increasingly  in Canada, and throughout the developed countries of
 the world, carried forth by the same cadre of  ADHD "researchers" and
 "experts" for the same all-controlling pharmaceutical industry.
 
 Knowing as you do, the wholly unproven, fraudulent, nature of
 ADHD—represented as a disease, the NIH/NIMH should state, plainly,
 honestly, and scientifically (at long last):
 
 "There is no confirmatory physical or chemical abnormality in ADHD.
 It is not a disease— the children (adults, too) are normal."
 
 In addition, the NIH/NIMH should state:
 
 "It is highly probable that the brain atrophy reported in ADHD subjects
 is due, not to ADHD (never  validated as a disease) but to Ritalin and
 the other amphetamines which the majority of the ADHD research subjects
 were taking."
 
 NIMH researchers have deemed the amount of atrophy in such studies to be
 "significant" but have blamed it on non-existent ADHD.
 
 Given the magnitude of the Ritalin/stimulant epidemic, the NIH/NIMH
 should also call a press conference, forthwith, to announce the
 prominent addition of these two statements to your web site as well as
 to an NIH/NIMH informational phone line.
 
 In the December 22/29, 1999 Journal of the American Medical Association
 [JAMA. 1999;282:2290], we find the musings of heads of the constituent
 institutes of the National Institutes of Health, as to what the future
 portends for their disciplines.
 
 Targeting the year 2020, you, Dr. Hyman, as Director of the NIMH state,
 remarkably enough:
 
 By 2020 it will be a truth, obvious to all, that mental illnesses are
 brain diseases that result from complex gene-environment interactions.
 We will be reaping the therapeutic benefits that accrue from the
 discovery of risk genes for autism, schizophrenia, manic depressive
 illness, and other serious mental disorders.
 
 We will also routinely analyze real-time movies of brain activity
 derived from functional magnetic resonance imaging, optical imaging, or
 their successor technologies, working together with
 magnetoencephalography or its successor technology.  In these movies, we
 will see the activity of distributed neural circuits during diverse
 examples of normal cognition and emotion; we will see how things go
 wrong in mental illness; and we will see normalization with our improved
 treatments.
 
 Amazingly, not a single mental, emotional or behavioral disorder has
 been validated as a disease, a medical syndrome , a phenotype or
 genotype with a confirmatory physical or chemical abnormality or marker
 within the brain.  Such is the totality of the deception.  And yet the
 NIMH and all in academic psychiatry and mental health regularly
 represent all of the “serious mental disorders” as though they were, and
 would have the public, the legislature, and the judiciary believe that
 they are.
 
 Further, with not a one having so much as a physical marker and any
 prospect that any technology will validate a one as a disease, you
 pledge the application, from decade to decade, of every evolving
 technology to confirm, your belief, and psychiatry’s , that “mental
 illnesses are brain diseases”.   Observe your use of the term
 “normalization” establishing, etymologically at least, that those with
 mental illnesses are abnormal.
 
 Lending “neuro-biologic” credence to “depression” where there is none,
 and demonstrating the complicity of neurology with the “biological”
 psychiatry, and thus the psychiatry/pharmaceutical cartel, Gerald D.
 Fischbach, MD, Director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders
 and Stroke, states:
 
 Neurodegeneration is a ubiquitous phenomenon that occurs in many brain
 diseases, not only in the classic neurodegenerative disorders such as
 Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, and amyotrophic lateral
 sclerosis.  Neurodegenerative disorders also contribute significantly to
 epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and even depression.
 
  Director Fischbach, of the NINDS, has yet to respond to my letter
 (January 5, 2000) asking for proof that depression is anything
 “neurodegenerative” or anything abnormal, or a disease at all.
 
 These are seductive visions and illusions of disease that you weave.  It
 is no wonder that you have the people of NAMI, Tipper Gore, General
 McCaffrey,  victims themselves with emotional problems and pains, and
 indeed, the whole country, believing in psychiatric “diseases” and
 “chemical imbalances”, where none exist.  Few could imagine such a
 deception.
 
 One more thing, Dr. Hyman.  Why was my invited testimony at the
 November16-18, 1998, NIH Consensus Conference on ADHD, expunged from the
 final, for sale to the public, version of the Conference videotape?
 That I testified that “ADHD is a total, 100 percent fraud” is beside the
 point.  No one present challenged or rebutted my characterization.
 
 You should resign, Sir, and allow the appointment of someone who will
 have the independence necessary to follow what science and the welfare
 of children dictate, and to duly publicize and disseminate the two
 points above, those about (1) the lack of validity of ADHD as a disease,
 an abnormality, and (2) that Ritalin/amphetamine/stimulant therapy (such
 as is now “standard” or “court-ordered” treatment in 5-6 million US
 children), is the probable cause of the “significant” brain atrophy in
 normal children (ADHD having been shown to be non-existent).
 
 In the meantime,  I will urge attorneys, judges and state and national
 legislators and victimized citizens to call your office  (301-496-4319)
 Also, they can give you Dr. Hyman’s phone number and ask for a “Yes!” or
 “No!” answer to the question, “Is ADHD a proven, bona fide disease with
 a demonstrable, confirmatory, physical or chemical abnormality within my
 child—any child—any adult?”
 
 The role of the NIH and NIMH in so deceiving the public about the
 essential nature of ADHD, and all psychological and emotional pains and
 problems, should be the subject of  immediate Congressional, Senatorial,
 and White House  investigations.

 Finally, Secretary Richard Riley of the US Department of Education
 should be told of the true status of ADHD and should be advised to
 suspend all mention, diagnosis, and practice of so-called ADHD,
 throughout US public schools,  much as was suggested by the November 11,
 1999 resolution of the Colorado State Board of Education.
 
 Truly yours,
 
 Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
 1303 Hidden Mountain Drive
 El Cajon, CA 92019
 
 cc Tipper Gore
 cc General McCaffrey
 cc Secretary, DHHS Donna Shalala
 cc Attorney General Janet Reno
 cc President William J. Clinton
 cc Vice President Al Gore
 cc Senator John McCain
 cc Bill Bradley
 cc Governor George W. Bush
 cc Congressman Chris Shays
 cc Senator William Frist
 cc Congressman Randy Cunningham
 cc Colorado State Board of Education
 cc Penn Pfiffner, Representative, Colorado State Legislature
 cc George  F. Will

Wayne S. Fenton, MD wrote to me for Dr. Hyman on 2/28/2000, offering no
proof that ADHD is a disease of the brain or body, i.e., that children
with it are other than NORMAL. Nor did he provide an explanation for
the regular representations by the NIMH, NIMH personnel, organized
psychiatry, and Children and Adults with Attention Deficit
Disorders—CHADD, that ADHD is a ‘disease’, an abnormality, a ‘chemical
imbalance’ within the brain of the child (thus making ‘patients’ of
NORMAL children). The people of the U.S. did not make this up on their
own.