Comments on the following of Fred Baughman, MD of 10/6/00. Thanks for the opportunity KoreenB, best, FB[Dr. Baughman: It is difficult, indeed to get straight talk from the NIMH. In, of all places, the January, 2000 Readers Digest, F. Xavier Castellanos, MD, of the NIMH found: " three areas of the brain to be significantly smaller in ADHD kids than in normal children." Knowing that no such thing has been proved, Castellanos, via the interview, sought to set the record straight, as follows: " Some critics claim that such brain differences in ADHD children might actually be caused by Ritalinmeaning these smaller areas of the brain could be the result of the stimulant treatment. To address this, Castellanos has now embarked on another study, imaging the brains of ADHD youngsters who have not been treated with drugs." Why, when it was suggested by Nasrallah, et al (1986) fourteen years ago, that the drugs were causing the brain shrinkage, is the NIMH just now getting around to comparing ADHD kids, not on drugs, with normal controls, so as to know whether it is ADHD, the never-validated disease doing this, or the drugs-- which, all the while, they were urging, ever more, on the truly-normal ADHD children of the country. Why through all these 14 years have the ADHD researchers of the NIMH continued to represent this brain shrinkage to the public and the government, as due to ADHDas confirmation of ADHD as a disease, knowing all the while that the drugs, virtually all of them were on, were the only known difference between the ADHD subjects and the normal controls, and the only plausible cause of the brain atrophy? ]
Pushing pills on kids? Lawyers claim a conspiracy to oversell Ritalin By Nancy Shute Dickie Scruggs has sued some of the biggest: the asbestos industry, the tobacco companies, HMOs, gun manufacturers. The newest on his hit list: the American psychiatric establishment. An august medical association is hardly the typical class-action defendant. But Scruggs and a passel of other highflying plaintiffs' lawyers are taking on the American Psychiatric Association and Ciba-Geigy Corp. (now Novartis), claiming that they conspired to promote the use of Ritalin for millions of children to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. "At least 90 percent of those who are taking Ritalin in the United States are inappropriately medicated," asserts Scruggs. As it's now officially defined, he says, "the diagnosis of ADHD would fit every child in America."
[Dr. Baughman:
Mr. Scruggs is off by 10%! 100% of ADHD children are normal
for the simple reason that none, not a single one have been shown to
have an abnormalityan abnormality necessary to confirm the presence of
a disease. ADHD has never been validated as a disease, as an
abnormality within the child/children. No abnormality = normal = no
disease.]
Unholy bible. It's not the first time the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the bible of psychiatric diagnosis published by the APA, has drawn ire. Critics have argued for years that the DSM's ever growing list of disorders medicalizes behavioral problems that are a normal part of life. And ADHD has also long sparked conflict. Over the past 30 years, its definition in the DSM has become increasingly broad, and it now includes symptoms such as having difficulty organizing tasks, being forgetful, and being easily distracted. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 3 to 5 percent of children have ADHD.
[Dr. Baughman:
The NIMH and all of psychiatry, in concert, continue to put
out the 3-5% incidence, knowing full-well that ADHD is now in the 6
million range, or 12% of the nations school children. Another 2-3
million have other invented "chemical imbalances" and are on other
"chemical balancers"pills, meaning that we drug 15% going on 20% of our
schoolchildren. ]
In the 1980s, as the use of the stimulant Ritalin as a treatment soared, so did criticism that children were being improperly medicated for behavior, such as fidgeting and inattentiveness, that may be annoying but is not pathological. Recent imaging studies have shown that the brains of some children with ADHD work differently from those of other children. But scientists are far from understanding what causes these differences.
[Dr. Baughman:
there is absolutely no scientific proof of a physical
abnormality, i.e., a disease, in any child labeled ADHD with
teacher/parent, pencil-paper behavior check lists, nor will there ever
be. The DSM is not a document of medical science. Claims that
diagnostic criteria in the section on child/adolescent psychiatric
disorders diagnose organic/physical diseases, are fraudulent.
No one would dispute that the system for treating children's mental disorders needs fixing. Last week, Surgeon General David Satcher convened hundreds of physicians, parents, and teachers to evaluate children's mental-health treatment. The consensus: Some children are being properly medicated, but many aren't being prescribed drugs that could help, while many others are unnecessarily dosed. Said Satcher: "Eighty-five percent of children ages 3 to 5 do not get the help they need."
[Dr. Baughman:
The Surgeon General has taken to boosting
emotional/psychiatric conditions/disorders as organic diseases of the
brain, contrary to medical science. I have pointed this out to him and
have called for his resignation]
The lawsuits, filed this month on behalf of children in California and New Jersey, claim that Ciba-Geigy gave financial contributions to the APA and to Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, a consumer group, so that they would promote the use of Ritalin. (Drug companies often give money to medical and consumer groups for educational programs.) In a statement, the APA called allegations of wrongdoing "ludicrous and totally false."
[Dr. Baughman:
Regarding the APAs roll in the psychopharm disinformation
campaign, Houston psychiatrist, Theodore Pearlman observed, in December,
1994: "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 ]
Ritalin may be the first psychoactive drug to win the attention of the class-action lawyers, whose fortunes soared in the 1990s when suits against the tobacco industry won them multimillion-dollar payouts. But it won't be the last. John Coale, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, says the lawyers are already planning to tackle other psychiatric drugs, including Prozac. "We'll raise some hell."
[Dr. Baughman:
Psychiatry has violated the informed consent rights of an
entire nation by representing all psychiatric disorders to be
diseases, due to chemical imbalances of the brain, when none of
them are. It should be a fertile area for Coale, Scruggs, Waters, and
perhaps countless others as well.]
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