> The New York Times > September 14, 2000 > > Suits Charge Conspiracy to Expand Ritalin Use > By BARRY MEIER > > > Lawyers involved in class-action lawsuits against the tobacco industry, gun > makers and health maintenance organizations filed two lawsuits yesterday > against another target, the widely used drug Ritalin. > > The lawsuits, filed in federal courts in California and New Jersey, say the > Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, the drug's manufacturer, and the > American Psychiatric Association, a professional group, conspired to create > a market for Ritalin and expand its use. > > For more than a decade, Ritalin has been increasingly prescribed for > children in whom attention deficit disorder or attention deficit > hyperactivity disorder has been diagnosed
[Dr. Baughman:
the lynch-pin of the fraud is that ADD/ADHD, by whatever
name, has never been validated as a disease with a confirming
abnormality within the child/person. No abnormality = normal = no
disease. Children/persons said to have ADD/ADHD and then put on Ritalin,
are physically/chemically normal until the first drug (usually Ritalin)
courses through their brains/bodies. Children/persons with no disease,
i.e. who are normal, who are put on a drug due to an honest error in
diagnosis or due to the fraudulent representation that they have a
disease, are not being treated, but are being poisoned.]
> That has prompted debate among > scientists, psychiatrists and government officials over whether children are > receiving too much medication or their behavioral disorders are being > diagnosed incorrectly
[Dr. Baughman:
there is no denying that the National Institute of Mental
Health--NIMH, Children and Adults with Attention Deficit
Disorders--CHADD, the American Psychiatric Association, the American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of
Pediatrics, and others, have represented ADHD to be a disease due to
brain abnormalitieschemical imbalances, knowing all the while that no
such thing had ever been proved, i.e., knowing, all the while, that the
millions of children, diagnosed in their schools with it, by teachers
using pencil-and-paper behavior check lists, had not been shown to be
other than normal.]
> Officials of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, a unit of Novartis AG, and the > American Psychiatric Association said they could not comment on the lawsuits > because they had not seen them. > > But representatives of each group said the accusations in the new lawsuits > sounded similar to those in a class-action lawsuit brought against them > earlier this year in Texas. > > At that time, Novartis said Ritalin, which is also known by its chemical > name methylphenidate, had been used safely and effectively in thousands of > children for more than 40 years and that it was the most studied drug used > for attention deficit hyperactive disorder.
[Dr. Baughman:
the dangers of Ritalin and the other amphetamines used to
treat so-called ADHD are forthrightly, honestly, set forth in the Drug
Enforcement Administrations (DEA) October, 1995, Background Paper on
Methylphenidate. Therein, the DEA makes known the fact that the
information as to the risks of these drugs, especially insofar as it was
made available to the public by CHADD, so downplayed the risks of the
stimulant drugs, including their addictive potential, as to constitute a
violation of the publics informed consent rights. That psychiatry
characterizes the risks of the drugs as "used safely and effectively in
thousands of children for more than 40 years" is yet another partial,
self-serving, incomplete characterization. That Ritalin is said to be
the "most studied drug used for attention deficit hyperactive disorder,"
says nothing of scientific substance about the drug or it's true risk
vs. benefit ratio. ]
> The psychiatric association called the accusations in the Texas suit > "groundless" and an "opportunistic attack on the scientific process that > underlies this effort."
[Dr. Baughman:
none of the medical or biological research on ADD/ADHD can
be called scientific for the simple reason that ADHD was never
established as a disease, a syndrome, a phenotype or anything else
organic or physical having a physical or a chemical marker or
abnormality by which to recognize, diagnose or confirm its presence.
Psychiatrys biological research, steadfastly carried out on all
things emotional and behavioral, is fraudulent and is destined to prove
nothing, because it is done on entities that do not exist and that
cannot be physically validated. The only reason for biological
research on the biological, physical, chemical non-entities of
psychiatry, is to weave illusions of biology and diseasesuch illusions
being the only things biological about psychiatryuntil the drugging;
poisoning starts, that is.]
> The new lawsuits seek to halt what they call unlawful practices and ask that > profits from sales of the drug be returned to consumers. > > One of those bringing the latest lawsuits is Richard Scruggs, a lawyer from > Pascagoula, Miss., who represented dozens of states in actions brought in > recent years against cigarette makers. Earlier this year, Mr. Scruggs also > filed lawsuits against several health maintenance organizations charging > that they had defrauded consumers by failing to provide them with > treatments. > > John Coale, a Washington lawyer who is also involved in the Ritalin > lawsuits, said the litigation was brought because Novartis and the > psychiatric group promoted the idea that many children had attention deficit > order and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as a way of expanding the > market for the drug.
[Dr. Baughman:
I testified at the November, 1998, National Institutes of
Health Consensus Conference on ADHD, that the problem with ADHD and
Ritalin was not a matter either of misdiagnosis or over-diagnosis, but
that "ADHD (not a bona fide disease)is a total, 100% fraud."
]
> "They were giving this stuff away like candy," Mr. Coale said. > In March, the White House announced an effort to reverse a sharp increase in > the number of preschool children using Ritalin, Prozac and other psychiatric > drugs. > > Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company