Posted on 08/02/2007 7:05:34 AM PDT by Lennyq
For Immediate Release
Media review copies and interviews available on request
Contact: Fred Baughman, MD fredbaughmanmd@cox.net Author: The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children http://www.trafford.com/4dcgi/view-item?item=9628
Is your child taking Ritalin? Is there a plague of psychiatric diseases in children?
This is a true story.
On March 21, 2000, fourteen-year old Matthew Smith was having a good time skateboarding with two of his cousins. Suddenly, he collapsed to the floor and started turning blue. His cousins called 911 but the paramedics couldn’t revive him. At the hospital he was pronounced dead from a heart attack – a heart attack caused by Ritalin.
Matthews parents had been giving him Ritalin since he was six years old. Ritalin is classified as a Schedule II drug, which the DEA reserves for the most dangerous and addictive drugs that can be prescribed legally.
But to the educators at Matthew’s school, Ritalin was simply a magic pill that made troublesome students easier to manage.
Prior to being diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Matthew was an energetic, boisterous highly social child who did not focus on his school work quite the way his teachers wanted him to.
Was he in dire need of medication?
The push to label Matthew occurred when he was in the first grade. School officials said that he was fidgety in his seat and would sometimes disrupt the class, and that he often had trouble staying focused on his work.
The school social worker called Matthews parents and said that Matthew needed to take medication saying, “He’s got ants in his pants”.
This unqualified social worker made the diagnosis and recommendation for medication and handed them a list of physicians who would provide them with a prescription.
Even though this constitutes the practice of medicine without a license, this same process is applied in school districts across the nation by teachers, administrators, counselors, psychologists and social workers.
According to Dr. Fred Baughman, there is an epidemic taking place all across America.
Parents are told to place their children on Ritalin or Adderall or their child will be refused attendance at school and they will be charged with “medical neglect.”
“Parents are succumbing to the threats from school officials without any idea of the possible side effects of these addictive, dangerous drugs.
In San Diego at just one school, 65 percent of the fifth graders had been diagnosed with ADD and were on medication.
There are over 6 million children in the United States who have been diagnosed with ADHD and drugged for ADHD.
“We are drugging normal children so that they act less like normal children and forcing them to act like the docile adults who are supposed to be teaching them”.
Dr. Baughman is one of numerous medical professionals who recently testified in front of the FDA and Congress.
“ADHD is not a disorder, disease, syndrome or chemical imbalance of the brain. It is not over-diagnosed, under-diagnosed, or mis-diagnosed. It doesn’t exist. It is a total, 100%, Fraud.”
Nowhere in world’s literature is there proof that a single psychiatric diagnosis is an actual disease.
“ADHD and all of psychiatry’s “chemical imbalances” are manufactured diseases- invented diseases that results in huge profits for psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies.”
We have allowed school and health care professionals to blanket classify behavior and establish bounds for student conduct in the school environment. We hand out drugs to kids as freely as we give them Flintstone vitamins.
In spite of schools with posted signs everywhere that say “drug free zones” it turns out that nearly everywhere, the most effective drug pushers are the legal ones.
Dr. Baughman, author of the new book, The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes “Patients” Out of Normal Children says that parents and educators have to stop thinking that the use of drugs is safe or necessary.
“We’ve gone on a diagnostic frenzy and sought out a chemical means for achieving peace and quiet in the classroom. Ritalin may solve problems for teachers but it’s not helping the children.”
Once children are labeled as ADHD they are no longer treated as normal. The first drug they ingest is an intoxication, a poisoning, their first and only disease. ADD and ADHD simply do not exist.
“The real question is how we go about destroying the monster we’ve created. We’ve been conned into believing that our normal children are abnormal--diseased. We’ve been lulled into believing there is a collective madness.
The real evil forces reside in our schools and physicians offices.
Our children act in ways that bother adults. We’ve got to now teach the adults that the solution is up to them. We know that there are sane people who are horrified at the thought of participating in a massive abuse of children.
It’s horrifying. There are over half a million children between the ages of 2 and 5 now being treated with powerful drugs for ADHD. Nobody has any idea of the effects these drugs will have on children so young.
We have got to stop putting children on drugs.
The ADHD Fraud How Psychiatry Makes “Patients” Out of Normal Children By Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD With Craig Hovey
ISBN 1-4120-6458-9
US$24.95, C$28.69, EUR20.49, £14.35 Published by Trafford Publishing Soon to be translated into Spanish
Dr. Baughman’s book is filled with real life case studies of children who have been harmed as a result of a diagnosis of ADHD. He also describes the evolution of the epidemic, and how Ritalin was created and it’s history as a drug in search of a disease.
Dr. Baughman presents the 14 symptoms that appear in the 1987 Diagnostic and Statistical manual that for the basis for most diagnosis of ADHD and shows that most of them really amount to a list of the things that normal children do that irritate adults who do not have the patience compassion or interest to tolerate them.
Dr. Baughman urges parents, teachers, and physicians to recognize the basic truth of the scientific literature; no proof exists. For a disease to be present there must be a macroscopic (visible to the naked eye, a palpable lump, an audible heart murmur), microscopic or chemical abnormality in life, or at autopsy.
With ADHD – there is NO abnormality at all. No psychiatric disorder/chemical imbalance/disease is an objective abnormality—a disease--not one.
These are normal child behaviors. That is all.
It is a problem of adults who cannot deal with these children.
The ADHD Fraud How Psychiatry Makes “Patients” Out of Normal Children is available in bookstores and online.
For more information visit www.adhdfraud.org or visit the website of the publisher www.trafford.com
Dr. Baughman can offer insights and comments and reports on the latest ADHD facts:
Where did ADHD come from?
"They made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive-termed them " diseases"/ "chemical imbalances" each needing/requiring a "chemical balancer"- a pill." Thirty-five years of research into "biological" psychiatry's "chemical imbalances"/"diseases.” In 1970, when "hyperactivity"/ ADHD was first represented to Congress to be a brain disease, only 150,000 had it. Today, not by science, but by the "big lie" -saying it is a disease often enough, 6-7 million have it! Nor is ADHD the only "chemical imbalance"/"disease" of the brain. They give us conduct disorder (CD), oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD), major depressive disorder (MDD), OCD, PTSD, GAD, SAD, etc., a total of 374 psychiatric disorders from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA); “chemical imbalances” of the brain said to need "chemical balancers" –pills. How convenient.
How many people are affected?
In 2003 Congressional hearings it was said that 17% of the nation's school children, 8.8 million, were labeled and drugged by psychiatry. Toady it is 20%; one in five; 10.4 million! As if this were not enough the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health is set to foist upon us the compulsory, government-mandated mental health screening of all 52 million US schoolchildren. Clearly, it is a psycho-pharm-government cartel. When normal people are told they have a disease to make "patients" of them, we have a violation of informed consent which equals medical malpractice. When normals are lied to, to make "patients" of them, to drug, for-profit, we have a battery - poisoning. Undoubtedly, this is the greatest health care fraud in US history.
Media review copies and interviews available on request.
About the Authors
Fred A Baughman Jr., MD, is an adult and child neurologist certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and a Fellow of the Academy of Neurology. He has discovered and described real diseases. He has testified before the US Congress, the European Union, and innumerable other national and international government bodies. He is an expert witness in lawsuits and legal cases regarding psychiatry and invented diseases.
Dr. Baughman is an experienced media guest and has appeared on many national radio and television shows. He has authored over a hundred articles in medical journals and the national press. He resides in San Diego with his wife Annette.
Craig Hovey teaches economics at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY. He is a writer who’s interest in the book's subject was sparked when told by school personnel that his oldest son suffered from ADHD and had to take Ritalin.
Read about the March 22 Congressional Hearings:
ADHD EXPERTS HEAD TO WASHINGTON - IS THE FDA UP TO THE TASK? -- HTTP://WWW.OPEDNEWS.COM/ARTICLES/GENERA_EVELYN_P_060314_ADHD_EXPERTS_HEAD_TO.HTM
FEEL FREE TO REQUEST A COPY THE TESTIMONY OF FRED A. BAUGHMAN JR., MD, TO THE MARCH 22, 2006, MEETING OF THE FDA-PEDIATRIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
What People Are Saying
Read this book before someone you love is labeled and drugged.
Nicholas A. Cummings, Former President, American Psychiatric Association
All parents with a child in school need to read Fred Baughman’s book to learn the reasons to be skeptical when informed that their child has “Attention Deficit Disorder” and must be treated with psychotropic drugs.
Representative Ron Paul, 14th District (Texas), U.S. House of Representatives
This book documents (how) the charlatan psychiatric profession abuses normal, healthy children with brain destructive drugs for the unconscionable purpose of creating so-called ‘mental illnesses’ such as ADHD for financial gain.
Dr. Robert L. Simonds, Chair, National Association of Evangelicals
I wept as I read this book. As a retired teacher, school trustee, and grandmother of a Ritalin/SSRI/Risperdal damaged grandson, I know that Dr. Baughman speaks the truth.
Sharon Steele Kientz, 1995, National Right to Read Foundation, Teacher of the Year
Dr. Baughman has written a powerful expose of psychiatry and its hydra-headed influence with the FDA, drug companies, and public school personnel who pressure parents into unwittingly poisoning their children with dangerous drugs for the non-disease-ADHD. A must read for every parent of a school aged child.
Dr. Robert Sweet, Former President & Founder of the National Right to Read Foundation, Professional Staff, Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. Congress
The ADHD Fraud provides much needed, detailed, and practical advice as to how to prevent children from being earmarked as victims of ADHD. This book deserves the attention of every parent… all educators and policy makers.
Dr. Patrick Groff, Professor of Education Emeritus, San Diego State University
Media review copies and interviews available on request
Contact: "Fred Baughman, MD" at fredbaughmanmd@cox.net
When you have read any critics of the psychiatric establishment, you will be in a better position to understand just how informed I am.
You are in way over your head.
Schizophrenia has a physical component. PET scans in Schizophrenics are abnormal. One early clue that something PHYSICAL was going on in Schizophrenia, as opposed to the Freudian mumbo jumbo was the fact that Schizophrenics on dialysis IMPROVED after their dialysis treatments. Their are GENETIC markers that show increased incidence of Schizophrenia. TWIN studies show higher association of Schizphrenia in identical twins raised apart. There is evidence of neurotransmitter abnormalities in Schizophrenics.
As for Baughmann so he’s a neurolgist, so what? He’s one man with one opinion ( and books to sell). I know tons of neurolgists professionally, as well as psychiatrists. I DEAL with Schizophrenics nearly on a daily basis. When Baughmann publishes some peer reviewed studies I’ll consider them. Until then it’s just noise.
Do you have ANY clue at all?
You do realize that the vast majority of Schizophrenics WHO TAKE THEIR medications lead normal productive lives?
Arguing by anecdote, “ well X took medicine and it didn’t help” is laughable.
What a fascinating story. Amazing that race would play any role in this at all.
I submit to you that the attempt to lump boys and girls into a common behavior template is forcing normal "boy" behavior to be considered anti-social and in need of drugging. Combine that with parents who are too damned focused on their own selfish goals to spend the time being parents and leap at the chance for a magic pill to do their job for them, and you have a recipe for societal disaster.
GREAT RESOURCES HERE...
http://www.donpotter.net/ed.htm
I am quite informed - more than you could possibly know - but I take nothing at face value and little from those with an obvious agenda to loosen my wallet with half-lies, innuendos, and a religious belief antithetical to my own.
I haven't a clue or a care if you are indeed involved with the Church of Scientology, but you certainly use their talking points and raise the opinion of one of their consultants over those of the rest of the medical world.
Why am I on this thread? I wasn't aware I needed permission to be on any certain thread. I am learning as I read - learning quite a bit to be honest with you.
Epilepsy is a physical illness, as is a brain illness, that is treated with medications. Doctors do not know the correct level of tegretol or depakote to give to a patient with epilepsy, it varies by patient and how the illness presents itself. To say, if you don’t know the amount of medication the treatment doesn’t work, is wrong.
Ever have a headache and two asprin didn’t work? Did you chuck the bottle or did you take another? Is not an headache a physical ailment that is treated with medication? Why is the physical ailment of bipoplar depression, triggered by decreased seratonin, any less of an illness?
Correct level of brain chemicals in bipolar disorder varies from patient to patient and it also varies depending on the severity of the symptoms. A bipolar patients’ need for medications does fluctuate. One person who needed heavier medications one year may find that with lessening symptoms, less medication is necessary the following year. This is a normal practice in medicine. This too is common in many illnesses.
Not every bipolar patient is an ECT candidate, many find relief through medications. But, those that don’t can be ECT candidates. Just because one treatment is prescribed for one set of patients does not mean it is called for with others. ECT is often administered by a NEUROPSYCHIATRIST. That you dismiss this shows how little you know about the physician and the treatment. I have been under the care of a neuropsychiatrist for years and not had a serious recurrance. His treatment is highly effective.
Side effects of medications? Have you ever read the side effects that are possible with ALL medications that you’ve ingested? You can complain about Wellbutrin, but you obviously haven’t been reading the small print on other well known medications as well. EVERY medication prescribed in American comes with pages of information for the patient, listing possible side effects.
Viagra comes to mind, and yet every day men go to their urologist and ask for the prescription. Those pages that you as a patient are supposed to read are for your education, and I’m all for it. But to say only Wellbutrin may come with side effects is false.
I have had NO problem with the side effects of Wellbutrin. Clearly you know nothing about my prescriptions or my doctor’s treatment. Saying otherwise is clearly deceptive and I wish you would stop.
Your arguments ring hollow, and I don’t buy into your philosophy.
Again, study the field of NEUROPSYCHIATRY. And you will find that just pumping pills is not the only treatment available.
I appreciate that link. My main concern right now is to keep him challenged. He gets bored with things easily that don’t challenge him. This first week of school has me worried. I hope his teacher picks up the pace soon for him.
I will have to investigate any resources provided by his school to assist me in doing so.
But the Psychlos do--thats how they manipulated the Thetan slaves....
Every one of your posts is a $cientologist talking point.
So what ? Why don’t you try to prove them wrong with science, not with emotion ?
Most classrooms spend the first 6 weeks repeating the last grade. You have a few more “slow” weeks to go. After that it depends on the capabilities of the teacher, the curriculum and the classmates.
A lot of people I know do “afterschooling” - they help their kids tolerate/survive a classroom that does not meet their intellectual needs with fun, interesting, and intellectual pursuits after school and on weekends. I don’t mean sitting them down for more bookwork, unless the books you help them find make THEM want to do so on their own, and they initiate the learning. I mean time and materials for hands-on learning whether it’s a chem lab kit and the space to make a mess, or trips to Woods Hole and the local aquarium plus bringing a few species home, or allowing them to study for and enter the Sudoku regional championships.
I find that for parents, you can support their intellectual interests even if the school does not. You don’t get the best of their attention, but it’s ameliorated by the fact that they drive their own additional learning.
No. You've already dismissed science as the basis for psychology. How then can more science change your closed-to-science-mind?
Good luck on OT!
Are you a scientologist?
You think that this is about Scientology ? No, that was introduced by someone else who wished to throw a red herring. And no, I have no connection to scientology, nor have I ever had such. I am simply someone who is very concerned over any government’s or society’s use of psychiatry for behavior control.
You may as well say that anyone who does not ascribe to every practice of Western medicine has kooky beliefs with no validity. Sorry, you are wrong. I guess it confounds you that all the doctors were pushing HRT until last year, then they reversed course 180 deg and said it was bad for women. How did that square with your belief that your doctor is always right ?
Nor are these “beliefs” - I have asked several people to show me the science where doctors or researchers understand the optimum range and ratio of brain chemicals, and how to adjust them to eliminate problems. No one can - there is no such level of scientific understanding at this time. Is it coming ? Maybe, but it’s not there now no matter what psychiatry’d like you to believe.
You can do all the PET scans and MRIs and whatever other tests you want, but if you perform them on people who are not drug-naive and you don’t know what a “normal” brain looks like, then you have no settled science.
Additionally, what is normal ? Define that for me, please. If we look at the PET scans of 2 brains, can a researcher tell which one is abnormal, in what way, and the exact adjustment of which chemicals ? No, they can’t. Would Einstein or Bill Gates or John D. Rockefeller be considered “normal” or “abnormal” ? We simply do not have that information, and frankly I hope we never do.
Who do you want to play God to say this person is OK and this one needs to be “altered” ? Did you like it when Teri Schiavo was declared by a court to be killed because in current definition she was brain-dead, whereas we’ve had 2 cases since where people diagnosed by doctors with the same type of impairment came out of their comas ? Frankly, I don’t want to live in a society where doctors decide if you are normal or conforming. Do you ?
Why do you think that the environment is OK and people must be sliced and diced to fit that environment ? We are humans - we have or should have choices. That’s what individualism and self-responsibility are all about. Now that we have a nanny society, everybody gets to decide whether we are conforming. No thanks.
I don’t care whether you agree with me or not, nor am I shocked. The majority of people in this country believe what they are told without investigating anything on their own. It’s what we’re taught in school, after all - the teacher is always correct and don’t argue. Some of us never succumb.
I made reference to the controversy over human causes of global warming; the same thing applies here. All the liberals and socialists are busy telling us that there is a consensus on the science, when if we listen and look around and read alternative media, we know there is no such thing.
The same is true in medicine. Treatments for all kinds of illnesses and disorders change all the time because more is known every year. It’s just that in this case, like for global warming, the practices of psychiatry are not based on current science.
No, I am not, and never have been associated in any way with them. Nor any religion other than good old-fashioned Presbyterian.
See my post #197.
You know, you are just like a liberal. If a conservative says the sun rises every day in the East, you think it doesn’t happen because it’s evil conservatives saying it.
Forget scientology; it’s a total non sequiter. If you can’t consider ideas without being biased by the messenger, then I’m not interested.
Oh, so you are a Scientologist. I knew it!
After you tried to deny it....
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