Studies On Ritalin Are ‘Child Abuse' (Federally funded torture chambers)

NY Post ^ | 12/03/01 | Douglas Montero

[dead]

December 3, 2001 -- The federally funded abuse of children, some as young as 3, has begun in New York City, critics charge.

The alleged torture chambers are located at two city locations where doctors will conduct Ritalin experiments on more than 80 city kids between the ages of 3 and 8.

[Dan from Michigan]

There is no way in hell my kids are going to be on that stuff. Over my dead body, literally.

Take a pill, turn into a zombie.

[mlocher]

how else do you suggest valid research be completed?

not every question requires an answer and not every drug requires testing or usage. ritalin is trouble. i wonder what drives parents to let their children partake in such an event?

[College Repub]

Let me make myself clear. I'm not supporting this study, but rather the scientific process itself. This does appear a bit barbaric. But there are people that would protest ANY study...

[mlocher]

thanks for the post. everytime i hear the word ritalin, i think of the word thalidimide.

[Al B.]

Once a dosage amount is established, researchers will spend five weeks alternating amounts and sometimes giving placebo sugar pills to see how the kids react.  Parents and teachers who record the reaction won't be told about the dosage change.

Fake classrooms with two-way mirrors will be set up to study the kids like lab rats when researchers wean them off Ritalin. The "child's behavior could get worse," the protocol states.

Notwithstanding the ethical problems associated with this study, any study like this that does not clearly differentiate between the well-known behavioral rebound effects of drugs like Ritalin and the child's underlying behavior problem is a sham.

Do ya think we'll see this kind of differentiation?  Sure we will.  Not.

[mlocher]

thanks for the post. everytime i hear the word ritalin, i think of the word thalidimide.

[mlo]

It is not just that Ritalin is over-prescribed. dead is right, ADHD is a fictional disease. It is just a further part of the trend of medicalizing behavior. The same factor figures in perceptions of substance abuse as a "disease" and in treatment of guns as an "epidemic".

[College Repub]

I'll agree with you that it may be a fictional disease. But how can you expalin the nonfictional results of the medication on the symptoms (regardless of whether they warrant a disease or not). Isn't it really a moot point?

[mlocher]

thanks for the clarification.

[George Smiley]

My son just got diagnosed with ADD.

And it was after a three year struggle where the diagnosis was first depresssion, and then bipolar, and finally bipolar with ADD.

And to top it off, while reading Driven to Distraction to learn about this disorder, stuff started jumping off the page-- not just about my son, but about me as well. (We're both on once-a-day meds now.)

The difference between his performance in school pre and post-med is, on average, two letter grades in each subject.

Perhaps the diagnosis of ADD/ADHD is overused and Ritalin is overused, but there are instances when the results cannot be discounted.

[mlo]

I'll agree with you that it may be a fictional disease. But how can you expalin the nonfictional results of the medication on the symptoms (regardless of whether they warrant a disease or not). Isn't it really a moot point?

Because, it may not be a real disease but Ritalin is a real drug. If you take a mind altering drug you can expect your mind to be altered. You would see an effect if you took cocaine or LSD or whiskey too.

In this case, Ritalin is prescribed for people with certain behaviors and the drug does have the effect of reducing those behaviors. The issue is, are the behaviors due to a medical condition or are we just drugging people who act in ways we preferred they didn't? I think it is the latter. There is no medical condition that causes ADHD, there are energetic children who lack discipline (among other causes). Drugging them is wrong.

[a history buff]

Maybe we could write them, and ask them to mend their ways & brains. As I understand it, there also are pills for people who persistently make claims not congruent with reality.

[FairWitness]

Because these drugs are designed to have an altering effect on perception, emotion, or behavior, the damage done to the brain could be at a level that does not have any relationship to the limited cognitive functioning of a mouse brain.

You are quite right. Since my expertise is pharmacokinetics and metabolism, and since the subject here seems to be as much about safety as efficacy, I confined my comments to that area, but the CNS area is one of the hardest in which to do origial (not me-too) pharmacological research.

[a history buff]

In the 8th grade, at an American school overseas, I, at age 12, tested post-high school across the board. School however, didn't interest me; I'd come home, do my homework in 20 minutes and then go read; stuff like crptology, programming, etc. My gpa fluctuated between 2.3 and 2.7; more than once I turned up for a bigger test not even knowing there was one. Finally, the school had enough, and talked to my dad. For one quarter, the last one at that school, he sat down with me every day, and made me do all my homework, and thoroughly. My GPA for that quarter: 3.3

Children are far more receptive to their fathers than to neurotoxic dopamine agonists at their dopamine receptors.

No other branch of medicine would even dare take 3 years to come up with the "proper" dx.

[College Repub]

Well, one answer is in the instant gratification culture we live in. Advil is used to treat aches and pains due to poor eating or excersise habits, for example. It's much easier to pop a pill and create a temporary fix, I'll give you that. But my question is what is inherently so evil about doing that?

[mlo]

It's much easier to pop a pill and create a temporary fix, I'll give you that. But my question is what is inherently so evil about doing that?

That's a really good question. I don't think there is anything inherently evil in using drugs to change your state of mind. It depends on circumstances. I get a little buzzed off too much wine sometimes, and that's OK.

I would never deny anyone's right to self-medicate, even if I thought they were wrong. I just disagree with the medicalization of behaviors and I think that belief system does have detrimental effects.

Also, we are starting to hear about the long term effects of Ritalin, and we'll probably learn more about that. Although the parents should be responsible for these decisions, most of them believe what the doctors tell them and think they are treating some disorder.

[Twins613]

ADHD is a largely imaginary disease invented by the drug companies, lawyers, and complicit doctors, as a diagnosis for what used to be considered normal rambunctious behavior. Most of these children under 5, with symptoms of ADHD, are actually exhibiting the symptoms of being children under the age of 5.

Amen, dead.

Two years ago, my son, who is now six, was suspected of having ADHD by his preschool teacher. My wife and I immediately suspected otherwise. "He's four," we said. "We have no problems with him at home, and he is getting his first prolonged exposure to other kids."

We ended up having to take him to a nurse, who looked at him for about five minutes and said the notion was ridiculous, to her everlasting credit. She told us that he was four and acting like it from time to time. Naturally, this didn't surprise us at all.

He's the apple of his dad's eye, and a wonderful well-adjusted first-grader.

My personal opinion about ADHD is that as a result of our "expect-it-now" society, when kids actually take time to be kids and exhibit behavior that shows their age, we must assume that something's wrong since their behavior isn't perfect. I know I'm not a scientist and I'm sure others more learned than I might have other opinions, but all I know is they wanted to put my son on Ritalin, they were wrong and I'm glad we stuck to our guns.

[Al B.]

LOL.  Not to worry about any reality checks coming anytime soon.  If they did, much of the raison d'etre for biological psychiatry would evaporate.