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
I have also found that my son, who snores, displays many more ADD symptoms when he has a cold. I got a prescription nose spray from his pediatrician which has almost stopped the snoring, and he is much more attentive and teachable.
Sometimes sleep apnea can cause ADHD like symptoms in children.
‘They’ have been calling me nuts for years!
Well, maybe that’s a poor example. :-)
Oh certainly. But that's a far cry from saying that they don't exist.
I am quite critical of the absurd overdiagnosis of ADD and ADHD for kids simply being kids - and the obscene overprescription of ritalin or psychiatric medicines - but there are some that genuinely do have those problems. ...Kids that are very well behaved otherwise, with strict, attentive parents.
Actually, many educators ARE afraid of being sued. I still say most of this is discipline problems - which start in the home. Dr. Spock permeates both home and school.
The schools get obnoxious brats. They have legislated themselves out of allowing serious discipline, so are afraid even to literally hold a kid. They will be sued for “touching” the poor, poor child.
I think they turned to drugs mostly as an answer to this. They can’t touch the kid, or even dare tell the parent to get a grip on the kid, so they come up with the next solution - medicate!
This is just a partial theory. But my mother was a teacher - IN EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED, no less - and I know something about what went on in public school even 20 years ago when I was going and she was still head of ED.
I can’t see how that’s true. 1 size-fits-all seemed to work just fine for generations before the hippies mucked it all up. Heck, it used to be even children of wildly different AGES were grouped together (albeit learning different parts). We had much better results then.
The difference? Discipline. Serious. In home as well as school - if even needed in the latter.
You are wrong. Those diseases like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are often treated by neuropsychiatrists.
The physical problem in the brain still exists... like with epilepsy that is triggered in the frontal lobe. The symptom of epilepsy... the actual seizure is treated by a neurologist. Medications like lamictal, tegretol and depakote are often used.
And with bipolar disorder these same medications, as anti-convulsants, as well as anti-depressants, and ECT are common courses of treatment. ECT, which causes a grand mal seizure, changes the chemistry almost miraculously. And people who have gone through an initial round of ECT (up to 20 treaments) sometimes return for an ECT “booster”. Just four or five treatments alone will miraculously bring the patient back from the edge of severe suicidal depression.
DING! DING! DING...we have a winner!
It’s not Rhinocort, is it?
Yes there is
Taken directly from the IDEA regs
(25) Prohibition on mandatory medication.-- (A) In general.--The State educational agency shall prohibit State and local educational agency personnel from requiring a child to obtain a prescription for a substance covered by the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.) as a condition of attending school, receiving an evaluation under subsection (a) or (c) of section 614, or receiving services under this title.
(B) Rule of construction.--Nothing in subparagraph (A) shall be construed to create a Federal prohibition against teachers and other school personnel consulting or sharing classroom-based observations with parents or guardians regarding a student's academic and functional performance, or behavior in the classroom or school, or regarding the need for evaluation for special education or related services under paragraph (3).
Here is the link for verification -
http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/%2Croot%2Cstatute%2CI%2CB%2C612%2Ca%2C25%2C
Any questions? -
I know a child that can correctly solve 15-20 single-digit addition problems per minute normally, and 45-50 per minute with an 8-hour medicine related to Ritalin. The child has no sense of time themselves, but you can tell within about 15 minutes when the 8 hours wears off and the very well-behaved child completely loses the ability to focus.
This guy is a nutcase.
Many parents don’t want their children to be disciplined. In their minds the problem is that the teacher will not conform to the “needs” of the child. But
schools are regimented societies, a fact that many parents will not accept. The skilled teacher who has no discipline problems is a rare bird. Many manage to regiment kids without seeming to. Others are martinets who are able to overawe pupils without driving them to rebellion. In any case, they have learned how to work within the institution. The pity is that they are seldom rewarded for their ability and end up being assigned “problem” children.
ED? that woman is a saint. I mean that sincerely. Unless you have walked in those shoes, no one can completely understand what that is like. You obviously have an idea. Those classrooms are the toughest of the tough right there.
The fact is he's is a Whacked Out Scientologist Shill by his association with the CCHR.
Agreed, but the doctor in question is saying far more than that...he's saying it doesn't exist and it's ALL just a cabal.
You ignore the totally artificial enviroment of the elementary classroom. Boys are naturally more active than girls; they are taught by women who expect boys to behave like girls.
I assure you that I fully appreciate that. I'm also aware of the details of brain development that makes some people not able to learn in certain ways - such as by reading - at certain ages. The ban against any form of physical contact is problematic too. Boys especially tend to learn from tactile interaction and physical manipulation. I've met some young boys that don't seem to learn if someone is not touching them at the time (like a hand on the shoulder), or that don't seem to get things unless spanking is periodically involved - but are utterly unstressed by the spanking.
There are different ways of learning, and different ways of processing information. For example, some people process math visually, some audibly, some spatially/symbolically. Some few can switch between the methods at will.
Yep. The most common effect of long term therapy is...addiction to therapy - not improvement. Many become more despondent in general, but attach a positive value to the therapy, as it means they are doing something, and it offers hope...all the while it messes them up further. None of which is to say that no one benefits, or even that many don't benefit, or that it may not help one time and not another.
I’d agree. Obviously, out-of-control kids (the 1s who DON’T have ADD - 90%) had parents who didn’t care to exact good behavior from them. For fear of treading on their “rights” and “self-expression”. Etc.
I don’t know which came 1st - parents threatening schools for disciplining their kids, or schools declaring they were better than exacting discipline. ;-)
You can often tell those parents too...they don't TRY to control their kids. It's a combined incremental effect. Even if the kid has ADD, parental actions are still quite meaningful.
Didn’t need no psychologist giving me legalized cocaine.
Probably responsible for more messed-up kids than anyone in American history, even Keyes(hope I got the name right...the guy who did the 1-in-10 and human sexuality studies based on the diaries of a child molester) .
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