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Now the Dutchess County mom and son have enlisted the help of high-powered New Jersey lawyer Alan Milstein, who has a reputation of aggressively going after influential medical institutions accused of injuring their human-research subjects.

In other words, this is one of the lawyers who is literally making it illegal to cure cancer in the U.S., since research physicians are forbidden to make any radical departure from accepted therapy, and the small departures recommended by lawyers and "ethicists" are unlikely to work. (I do not have the slightest idea how to cure cancer except that it will not involve piling new treatments on top of old, or waiting until the patient is weakened by advanced disease and only then trying something new.)

As for this case, it is hard to comment because of lack of explanation of the boy's original problem. Maybe it was really serious, or maybe the school was making too big a deal over things. Don't know. However, the solution early on was for the family to have its own psychiatrist. If the family's psychiatrist made a recommendation for the boy not to have ritilin in the beginning, I doubt the school district would have overridden his judgement. Instead the mother just went along with the district she is now suing. Yes, good psychiatrists are expensive and are not well covered by health insurance. Generally they will give some break in price if real financial hardship is demonstrated. However, raising kids is expensive, and their health care has to be a parental priority.

Properly prescribed, the purpose of ritilin is to increase the child's ability to fulfill his responsibilities. This is a conservative purpose, exactly the opposite of the reason people use illegal drugs. The parent(s) should be worrying more about their child and less about getting back at the school district.

Properly prescribed, the purpose of ritilin is to increase the child's ability to fulfill his responsibilities.
Man, all this time I've been thinking a kid's responsibilities were simply to be a kid and the parents were the ones duly charged with responsibilities.
I guess an "educator" would think that elementary school kids have "responsibilities". Homework is such a great "responsibility". Proper behavior such as common courtesy and respect I can understand, but I wouldn't call those things actual "responsibilities".
What responsibilities do you think a child should have at which ages? I agree that older children do have more responsibilities as they grow older, but elementary school children?

Instead the mother just went along with the district she is now suing.

That sounds about right.

Get a clue

Even properly prescribed Ritalin can have adverse effects. I have a child who is medicated and CANNOT tolerate it and is only something else. But anything in the Ritalin family makes him nuts. So I believe the mom. By the way my son is medicated because I asked his doctor.

The parent(s) should be worrying more about their child and less about getting back at the school district.

If a bunch of union/government stuffed shirts did something like this to my kid, "getting back at the school" would not be optional...it would be required. What happened here was a kid was needlessly experimented on with powerful drugs, and the parent was threatened with criminal sanction if she didn't hand over her child for this experimentation. They recklessly endangered a child, caused him and his family unbelievable stress, and caused him to hallucinate and hear voices. All of this started because a government teacher was to lazy and unskilled to handle a 12 year old boy in the classroom. If this were my kid, everyone involved would pay the price these acts...and I make damn sure it was a very high price.