From: Ian Goddard (Ian@goddard.net)
Date: Fri Dec 03 1999 - 21:24:36 MST
It's amazing to think that as of 1996, 10 to 12 percent
of schoolboys in the U.S were on an addictive drug, Ritalin,
about which the manufacture states: "Sufficient data on safety
and efficacy of long-term use of Ritalin in children are not yet
available. ... Long-term effects of Ritalin in children have not
been well established." (1998) While the statements are an effort
to avoid liability for any harm caused by their product, they're
also largely true: after being on the market for decades, there
are few if any long-term studies on Ritalin use. But there are
some clues. The manufacture's insert also notes that growth
suppression has been reported. Some research suggests
the possibility of brain atrophy after chronic use.
Those concerns may prove unfounded, but what if they prove
true and millions of lives are forever diminished during a
reckless diagnostic fad that redefines normal young-male
behavior as a psychiatric disorder requiring drug addiction?
It's good to see a popular columnist like George Will take on
this reckless and even totalitarian venture into mass drugging:
Boys Will Be Boys, or you can just drug them. George F. Will:
http://www.sacbee.com/voices/national/will/will_19991202.html
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The subtitle appears in The Washington Post (12/02/99, A39).
Here's a select excerpt:
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Boys Will Be Boys, or you can just drug them.
By George F. Will (12/02/99)
[...]
One theory holds that ADHD is epidemic because of the modern
acceleration of life--the environmental blitzkrieg of MTV,
video games, e-mail, cell phones, etc. But the magazine Lingua
Franca reports that Ken Jacobson, a doctoral candidate in
anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, conducted a
cross-cultural study of ADHD that included observation of two
groups of English school children, one diagnosed with ADHD,
the other not. He observed them with reference to 35 behaviors
(e.g., "giggling," "squirming," "blurting out") and found no
significant differences between the groups.
Children, he says, tend to talk, fidget and fool around--
"all the classical ADHD-type behaviors. If you're predisposed
to label any child as ADHD, the distracted troublemaker or the
model student, you'll find a way to observe these behaviors."
So what might explain such a predisposition? Paul R. McHugh,
professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, writing in Commentary,
argues that ADHD, "social phobia" (usual symptom: fear of
public speaking) and other disorders certified by the American
Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders" are proliferating rapidly. This is
because of a growing tendency to regard as mental problems
many characteristics that are really aspects of individuality.
So pharmacology is employed to relieve burdensome aspects of
temperament. "Psychiatric conditions," says McHugh, "are
routinely differentiated by appearances alone," even when it
is "difficult to distinguish symptoms of illness from normal
variations in human life," or from the normal responses of
sensitive people to life's challenges. But if a condition
can be described, it can be named; once named, a distinct
disorder can be linked to a particular treatment. McHugh
says some experts who certify new disorders "receive
extravagant annual retainers from pharmaceutical companies
that profit from the promotion of disorders treatable by
the companies' medications."
The idea that most individuals deficient inattentiveness
or confidence are sick encourages what McHugh calls
pharmacological "mental cosmetics." This "should be
offensive to anyone who values the richness of human
psychological diversity. Both medically and morally,
encumbering this naturally occurring diversity with the
terminology of disease is a first step toward efforts,
however camouflaged, to control it."
[...]
READ FULL GEORGE WILL EDITORIAL:
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http://sacbee.com/voices/national/will/will_19991202.html
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http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/02/110l-120299-idx.html
=========================================================
Peter Breggin's letter to JAMA on Ritalin:
http://users.erols.com/igoddard/breggin.htm
Can child Ritalin use violate anti-Nazi law?:
http://users.erols.com/igoddard/nazi-rit.htm
Young boy on Ritalin goes on shooting spree:
http://www.erols.com/igoddard/conyers.htm
Excerpts from Breggin's book on Ritalin:
http://breggin.com/ritalinbkexcerpt.html
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GODDARD'S JOURNAL: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/journal.htm
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