By: Keith Hoeller
Although our public schools are supposed to be "drug-free zones," many of our students are routinely being given legal mind-altering drugs. Current estimates are that in excess of six million children, mostly boys, are taking Ritalin on a daily basis. Nearly 90 percent of all Ritalin sales worldwide are in the U.S.
Two weeks ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a chilling report that the use of Ritalin and other psychotropic drugs has increased two- to threefold in the years 1991-1995 among 2-to-4-year-olds. The package insert for Ritalin, however, reads: "Ritalin should not be used in children under 6 years, since safety and efficacy in this age group have not been established."
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As early as 1973, the U.S. Congress began holding hearings on the overuse of stimulant drugs in our nation's schools |
The JAMA article was not the first "crisis" for the Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) diagnosis and Ritalin treatment. As early as 1973, the U.S. Congress began holding hearings on the overuse of stimulant drugs in our nation's schools. That same year, with over 200,000 children using Ritalin and other amphetamines, the Harvard Educational Review published an analysis of the existing research and concluded that "symptoms, not causes, have become the focus of treatment, creating a significant potential for abuse."
Nearly 25 years later, Diane McGuinness, psychologist and author of "When Children Don't Learn," did another metastudy of the research and concluded that "methodologically rigorous research indicates that attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity as `syndromes' simply do not exist. We have invented a disease, given it a medical solution, and now must disown it. The major question is how we go about destroying the monster we have created."
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"Ritalin has no positive effect on a child's psychology"
- Dr. Peter Breggin |
Last year, Fred Baughman, a pediatric neurologist, told the Colorado Board of Education that "there is no scientific evidence that either Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are scientifically valid disorders or diseases."
In his recent study of the research, "Talking Back to Ritalin," Harvard-trained psychiatrist Peter Breggin says: "There is no solid evidence that ADHD is a genuine disorder or disease of any kind. There is no proof of any physical abnormalities in the brains or bodies of children who are routinely labeled ADHD. They do not have known chemical imbalances or `crossed wires.' Short- or long-term, Ritalin has no positive effect on a child's psychology or on academic performance and achievement."
There are now at least 20 books by professionals who are critical of the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder and the use of Ritalin with children. Why then are children still being diagnosed with ADD and why children and parents still being told the child has a brain disease requiring the remedy of stimulant drugs?
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I do not believe it is an accident that Ritalin became the answer for disorderly school children at the same time as the schools were being barred from using corporal punishment |
The short answer is that the nation has succumbed to the medicalizing of normal childhood behavior by the mental-health movement and created an interlocking network of federal and state laws that have left many parents little choice but to medicate their children or place them in other schools. These laws must be changed, and both teachers and the schools must be taken out of the business of identifying and treating mental disorders. And we must have stricter laws about the use of psychotropic drugs with children, who of course cannot give informed consent to their treatment and who cannot refuse it in our state (since the passage of the Becca bill, which treats runaway children as though they were mentally ill).
The longer answer is that the "learning disabilities" movement began in the 1960s and was proffered to the schools by the mental-health movement, an interlocking network of drug companies, psychiatrists and lay groups consisting of families of the so-called "mentally ill."
All these groups have financial connections as well. Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder, for example, has received at least $1 million from the maker of Ritalin (according to a PBS "Merrow Report"), while the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, mistakenly called an advocacy group by the press, has received nearly $12 million from various drug companies since 1995 (according to "Mother Jones").
We have used drugs as "chemical restraints" on some unruly boys in order to secure a quick-fix to the larger problems of our society and our schools. I do not believe it is an accident that Ritalin became the answer for disorderly school children at the same time as the schools were being barred from using corporal punishment. As one tool for social control was taken away, Ritalin was offered up as another. I am not, however, in favor of the return of corporal punishment.
Increasing class sizes in our public schools must be cited as another explanation. A disruptive or inattentive student is much harder to handle in a class of 35 than in a class of 15. Along with this is the fact that many professionals have come to believe that many students do suffer from an attention deficit disorder, i.e., that our nation's children are not getting enough attention from their teachers, from their parents and from society in general. For this attention deficit, there is no quick fix.
Keith Hoeller, Ph.D., is editor of the Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry and director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry Northwest.
This commentary was first published in The Seattle Times.
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For more information about this topic:
Visit Dr. Peter Breggin's website at www.breggin.com.
The website for Grandparents and Parents Against Ritalin - www.chesapeake.net/vparker/moz3.htm - has a comprehensive list of books about children and Ritalin.
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