This article: http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=274972006
THE news that an Edinburgh academic believes Scottish youngsters are
handed out "mind-altering" drugs for hyperactivity when in fact
their bad behavior is nothing more than a natural part of growing up will,
I'm sure, have alarmed the thousands of parents whose children are
currently taking medication such as Ritalin.
Edinburgh University's Dr Gwynedd Lloyd has said decisions to hand
out drugs are often made so that parents don't feel guilty about their
unruly children and that there is widespread abuse of drugs such as Ritalin.
In fact, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has been a source
of contention ever since the term was first adopted by committee at the
American Psychiatric Association back in 1987.
As the multi-million-dollar ADHD industry has grown, so has the amount
of literature describing fundamental flaws in logic and research and pointing
out that claims of a neurobiological origin have never been substantiated.
For example, a debate in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2004 observed:
"Fundamental to the discussion are questions about whether the diagnosis
of ADHD actually holds water and what it is that psychiatrists are trying
to treat... there are no specific cognitive, metabolic or neurological
markers and no medical tests for ADHD".
Ritalin is in fact a Class B drug which has the same pharmacology as
cocaine and one can safely assume any parent would have deep concerns
about their child taking it - if they are aware of all the facts. But
parents are not informed of the continuing division of medical opinion
surrounding ADHD and its validity as a diagnostic concept and the nature
of the drugs prescribed.
Although many children have been "medically diagnosed" with
ADHD, very few if any have been subject to basic procedures and medical
tests to establish a correct differential diagnosis - i.e. finding out
what causes the symptoms.
Clearly, many factors influence children's behavior: poverty, divorce,
overcrowded classrooms, nutritional problems and more. It is also true
that many factors influence prescription rates for drugs used to influence
children's behavior The rise in prescriptions rates - last year in
Scotland prescriptions were up 11 per cent - reflects an increase of publicity
for ADHD as a condition afflicting children, and the number of children
so categorized.
ADHD has generated huge profits for the pharmaceutical industry but
I would argue this is against a background of poor-quality research, publication
bias and payments to some of the top academics in this field. Thus the
mainstream dogma on ADHD is contaminated and misleading.
This division of medical opinion is reflected in a wide variation in
prescription rates in different localities in Scotland - from 0.5 per
cent to 26 per cent - indicating variations in the acceptance of this
as a diagnosis by different practitioners or clinics.
The largest meta-analysis study, the results of which were published
in September last year by the Oregon Drug Effectiveness Review Project,
analyzed 2287 pieces of research - virtually every investigation ever
done on ADHD drugs - to reach its conclusions: it found no evidence to
support the claims about these drugs' safety or the legitimacy of
the ADHD diagnosis.
A parent who is not aware of these points cannot be considered sufficiently
informed to give legally meaningful informed consent to treatment proposed
for their child. And in fact, the GMC requires as a standard of practice
that UK medical practitioners obtain informed consent before treatment.
To continue to medicate children as young as two years old with powerful
mind-altering drugs is a public health scandal.
To give such drugs to toddlers still in nappies who have not yet attended
nursery school and whose brains and central nervous systems are still
developing, is nothing more than a form of social control and fascism.
Few of us would like to see the word "junkie" attached to any
of our children in the illicit sense, yet we are happy to give them mind-altering
drugs, whose long-term consequences have yet to be determined.
Is self-control, self-monitoring, self-regulation and good diet, a thing
of the past? Will our kids remain the shiny happy people we had hoped
for with such medical intervention? Only time will tell but there are
those who would prefer to see the psychiatrists and drug companies drugged
and institutionalized as a better cure-all than the drugging of children
for profit.
Janice Hill runs Overload Network, a support group for parents with
hyperactive children
