SCHOOL VIOLENCE
THE PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS CONNECTION
Why Did They Do It?
An Inquiry into the School Shootings in America
is the first of a series of reports from
The Truth Seeker Foundation
Position Paper #1
by: Jon Rappoport
Investigative Reporter
The massacre at Columbine High School took place on April 20,
1999.
Astonishingly, for eight days after the tragedy, during thousands
of hours
of prime-time television coverage, virtually no one mentioned
the word
"drugs." Then the issue was opened. Eric Harris, one
of the shooters at
Columbine, was on at least one drug.
The NY Times of April 29, 1999, and other papers reported that
Harris was
rejected from enlisting in the Marines for medical reasons. A
friend of the
family told the Times that Harris was being treated by a psychiatrist.
And
then several sources told the Washington Post that the drug prescribed
as
treatment was Luvox, manufactured by Solvay.
In two more days, the "drug-issue" was gone.
Luvox is of the same class as Prozac and Zoloft and Paxil.
They are labeled
SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). They attempt
to alleviate
depression by changing brain-levels of the natural substance serotonin.
Luvox has a slightly different chemical configuration from Prozac,
Paxil,
and Zoloft, and it was approved by the FDA for obsessive-compulsive
disorder, although many doctors apparently prescribe it for depression.
Had Eric Harris been on other drugs as well? Ritalin? Prozac?
Tranquilizers? As yet we don't know.
Prozac is the wildly popular Eli Lilly antidepressant which
has been linked
to suicidal and homicidal actions. It is now given to young children.
Again, its chemical composition is very close to Luvox, the drug
that
Harris took.
Dr. Peter Breggin, the eminent psychiatrist and author (Toxic
Psychiatry,
Talking Back to Prozac, Talking Back to Ritalin), told me, "With
Luvox
there is some evidence of a four-percent rate for mania in adolescents.
Mania, for certain individuals, could be a component in grandiose
plans to
destroy large numbers of other people. Mania can go over the hill
to
psychosis."
Dr. Joseph Tarantolo is a psychiatrist in private practice
in Washington
DC. He is the president of the Washington chapter of the American
Society
of Psychoanalytic Physicians. Tarantolo states that "all
the SSRIs
[including Prozac and Luvox] relieve the patient of feeling. He
becomes
less empathic, as in `I don't care as much, ' which means `It's
easier for
me to harm you.' If a doctor treats someone who needs a great
deal of
strength just to think straight, and gives him one of these drugs,
that
could push him over the edge into violent behavior."
In Arianna Huffington's syndicated newspaper column of July
9, 1998, Dr.
Breggin states, "I have no doubt that Prozac can cause or
contribute to
violence and suicide. I've seen many cases. In a recent clinical
trial, 6
percent of the children became psychotic on Prozac. And manic
psychosis can
lead to violence."
Huffington follows up on this: "In addition to the case
of Kip Kinkel, who
had been a user of Prozac [Kinkel was the shooter in the May 21,
1998,
Springfield, Oregon, school massacre], there are much less publicized
instances where teenagers on Prozac or similar antidepressants
have
exploded into murderous rages: teenagers like Julie Marie Meade
from
Maryland who was shot to death by the police when they found her
waving a
gun at them. Or Ben Garris, a 16-year old in Baltimore who stabbed
his
counselor to death. Or Kristina Fetters, a 14-year old from Des
Moines,
Iowa, who stabbed her favorite great aunt in a rage that landed
her a life
sentence."
Dr. Tarantolo also has written about Julie Marie Meade. In
a column for the
ICSPP (International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology)
News, "Children and Prozac: First Do No Harm," Tarantolo
describes how
Julie Meade, in November of 1996, called 911, "begging the
cops to come and
shoot her. And if they didn't do it quickly, she would do it to
herself.
There was also the threat that she would shoot them as well."
The police came within a few minutes, "5 of them to be
exact, pumping at
least 10 bullets into her head and torso."
Tarantolo remarks that a friend of Julie said Julie "had
plans to make the
honor roll and go to college. He [the friend] had also observed
her taking
all those pills." What pills? Tarantolo called the Baltimore
medical
examiner, and spoke with Dr. Martin Bullock, who was on a fellowship
at
that office. Bullock said, "She had been taking Prozac for
four years."
Tarantolo asked Bullock, "Did you know that Prozac has
been implicated in
impulsive de novo violence and suicidalness?" Bullock said
he was not aware
of this.
Tarantolo writes, "Had she recently increased the dosage?
Was she taking
other drugs? Drugs such as Ritalin, cocaine, amphetamine, and
tricyclic
antidepressants (Tofranil, Pamelor, Elavil) could all potentiate
the effect
of the SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors include Prozac,
Zoloft
and Paxil)."
In layman's language, mixing these drugs could tinker in ignorance
with
basic brain chemistry and bring on horrendous violent behavior.
Tarantolo is careful to point out, "A change [in Julie's
drug-taking
pattern] was not necessary, though, to explain her behavior. Violent
and
suicidal behavior have been observed both early (a few weeks)
and late
(many months) in treatment with Prozac."
The November 23rd, 1996, Washington Post reported the Julie
Meade death by
shooting. The paper mentioned nothing about Prozac. This was left
to a more
penetrating newspaper, the local PG County Journal-the Maryland
county in
which the shooting took place.
Why did the Post never mention Prozac or interview any of a
growing number
of psychiatrists who have realized the danger of giving these
drugs to
children (and adults)?
Is it because major media outlets enjoy considerable support
from
pharmaceutical advertisers? Is it because these companies have
been running
successful PR campaigns to keep their drugs' names quiet when
suicides and
murders are reported?
Another small paper, The Vigo Examiner (Terra Haute, Indiana),
looked into
the May 21, 1998, murders in Springfield, Oregon. The shooter,
who had been
on Prozac, Kip Kinkel, was a 15-year-old freshman. First he killed
his
parents, then walked into his school cafeteria and gunned down
fellow
students. He killed 2 and wounded 22. He is awaiting trial.
Vigo Examiner reporter Maureen Sielaff covered this story.
Showing straight
forward independence where many big-time reporters just don't,
Sielaff
researched the book, Prozac and Other Psychiatric Drugs, by Lewis
A. Opler,
MD. She writes, "The following side effects are listed for
Prozac: apathy;
hallucinations; hostility; irrational ideas; paranoid reactions;
antisocial
behavior; hysteria; and suicidal thoughts." An explosive
cocktail of
symptoms.
A day or two after the Littleton, Colorado, shootings, a teenager
in Los
Angeles, depressed about Littleton, hung himself. The boy had
been under
treatment for depression. Did that mean Prozac? Zoloft? Luvox?
Will any
reporter look into that incident?
The Jonesboro, Arkansas, school shooting took place on March
24, 1998.
Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, apparently faked
a fire alarm
at Westside Middle School. Then when everyone came outside, the
boys fired
from the nearby woods, killing four students and a teacher, wounding
11
other people.
Charged as juveniles, the boys were convicted of capital murder
and
battery. They can be held in jail until they are 21 years old.
Dr. Alan
Lipman, of Georgetown University, one of the experts interviewed
on network
television after Littleton, remarked that at least one of the
boys who
committed murder in Jonesboro had been, before the incident, treated
for
violent behavior. Treated how?
With Prozac, with Zoloft, with a combination of antidepressants?
The action
of these drugs-altering the supply of the brain neurotransmitter
serotonin-is touted by some people as a potential cure for violence.
The
only problem is, there is no acknowledged proof within the broad
psychiatric profession that serotonin is a causative factor in
violence.
That is an unproven theory.
Not that unproven theories stop the dedicated from experimenting
on brains
of the young.
We must get a complete review of the medical history of the
two Littleton
shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
In the aftermath of other school shootings, have parents tried
to find
answers? With what responses have their efforts been met?
MORE EPISODES OF US SCHOOL VIOLENCE
In Olivehurst, California, on May 1, 1992, Eric Houston, 20,
killed 4
people and wounded 10 at his former high school. Houston was sentenced
to
death.
On January 18, 1993, in Grayhurst, Kentucky, Scott Pennington,
17, entered
Deanna McDavid's English class at East Carter High School and
shot her in
the head. He also shot Marvin Hicks, the school janitor, in the
stomach.
Pennington was sentenced to life, without the possibility of parole
for 25
years.
In Richmond, Virginia, on October 30, 1995, Edward Earl Spellman,
18, shot
and wounded 4 students outside their high school.
On February 2, 1996, in an algebra class at Frontier Junior
High School in
Mose Lake, Washington, Barry Loukaitas, 14, killed his teacher
and 2
teen-aged boys with an assault rifle, and wounded a girl. Loukaitas
was
sentenced to 2 mandatory life terms.
In St. Louis, Missouri, on February 29, 1996, Mark Boyd, 30,
fired into a
school bus when its doors opened, killed a 15-year-old pregnant
girl and
wounded the driver.
On July 26, 1996, Yohao Albert, a high-school junior, shot
and wounded 2
classmates in a stairwell at his Los Angeles school.
On February 19, 1997, in Bethel, Alaska, Evan Ramsey, 16, shot
and killed
his high school principal Ron Edwards and one of his classmates,
Josh
Palacious. Two students were wounded. Ramsey was sentenced to
2 99-year
terms. Authorities later accused 2 students of knowing the shootings
were
going to happen.
On October 1, 1997, in Pearl, Mississippi, Luke Woodham, 16,
started
shooting in his school cafeteria. He killed 2 students, including
his
ex-girlfriend, and wounded 7 others. He also killed his mother.
Woodham was
sentenced to life. Authorities later accused 6 friends of conspiracy.
On December 1, 1997, at Heath High School in West Paducah,
Kentucky,
Michael Carneal, 14, found students coming out of a prayer meeting.
Using a
stolen pistol, he shot 8 of these students and killed 3. One of
the wounded
girls is paralyzed.
On December 15, 1997, in Stamps, Arkansas, Joseph Todd, 14,
was arrested in
the shooting of 2 students outside their high school. The students
recovered from their wounds. Todd faces trial.
In Edinboro, Pennsylvania, on April 24, 1998, Andrew Wurst,
14, allegedly
shot and killed his science teacher, John Gillette, at the JW
Parker Middle
School at an 8th grade dance. Two students and another teacher
were
wounded. Wurst is awaiting trial.
In Fayetteville, Tennessee, on May 19, 1998, several days before
graduation, Jacob Davis, 18, allegedly shot and killed Robert
Creson, a
classmate at Lincoln County High School. Creson was dating Davis'
ex-girlfriend. Davis, who was an honor student, awaits trial.
A CNN story, dated May 21, 1998, authored by its Justice Dept.
correspondent, Pierre Thomas, offered the following statistics:
"Ten
percent of the nation's schools reported one or more violent crimes
in the
1996-1997 school year, including murder, suicide, rape, robbery
and fights
involving weapons." Even if these Justice Dept. figures are
self-serving
and overblown, they point to a chilling landscape.
The availability of guns is a cause. No question.
The saturation of violence on TV is a cause. No question.
The breakup of families is a cause. No question. So is outright
child
abuse.
The compartmentalization of children from their parents is a cause.
The absence of a good education is a cause.
The growing poverty and its atmosphere of hopelessness in America
is a
cause.
The presence of lunatic ideologies (Nazism, Satanism) in the
landscape is a
factor.
You can't assign numbers to these causes. You can't say one
of the above is
a 23% cause or a 3% cause.
But is there another factor in pushing kids over the edge?
Are some
children, angry and desperate and in proximity to weapons, who
are
nevertheless quite able to maintain moral equilibrium, being jolted
by
chemicals which are scrambling their brains and intensifying their
impulses
and amplifying their dark thoughts?
PROZAC LINKED TO AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR
The bulk of American media appears afraid to go after psychiatric
drugs as
a cause. This fear stems, in part, from the sure knowledge that
expert
attack dogs are waiting in the wings, funded by big-time pharmaceutical
companies.
There are doctors and researchers as well who have seen a dark
truth about
these drugs in the journals, but are afraid to stand up and speak
out.
After all, the medical culture punishes no one as severely as
its own
defectors, when defection from the party line threatens profits
and careers
and reputations, when defection alerts the public that deadly
effects could
be emanating from corporate boardrooms.
And what of the federal government itself? The FDA licenses
every drug
released for public use and certifies that it is safe and effective.
If a
real tornado started at the public level, if the mothers of the
young
killers and young victims began to see a terrible knowledge swim
into view,
a knowledge they hadn't imagined, and if THEY joined forces, the
earth
would shake.
After commenting on some of the adverse effects of the antidepressant
drug
Prozac, psychiatrist Peter Breggin notes, "From the initial
studies, it was
also apparent that a small percentage of Prozac patients became
psychotic."
Prozac, in fact, endured a rocky road in the press for a time.
Stories on
it rarely appear now. The major media have backed off. But on
February 7th,
1991, Amy Marcus' Wall Street Journal article on the drug carried
the
headline, "Murder Trials Introduce Prozac Defense."
She wrote, "A spate of
murder trials in which defendants claim they became violent when
they took
the antidepressant Prozac are imposing new problems for the drug's
maker,
Eli Lilly and Co."
Also on February 7, 1991, the New York Times ran a Prozac piece
headlined,
"Suicidal Behavior Tied Again to Drug: Does Antidepressant
Prompt
Violence?"
In his landmark book, Toxic Psychiatry, Dr. Breggin mentions
that The
Donahue Show (Feb. 28, 1991) "put together a group of individuals
who had
become compulsively self-destructive and murderous after taking
Prozac and
the clamorous telephone and audience response confirmed the problem."
Breggin also cites a troubling study from the February 1990
American
Journal of Psychiatry (Teicher et al, v.147:207-210) which reports
on "six
depressed patients, previously free of recent suicidal ideation,
who
developed `intense, violent suicidal preoccupations after 2-7
weeks of
fluoxetine [Prozac] treatment.' The suicidal preoccupations lasted
from
three days to three months after termination of the treatment.
The report estimates that 3.5 percent of Prozac users were
at risk. While
denying the validity of the study, Dista Products, a division
of Eli Lilly,
put out a brochure for doctors dated August 31, 1990, stating
that it was
adding `suicidal ideation' to the adverse events section of its
Prozac
product information."
An earlier study, from the September 1989 Journal of Clinical
Psychiatry,
by Joseph Lipiniski, Jr., indicates that in five examined cases
people on
Prozac developed what is called akathesia. Symptoms include intense
anxiety, inability to sleep, the "jerking of extremities,"
and "bicycling
in bed or just turning around and around."
Breggin comments that akathesia "may also contribute to
the drug's tendency
to cause self-destructive or violent tendencies ... Akathesia
can become
the equivalent of biochemical torture and could possibly tip someone
over
the edge into self-destructive or violent behavior ...
The June 1990 Health Newsletter, produced by the Public Citizen
Research
Group, reports, 'Akathesia, or symptoms of restlessness, constant
pacing,
and purposeless movements of the feet and legs, may occur in 10-25
percent
of patients on Prozac.'"
The well-known publication, California Lawyer, in a December
1998 article
called "Protecting Prozac," details some of the suspect
maneuvers of Eli
Lilly in its handling of suits against Prozac.
California Lawyer also mentions other highly qualified critics
of the drug:
"David Healy, MD, an internationally renowned psychopharmacologist,
has
stated in sworn deposition that `contrary to Lilly's view, there
is a
plausible cause-and-effect relationship between Prozac' and
suicidal-homicidal events. An epidemiological study published
in 1995 by
the British Medical Journal also links Prozac to increased suicide
risk."
When pressed, proponents of these SSRI drugs sometimes say,
"Well, the
benefits for the general population far outweigh the risk,"
or, "Maybe in
one or two tragic cases the dosage prescribed was too high."
But the problem will not go away on that basis. A shocking
review-study
published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases (1996,
v.184,
no.2), written by Rhoda L. Fisher and Seymour Fisher, called
"Antidepressants for Children," concludes: "Despite
unanimous literature of
double-blind studies indicating that antidepressants are no more
effective
than placebos in treating depression in children and adolescents,
such
medications continue to be in wide use."
In wide use. This despite such contrary information and the
negative,
dangerous effects of these drugs.
There are other studies: "Emergence of self-destructive
phenomena in
children and adolescents during fluoxetine treatment," published
in the
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
(1991,
vol.30), written by RA King, RA Riddle, et al. It reports self-destructive
phenomena in 14% (6/42) of children and adolescents (10-17 years
old) who
had treatment with fluoxetine (Prozac) for obsessive-compulsive
disorder.
July, 1991. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Hisako
Koizumi, MD,
describes a thirteen-year-old boy who was on Prozac: "full
of energy,"
"hyperactive," "clown-like." All this devolved
into sudden violent actions
which were "totally unlike him."
September, 1991. The Journal of the American Academy of Child
and
Adolescent Psychiatry. Author Laurence Jerome reports the case
of a
ten-year old who moves with his family to a new location. Becoming
depressed, the boy is put on Prozac by a doctor. The boy is then
"hyperactive, agitated ... irritable." He makes a "somewhat
grandiose
assessment of his own abilities." Then he calls a stranger
on the phone and
says he is going to kill him. The Prozac is stopped, and the symptoms
disappear.
RITALIN: AMPHETAMINES FOR HYPERACTIVITY
Recently I spoke with a psychologist at a major university
about the
possibility that Prozac could have provoked some of the school
shootings.
He said, "Well, in the case of Columbine High School, that
couldn't have
been the case. The boy had a whole plan there. Prozac is more
of an
impulse-causer." I said, "Suppose the plan was in the
realm of a maybe
fantasy and then Prozac pushed the whole thing over the edge."
After a
pause he said, "Yes, that could be."
As mentioned above, grandiose ideas can be generated by a person
taking
Prozac, and in the literature there is also mention of a "delusional
system" being the outcome in a case of a patient on the drug.
A December 1, 1996, newswire story from Cox News Service, by
Gary Kane,
states, "Scores of young men and women across the country
are learning that
the Ritalin they took as teen-agers is stopping them from serving
their
country or starting a military career."
Kane continues, "All branches of the armed forces reject
potential
enlistees who use Ritalin or similar behavior-modifying medications
... And
people who took Ritalin as teen-agers to treat ADD [Attention
Deficit
Disorder], an inhibitor of academic skills, are rejected from
military
service, even if they no longer take the medication."
Was this the case with Eric Harris? Was he rejected by the
Marines only
because of the Luvox, or was Ritalin use, past or present, involved
as
well?
Ritalin, manufactured by Novartis, is the close cousin to speed
which is
given to perhaps two million American schoolchildren for a condition
called
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder). ADD and ADHD, for which no organic causes have ever
been found,
are touted as disease-conditions that afflict the young, causing
hyperactivity, unmanageability, and learning problems.
Of course, when you name a disorder or a syndrome and yet can
find no
single provable organic cause for it, you have nothing more than
a loose
collection of behaviors with an arbitrary title.
Correction: you also have a pharmaceutical bonanza.
Dr. Breggin, referring to an official directory of psychiatric
disorders,
the DSM-III-R, writes that withdrawal from amphetamine-type drugs,
including Ritalin, can cause "depression, anxiety, and irritability
as well
as sleep problems, fatigue, and agitation." Breggin then
remarks, "The
individual may become suicidal in response to the depression."
The well-known Goodman and Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis
of
Therapeutics reveals a strange fact. It states that Ritalin is
"structurally related to amphetamines ... Its pharmacological
properties
are essentially the same as those of the amphetamines." In
other words, the
only clear difference is legality. And the effects, in layman's
terms, are
obvious. You take speed and after awhile, sooner or later, you
start
crashing. You become agitated, irritable, paranoid, delusional,
aggressive.
A firm and objective medical review needs to be done in all
of the school
shootings, to determine how many of the shooters were on, or had
at one
time been on, Ritalin.
DRUG COMBINATIONS & ADVERSE SIDE-EFFECTS
In Toxic Psychiatry, Dr. Breggin discusses the subject of drug
combinations: "Combining antidepressants [e.g., Prozac, Luvox]
and
psychostimulants [e.g., Ritalin] increases the risk of cardiovascular
catastrophe, seizures, sedation, euphoria, and psychosis. Withdrawal
from
the combination can cause a severe reaction that includes confusion,
emotional instability, agitation, and aggression."
Children are frequently medicated with this combination, and
when we
highlight such effects as aggression, psychosis, and emotional
instability,
it is obvious that the result is pointing toward the very real
possibility
of violence.
In 1986, The International Journal of the Addictions published
a most
important literature review by Richard Scarnati. It was called
"An Outline
of Hazardous Side Effects of Ritalin (Methylphenidate") [v.21(7),
pp.
837-841].
Scarnati listed over a hundred adverse affects of Ritalin and
indexed
published journal articles for each of these symptoms.
For every one of the following (selected and quoted verbatim)
Ritalin
effects then, there is at least one confirming source in the medical
literature:
o Paranoid delusions
o Paranoid psychosis
o Hypomanic and manic symptoms, amphetamine-like psychosis
o Activation of psychotic symptoms
o Toxic psychosis
o Visual hallucinations
o Auditory hallucinations
o Can surpass LSD in producing bizarre experiences
o Effects pathological thought processes
o Extreme withdrawal
o Terrified affect
o Started screaming
o Aggressiveness
o Insomnia
o Since Ritalin is considered an amphetamine-type drug,
expect amphetamine-like effects
o psychic dependence
o High-abuse potential DEA Schedule II Drug
o Decreased REM sleep
o When used with antidepressants one may see dangerous reactions
including hypertension, seizures and hypothermia
o Convulsions
* Brain damage may be seen with amphetamine abuse.
ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER: DOES IT EXIST?
Many parents around the country have discovered that Ritalin
has become a
condition for their children continuing in school. There are even
reports,
by parents, of threats from social agencies: "If you don't
allow us to
prescribe Ritalin for your ADD child, we may decide that you are
an unfit
parent. We may decide to take your child away."
This mind-boggling state of affairs is fueled by teachers,
principals, and
school counselors, none of whom have medical training.
Yet the very definition of the "illnesses" for which
Ritalin would be
prescribed is in doubt, especially at the highest levels of the
medical
profession. This doubt, however, has not filtered down to most
public
schools.
In commenting on Dr. Lawrence Diller's book, Running on Ritalin,
Dr.
William Carey, Director of Behavioral Pediatrics, Children's Hospital
of
Philadelphia, has written, "Dr. Diller has correctly described
... the
disturbing trend of blaming children's social, behavioral, and
academic
performance problems entirely on an unproven brain deficit..."
On November 16-18, 1998, the National Institute of Mental Health
held the
prestigious "NIH Consensus Development Conference on Diagnosis
and
Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD]."
The conference was explicitly aimed at ending all debate about
the
diagnoses of ADD, ADHD, and about the prescription of Ritalin.
It was hoped
that at the highest levels of medical research and bureaucracy,
a clear
position would be taken: this is what ADHD is, this is where it
comes from,
and these are the drugs it should be treated with. That didn't
happen,
amazingly. Instead, the official panel responsible for drawing
conclusions
from the conference threw cold water on the whole attempt to reach
a
comfortable consensus.
Panel member Mark Vonnegut, a Massachusetts pediatrician, said,
"The
diagnosis [of ADHD] is a mess."
The panel essentially said it was not sure ADHD was even a
"valid"
diagnosis. In other words, ADD and ADHD might be nothing more
than attempts
to categorize certain children's behaviors-with no organic cause,
no
clear-cut biological basis, no provable reason for even using
the ADD or
ADHD labels.
The panel found "no data to indicate that ADHD is due
to a brain
malfunction [which malfunction had been the whole psychiatric
assumption]."
The panel found that Ritalin has not been shown to have long-term
benefits.
In fact, the panel stated that Ritalin has resulted in "little
improvement
on academic achievement or social skills."
Panel chairman, David Kupfer, professor of psychiatry at the
University of
Pittsburgh, said, "There is no current validated diagnostic
test [for
ADHD]."
Yet at every level of public education in America, there remains
what can
only be called a voracious desire to give children Ritalin (or
other
similar drugs) for ADD or ADHD.
Nullifying the warnings, assurances and prescriptions doctors
routinely
give to parents of children who have been diagnosed ADD or ADHD
should be a
national goal.
The following pronouncement makes a number of things clear:
The 1994
Textbook of Psychiatry, published by the American Psychiatric
Press,
contains this review (Popper and Steingard)-"Stimulants [such
as Ritalin]
do not produce lasting improvements in aggressivity, conduct disorder,
criminality, education achievement, job functioning, marital relationships,
or long-term adjustment."
Parents should also wake up to the fact that, in the aftermath
of the
Littleton, Colorado, tragedy, pundits and doctors are urging more
extensive
"mental health" services for children. Fine, except
whether you have
noticed it or not, this no longer means, for the most part, therapy
with a
caring professional. It means drugs. It means the drugs I am discussing
in
this inquiry.
In December 1996, the US Drug Enforcement Agency held a conference
on ADHD
and Ritalin. Surprisingly, it issued a sensible statement about
drugs being
a bad substitute for the presence of caring parents: "[T]he
use of
stimulants [such as Ritalin] for the short-term improvement of
behavior and
underachievement may be thwarting efforts to address the children's
real
issues, both on an individual and societal level.
The lack of long-term positive results with the use of stimulants
and the
specter of previous and potential stimulant abuse epidemics, give
cause to
worry about the future. The dramatic increase in the use of Methylphenidate
[Ritalin] in the 1990s should be viewed as a marker or warning
to society
about the problems children are having and how we view and address
them."
The Brookhaven National Laboratory has studied Ritalin through
PET scans.
Lab researchers have found that the drug decreased the flow of
blood to all
parts of the brain by 20-30%.
That is of course a very negative finding. It is a signal of danger.
But parents, teachers, counselors, principals, school psychologists
know
nothing about this. Nor do they know that cocaine produces the
same
blood-flow effect.
In his book, Talking Back to Ritalin, Peter Breggin expands
on the drug's
effects: "Stimulants such as Ritalin and amphetamine ...
have grossly
harmful impacts on the brain-reducing overall blood flow, disturbing
glucose metabolism, and possibly causing permanent shrinkage or
atrophy of
the brain."
UNSETTLED OUT OF COURT
In the wake of the Littleton shooting, we find that "the
American people"
and lawyers and pundits and child psychologists are pointing the
finger at
Hollywood, at video games like Doom, at inattentive parents, and
at the
availability of guns. We have to wonder why almost no one is calling
out
these drugs.
Is it possible that the work of PR people is shaping the national response?
An instructive article, "Protecting Prozac," by Michael
Grinfeld, in the
December 1998 California Lawyer, opens several doors. Grinfeld
notes that
"in the past year nearly a dozen cases involving Prozac have
disappeared
from the court record." He is talking about law suits against
the
manufacturer, Eli Lilly, and he is saying that these cases have
apparently
been settled, without trial, in such a quiet and final way, with
such
strict confidentiality, that it is almost as if they never happened.
This smoothness, this invisibility keeps the press away and
also, most
importantly, does not encourage other people to come out of the
woodwork
with lawyers and Prozac horror-stories of their own. Because they
are not
reading about $2 million or $10 million or $50 million settlements
paid out
by Lilly.
Grinfeld details a set of maneuvers involving attorney Paul
Smith, who in
the early 1990s became the lead plaintiffs' counsel in the famous
Fentress
case against Eli Lilly. The case made the accusation that Prozac
had
induced murder. This was the first action involving Prozac to
reach a trial
and jury, so it would establish a major precedent for a large
number of
other pending suits against the manufacturer.
After what many people thought was a very weak attack on Lilly
by lawyer
Smith, the jury came back in five hours with an easy verdict favoring
Lilly
and Prozac.
Grinfeld writes, "Lilly's defense attorneys predicted
the verdict would be
the death knell for [anti-]Prozac litigation."
But that wasn't the end of the Fentress case, even though Smith-to
the
surprise of many-didn't appeal it. "Rumors began to circulate
that Smith
had made several [prior] oral agreements with Lilly concerning
the evidence
that would be presented [in Fentress], the structure of a post
verdict
settlement, and the potential resolution of Smith's other [anti-Prozac]
cases."
In other words, the rumors said: This lawyer made a deal with
Lilly to
present a weak attack, to omit evidence damaging to Prozac, so
that the
jury would find Lilly innocent of all charges. In return for this,
the case
would be settled secretly, with Lilly paying out monies to Smith's
client.
In this way, Lilly would avoid the exposure of a public settlement,
and
through the innocent verdict would discourage other potential
plaintiffs
from suing it over Prozac.
The rumors congealed. The judge in the Fentress case, John
Potter, asked
lawyers on both sides if "money had changed hands."
He wanted to know if
the fix was in. The lawyers said no money had been paid, "without
acknowledging that an agreement was in place."
Judge Potter didn't stop there. In April 1995, Grinfeld notes,
"In court
papers, Potter wrote that he was surprised that the plaintiffs'
attorneys
[Smith] hadn't introduced evidence that Lilly had been charged
criminally
for failing to report deaths from another of its drugs to the
Food and Drug
Administration. Smith had fought hard [during the Fentress trial]
to
convince Potter to admit that evidence, and then unaccountably
withheld
it."
In Judge Potter's motion, he alleged that "Lilly [in the
Fentress case]
sought to buy not just the verdict, but the court's judgment as
well."
In 1996, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued an opinion on all
this: "...
there was a serious lack of candor with the trial court [during
Fentress]
and there may have been deception, bad faith conduct, abuse of
the judicial
process or perhaps even fraud."
After the Supreme Court remanded the Fentress case back to
the state
attorney general's office, the whole matter dribbled away, and
then
resurfaced in a different form, in another venue. At the time
of the
California Lawyer article, a new action against Smith was unresolved.
If Lilly went to extreme lengths to control suits against Prozac,
it stands
to reason that drug companies could also try to deflect legal
actions by
influencing how the press, lawyers, and public view these school
shootings.
For example, accusing video games is acceptable, accusing guns
is
acceptable, accusing bad parents is acceptable. In fact, these
causes, as I
stated above, are legitimate.
But when the national press is completely silent on medical
drugs, we have
to question the background on that. We have to. We have to ask,
why should
THIS horrendous factor be eliminated altogether from reporting
to the
nation?
INDUSTRY FUNDED GROUPS PUSH DRUGS
The PBS television series, The Merrow Report, produced in 1996
a program
called "Attention Deficit Disorder: A Dubious Diagnosis?"
The Educational
Writer's Association awarded the program first prize for investigative
reporting in that year. I can recall no other piece of television
journalism since the Vietnam war which has managed to capture
on film
government officials in the act of realizing that they have made
serious
mistakes.
John Merrow, the series' host, explains that, unknown to the
public, there
has been "a long-term, unpublicized financial relationship
between the
company that makes the most widely known ADD medication [Ritalin]
and the
nation's largest ADD support group."
The group is CHADD, based in Florida. CHADD stands for Children
and Adults
with ADD. Its 650 local chapters sponsor regional conferences
and monthly
meetings-often held at schools. It educates thousands of families
about ADD
and ADHD and gives out free medical advice. This advice features
the drug
Ritalin.
Since 1988, when CHADD and Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis), the manufacturer
of
Ritalin, began their financial relationship, Ciba has given almost
a
million dollars to CHADD, helping it to expand its membership
from 800 to
35,000 people.
Merrow interviews several parents whose children are on Ritalin,
parents
who have been relying on CHADD for information. They are clearly
taken
aback when they learn that CHADD obtains a significant amount
of its
funding from the drug company that makes Ritalin.
CHADD has used Ciba money to promote its pharmaceutical message
through a
public service announcement produced for television. Nineteen
million
people have seen this PSA. As Merrow says, "CHADD's name
is on it, but Ciba
Geigy paid for it."
It turns out that in all of CHADD's considerable literature
written for the
public, there is rare mention of Ciba. In fact, the only instance
of the
connection Merrow could find on the record was a small-print citation
on an
announcement of a single CHADD conference.
In recounting CHADD's promotion of drug "therapy"
for ADD, Merrow says,
"CHADD's literature also says psychostimulant medications
[like Ritalin]
are not addictive."
Merrow brings this up to Gene Haslip, a Drug Enforcement Agency
official in
Washington. Haslip is visibly annoyed. "Well," he says,
"I think that's
very misleading. It's [Ritalin's] certainly a drug that can cause
a very
high degree of dependency, like all of the very potent stimulants."
Merrow reveals that CHADD received a $750,000 grant from the
US Dept. of
Education, in 1996, to produce a video, Facing the Challenge of
ADD. The
video doesn't just mention the generic name Methylphenidate, it
announces
the drug by its brand name, Ritalin. This, at government (taxpayer)
expense.
We see a press conference announcing the release of the video.
The CHADD
president presents an award to Dr. Thomas Hehir, Director of Special
Education Programs at the US Dept. of Education.
This sets the stage for a conversation between Merrow and Dr.
Hehir,
providing a rare moment when discovery of the truth is recorded
on camera,
when PR is swept aside.
MERROW: "Are you aware that most of the people in the
film [the video,
Facing the Challenge of ADD-referring to people who are giving
testimonials
about how their ADD children have been helped by treatment] are
not just
members of CHADD ... but in the CHADD leadership, including the
former
national president? They're all board members of CHADD in Chicago.
Are you
aware of that? They're not identified in the film."
HEHIR: "I'm not aware of that."
MERROW: "Do you know about the financial connection between
CHADD and Ciba
Geigy, the company that makes Ritalin?"
HEHIR: "I do not."
MERROW: "In the last six years, CHADD has received $818,000
in grants from
Ciba Geigy."
HEHIR: "I did not know that."
MERROW: "Does that strike you as a potential conflict of interest?"
HEHIR: "That strikes me as a potential conflict of interest. Yes it does."
MERROW: "Now, that's not disclosed either. Even though
the film talks about
Ritalin as a-one way, and it's the first way presented-of taking
care of
treating Attention Deficit Disorder. That's not disclosed either.
Does that
trouble you?"
HEHIR: "Um, it concerns me."
MERROW: "Are you going to look into this, when you go back to your office?"
HEHIR: "I certainly will look into some of the things you've brought up."
MERROW: "Should they have told you that all those people
in that film are
CHADD leadership? Should they have told you that CHADD gets twenty
percent
of its money from the people who make Ritalin?"
HEHIR: "I should have known that."
MERROW: "They should have told you."
HEHIR: "Yes."
This funded video, in which CHADD devotes all of twenty seconds
to
mentioning Ritalin's adverse effects, is no longer distributed
by the US
Department of Education.
CHADD has now told its members that it receives funding from
Ciba. It says
it will continue to take money from Ciba.
This is an example of how a corporation can, behind the scenes,
bend and
shape the way the public sees reality.
In the case of the school shootings, has an attempt been made
to mold media
response? To highlight various causes and omit others?
Real action is going to have to come from the public. Mothers
in Littleton
and Springfield and West Paducah and Jonesboro are going to have
to ask the
hard questions and become relentless about getting real answers.
They are
going to have to learn about these drugs. They'll have to learn
which
violent children in the school shootings were on these drugs.
They are
going to have to throw off robotic obedience to authorities in
white coats.
And they are going to have to join together.
If they do, many people will end up standing with them.
POSTSCRIPT
Since this inquiry was published in early May 1999, I have
had requests to
include more information about Ritalin. Mothers have told me they
need
whatever they can get their hands on, in order to deal with teachers,
school principals, school boards, and government agencies who
are
determined to force Ritalin on their children.
To begin with, I would suggest that these concerned and embattled
parents
write letters to many medical and psychiatric and law enforcement
officials
of high standing, asking for a definitive answer to the questions:
Is it
legal to pressure us with threats? Can my child be kept out of
school if I
refuse Ritalin? A background of on-the-record NOs can be used
to enlighten
the ignorant.
Let's start with the first listed symptoms of the condition
officially
named Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).* For this
I am
consulting the DSM-IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental
Disorders, Fourth Edition, published by the American Psychiatric
Association.
[ *In a domain of embarrassingly crude definitions, ADHD and
ADD (Attention
Deficit Disorder) are more or less equivalent. ADHD is the larger,
more
opulent land-vehicle which has replaced the older mini-van, ADD.
]
"Individuals with this disorder [ADHD] may fail to give
close attention to
details or may make careless mistakes in schoolwork or other tasks
(Criterion A1a)."
"Work is often messy and performed carelessly and without
considered
thought... (Criterion A1b)."
"They [students] often appear as if their mind [sic] is
elsewhere or as if
they are not listening or did not hear what has just been said
(Criterion
A1c)."
The reader immediately assumes that, although these symptoms
are vague and
could stem from many reasons on many different days of the week,
the whole
business must somehow be attached to a central underpinning, one
thing from
which the diverse behaviors arise, like debris floating on the
sea from a
ship that has already sunk.
But, staying with the DSM-IV, under a nearby section called
"Associated
laboratory findings," we read: "There are no laboratory
tests that have
been established as diagnostic in the clinical assessment of
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder."
So although behaviors are offered as signs of ADHD, no organic
cause is
named.
Despite that, an official psychiatric disorder, ADHD, has,
in the
absolutely official DSM-IV, been catalogued and presented as needing
medication.
But without a central cause, basic logic dictates, there is
no assurance of
a Disorder.
Comes then, in the DSM-IV, a sub-category of ADHD called Conduct
Disorder,
the invention of which, as a "disease," communicates
a degree of utter
fabrication that is stunning.
"The essential feature of Conduct Disorder is a repetitive
and persistent
pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major
age
appropriate societal norms or rules are violated. These behaviors
fall into
four main groupings: aggressive conduct that causes or threatens
physical
harm to other people or animals (Criteria A1-A7), non aggressive
conduct
that causes property loss or damage..."
Again, no cause. No microorganism, no chemical imbalance, no
brain
malfunction. Just a bald kidnapping of certain kinds of bad behavior
under
the title of "medical problem."
"What we have here is an illness."
"Really? What's the cause?"
"Well... we don't know."
"Then how do you know it's an illness?"
"Because people have it."
"Have it?"
"Yes."
"You mean they behave in various ways."
"Well..."
Conduct Disorder is superseded in transparency only by another
ADHD
category, Oppositional Defiant Disorder.
Why not form up an infant condition called Frowning and imply
it has a
single invariable biological root?
There are gentle members of our society who pray and believe
that the
authorities really do have a clue because they simply must. Because
otherwise the whole so-called mental health edifice might come
crashing
down around our ears.
In the gold-plated PDR, the Physician's Desk Reference for
1999, under the
drug Ritalin (Methylphenidate), we are cautioned: "Specific
etiology
(causation) of this syndrome [ADHD] is unknown, and there is no
single
diagnostic test."
Again. Define a disease without knowing what causes it. And,
give a drug
(Ritalin) for it.
To know that something is a disease is to know the cause.
Otherwise, and certainly as time goes on, you cannot say you
have a disease
at all. You can only say you have a series of loosely connected
or similar
behaviors or symptoms, and you suspect there may be a single agent
bringing
them all about. You have a feeling. You have a hunch. A premonition.
Faith.
On that basis, should over two million American children be
treated with
Ritalin for ADHD?
The 1999 PDR states, "Sufficient data on safety and efficacy
of long term
use of Ritalin in children are not yet available." That is
a staggering
remark. Particularly on the safety side.
The first tier of adverse effects listed for Ritalin in the
PDR includes:
nervousness, insomnia, hypersensitivity (including skin rash),
fever,
necrotizing vasculitis, anorexia, nausea, dizziness, palpitation,
dyskinesia, tachycardia, angina, cardiac arrhythmia. These effects
are
rounded out by Tourette's syndrome and toxic psychosis.
Again, Goodman and Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics
states that Ritalin is "structurally related to amphetamines...
Its
pharmacological properties are essentially the same as those of
the
amphetamines."
A parent said to me, "You mean the doctor is prescribing speed for my son?"
I referred her to the above quote a number of times. Perhaps
with
sufficient chanting of it she will finally get the message.
Any drug counselor can tell you about speed: it makes some
people feel
better for a little while. Your head clears up. You function more
clearly.
You have confidence. Then that all disintegrates and you slowly
or quickly
crash. You develop very negative symptoms. (See Scarnati above.)
This is not complicated. Ritalin is speed dressed up as a medicine.
Users
frequently go on to other drugs to even themselves out. They become
aggressive, they have physical problems.
One parent told me her doctor assured her that "many children
are helped by
Ritalin." When she asked him for names and statistics he
smiled and said,
"I'm not in the business of supplying proof to every question.
I wouldn't
have time to practice medicine." She continued to press him.
She asked him
if he was aware that the PDR cannot offer proof of the safety
of Ritalin
over the long-term. He said, "What do you want me to do?"
"Not give the
drug," she said. He promptly ended the conversation. It not
being on the
clock.
For some people, the corporation itself, the manufacturer of
a
pharmaceutical, is the ultimate referral point, the final back-up
for
believing in the safety and efficacy of the drug. Along with the
FDA, which
is held inviolate by many, the company emanates an aura of honorable
purpose. As in, how could a drug corporation spend decades turning
out
these medicines if they weren't Good?
The original patent-holder and principal manufacturer of Ritalin
is
Ciba-Geigy, whose headquarters are in Switzerland. C-G is now
Novartis,
having merged with Sandoz, but I shall continue to call the company
Ciba,
for historical purposes.
In addition to my comments above on CHADD, the Ciba-financed
ADHD
support-group, let's take this a little further. Has Ciba ever
been
involved with another drug which was shown to have profoundly
negative
effects? In other words, should the corporation's prior reputation
inspire
naive faith?
In the autumn of 1970, the Japanese government banned the use
of all
medical drugs in Japan which contained the compound called clioquinol.
These antidiarrheal medications were manufactured under a variety
of names
by Ciba.
More than 11,000 people in Japan had suffered from the effects
of
clioquinol between 1955 and 1970. Some of the symptoms: numbness,
blindness, paralysis, death.
There was a smokescreen between clioquinol and the Japanese
discovering
that the drug was the cause of what was being called subacute
myelo-optic
neuropathy (SMON). The medical establishment was bent in the direction
of
looking for germs.
Eventually, through the courageous work of several researchers
and a
lawyer, the truth was exposed.
But Ciba knew as early as 1935 that there were serious problems
with
clioquinol. Reports had come in from Argentina, where the compound
was
introduced as an oral preparation for the first time. The same
symptoms
which much later surfaced in Japan were being cited in Argentina.
Animal tests - as misleading as they are - are relied on by
pharmaceutical
companies. In the case of clioquinol, Ciba found in the late 1930s
that
cats were convulsing and sometimes dying from the drug. Dogs were
dying
from seizures.
Dr. Olle Hanson, a Swedish researcher, published a paper in
The Lancet in
1966, linking optic atrophy and blindness to clioquinol.
Ciba did nothing.
Victims of the drug in Japan began to sue Ciba in 1972. It
took 6 years to
wring an apology and dollar damages out of the company.
Yet Ciba issued a press release in 1980 on SMON, saying "there
is no
conclusive evidence that clioquinol causes SMON." In fact,
the company
continued to manufacture and sell drugs containing clioquinol
in other
countries.
Ciba dragged its feet until 1985, at which time it stopped
manufacturing
clioquinol for oral use. (This piece of history about clioquinol
and Ciba
comes from several sources, including the excellent information
gathering
organization, Health Action International, based in Amsterdam,
and one of
its lead writers, Andrew Chetley.)
With ADHD, the developing premise that there was one condition
at the heart
of all the symptoms was the error. It is an error that is made
every day in
hundreds of labs around the world. Begin from the other end. Jimmy
is
fidgety. He can't sit still in class. He yells when he should
be quiet. He
draws elephants when he should be adding numbers. He walks around
when he
should sit down. He does cartwheels in the hall.
Imagine a good doctor interviewing Jimmy. For several hours,
perhaps, over
several appointments. He wants to know all about the boy. Is he
bored? Is
he feeling nervous in school? Is there someone he's afraid of?
Is there a
subject he really wants to study that is not being offered? Does
he have a
buried talent? Is he eating various junk foods that contain chemicals
and
preservatives which might be producing anxiety? Does he have serious
allergies? Are his parents absent or abusive? And so on down the
list, a
very long list.
I have been told of several instances of so-called ADHD resolved
when, for
example, correct changes were made in the foods and nutrients
children ate.
To this claim, psychiatrists often say, "That's ridiculous.
Nutrition has
nothing to do with it, because ADHD is a brain malfunction."
Of course that
is arrogantly begging the question, and the same arrogance can
be gleaned
simply by opening up the DSM-IV and reading the sentences about
ADHD. They
are rife with deductions based on unproven assumptions, all concocted
at a
great emotional distance from children.
No, it's one child at a time. One child at a time. That's the
way to be a
decent human being and a decent practitioner, instead of talking
nonsense
from a very high cathedral.
There are enough relentless mothers of children out there to
open up new
land, to change the damaging way this whole business is being
handled. And
in the process, they might make Ciba and other similar entities
pay dearly
for their misdeeds.
As one doctor has written, if a school official or doctor says
that your
child must take Ritalin because he has ADHD, you have the right
to demand
proof that ADHD is a disease in the first place. You have a right
to demand
such proof all the way down the line, without backing away, without
buying
bland assurances or arrogant threats from "highly educated
experts." You
have the right to state that the doctor in question is stepping
over the
line into violating informed consent statutes, because those laws
insist
that the patient is told the whole truth about what is going to
be done to
him and why. You have the right to say the demand that your child
take
Ritalin is an instance of medical malpractice.
It is your choice.
It always is.
What follows is based on a series of conversations between
educated mothers
and their doctors about Ritalin and ADHD. I've paraphrased the
mothers'
reports and telescoped them into one short conversation.
"My son needs medicine?"
"Yes. Ritalin. He has ADHD."
"But I understand there is no proof that ADHD is a disease."
"We know it's a chemical imbalance in the brain."
"You do?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Through research."
"But I've read that no definite cause has been found."
"We're still looking for that."
"So it might be something else. My son might have problems
that come from
another source."
"No, he has ADHD."
"I've read the definition of ADHD in the DSM-IV. It's
a list of behaviors.
They might come from a lot of different causes."
"Who have you been talking to?"
"I've been reading."
"ADHD is a disease."
"A disease has a cause, Doctor. Otherwise there's no way
of knowing it's
one disease."
"It takes time to learn all about diseases."
"No. You have to know the cause. Otherwise you don't know
you have a
disease to begin with. My son could be hyperactive because of
a hundred
things. He could have allergies."
"That's ridiculous."
"Why?"
"There isn't any literature on that."
"I've talked to a number of health practitioners, and
they tell me in some
cases allergies caused the hyperactivity."
"Rarely. Your son has ADHD. It's like any other disease.
Diabetes, for
example. He needs medicine."
"Nonsense. And besides, Ritalin is speed."
"It's a medicine."
"I don't want my son treated with it."
"You're being negligent."
"According to what?"
"The psychiatric research on this subject."
"I have research that says ADHD is not a disease and that
Ritalin can have
very harmful effects."
"You're being resistant."
"No, I'm being careful. It's my son's life. You want to
tell him that he
has a malady and that his brain is involved. That's going to give
him the
idea that something is wrong with him. That he's less than normal.
I won't
let you do that unless you can show me the exact place where it
says ADHD
is caused by a particular thing. I know you can't show me that."
"You're being stubborn. You can't just walk away from this."
"Giving him Ritalin is walking away from it."
"You know, the reason there are doctors is because we
have skills and
knowledge about these things. You don't."
"I've read enough of the literature. I can understand
it when no cause is
given, when a bunch of behaviors are suddenly labeled a disease.
That's bad
medicine."
"We're getting nowhere."
"You should go back to the basic literature on ADHD. It's
made up of words
that show no real proof. It's my son. Until you can show me that
ADHD has
an organic cause, and that Ritalin cures that, or changes it for
the
better, you won't get my okay."
"You're causing your son harm by this attitude."
"No, I'm protecting him."
"The people in charge at his school won't think that.
They'll be very
upset."
"So I should give in to them because they're upset? I don't think so."
"They might not let your son back in school."
"Then I'll sue them and anyone else who contributes to that decision."
"You'd be up against very powerful people."
"I'm not raising my son to be a coward, and I won't be one either."
"You know, most parents agree to treatment immediately."
"They're relieved about avoiding any involvement, any
responsibility. Or
they're just relieved to hear a doctor say it isn't their fault.
They're
tired and worn out and they want a pill to do the job. I know
fifty kids at
school who are on Ritalin, and I know things their parents could
be doing
as parents that would calm their kids down. Without drugs. In
some cases
that means being better parents. In some cases it means exploring
their
environment."
"Environment? What does that mean?"
"Chemicals that disturb the functioning of the body and
the nervous system.
Toxins, pollutants, chemicals in the food. Allergies. Lots of
things."
"No research points to those as the cause of ADHD."
"Because the research I'm talking about isn't usually
carried on under the
banner of ADHD. ADHD is just a name. It's very misleading and
has caused a
lot of confusion..."
"You're a troublemaker."
"Listen, Doctor, this comes down to a question of rights.
Do I have the
right, the civil and human right to refuse Ritalin for my child.
I'm
informed. I'm aware. I'm not stupid. It's my choice, regardless
of what you
think."
One of the mothers told me she was "referred" for
psychological counseling
because she refused to allow Ritalin for her child. This referring
was done
by her child's pediatrician. The mother refused the counseling.
So to summarize: over a period of years, psychiatrists doing
"research"
collect child behaviors and assemble them into an interlocking
list. They
call this list ADHD, although no cause has been found, and they
determine
that a drug whose properties are essentially the same as amphetamine,
Ritalin, should be used to treat the disease.
When a parent refuses to allow the drug to be given, he or
she may be
referred for counseling. This "therapy" would presumably
involve digging up
the "real reasons" for the parent's resistance. What
is the parent
harboring that prevents him/her from wanting the child to get
better? Or,
to put it another way, how can "licensed professionals"
convince a parent
to abandon all semblance of rationality and pretend that, deep
down, the
desire to protect a child from a dangerous drug is really a neurosis,
a
phobia, a fragment of pathology perhaps itself requiring medication?
Which proves that not all cold-blooded species live out of town.
As this postscript goes to press, we read in the May 22nd New
York Times
that T. J. Solomon, Jr. the boy who wounded several of his classmates
at a
suburban Atlanta school, was on Ritalin. Treated for depression,
he was
possibly also on one of the SSRIs, such as Prozac or Zoloft.
And Phil Hartman's brother, the executor of the dead actor's
estate, has
just filed a suit against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft.
Brynn Hartman
who murdered her husband a year ago, was being treated for depression
by
Los Angeles psychiatrist Arthur Sorosky with Zoloft.
Some sources of information:
Dr. Peter Breggin, psychiatrist, author, former full-time consultant
with
the National Institute of Mental Health. http://www.breggin.com
ICSPP News. Phone: 301-652-5580 Website: http://www.icspp.org
The ICSPP
News publishes the following warning in bold letters: "Do
Not Try to
Abruptly Stop Taking Psychiatric Drugs. When trying to withdraw
from many
psychiatric drugs, patients can develop serious and even life-threatening
emotional and physical reactions... Therefore, withdrawal from
psychiatric
drugs should be done under clinical supervision..."
Dr. Joseph Tarantolo, psychiatrist, president of the Washington
chapter of
the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians. Phone: 301-652-5580
Jon Rappoport. Phone: 619-676-0430, x206 or x207
The Merrow Report can be ordered by phone at 212-941-8060.
ADHD Action Group: 212-769-2457
The Truth Seeker Foundation
P.O. Box 28550
San Diego, California 92198
619-676-0430
619-676-0433
Website: http://truthseeker.com
E-mail: tsnradio@aol.com
The Truth Seeker Foundation sponsors investigations into vital
matters that
have not risen to the level of open public debate. The Foundation
believes
that in order to solve serious human problems, we must commit
ourselves to
uncovering deeper strata of truth that underlie public events,
news and
political discourse. Only in this way can we all create a more
just future.
About the Author:
JON RAPPOPORT has worked as an investigative reporter for 15 years.
He has
written articles on politics, medicine, and health for Spin, Stern,
Village
Voice, In These Times, and a number of other newspapers and magazines
in
the United States and Europe. In 1982, the LA Weekly placed his
name in
nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, for his coverage of the military
takeover at the University of El Salvador. Mr. Rappoport is the
author of
Oklahoma City Bombing, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and AIDS INC., a
widely
praised critique of the original research behind HIV.
Additional book/journal references can be obtained from the
author on
request:
Jon Rappoport
% The Truth Seeker Foundation
P.O. Box 28550 San Diego, CA 92198, USA
Telephone: 619-676-0430
Fax: 619-676-0433
E-mail: tsnradio@aol.com
WHY DID THEY DO IT?
An Inquiry into the
School Shootings in America
Position Paper #1
By Jon Rappoport
Investigative Reporter
An Inquiry into the
School Shootings in America
(c)1999 Jon Rappoport, Expanded Edition, June 1999
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and
retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
Published by:
The Truth Seeker Foundation
An Important Message
The Truth Seeker is a remarkable organization that has existed
for 125
years.
As a free thought newspaper, we were there during the movement
to give
women the right to vote, and during the pivotal Scopes trial;
we were there
whenever arbitrary authority needed to be exposed and dismantled.
Now, as a publisher, the Truth Seeker Foundation has begun
to issue
position papers on exceptionally vital matters that have resisted
complete
exposure in the national press.
Our number one paper in the series, written by investigative
reporter Jon
Rappoport, takes up the submerged scandal involving the universal
use of
highly toxic pharmaceuticals.
Mr. Rappoport pursues a trail that leads to violence among
children and the
school shootings across America.
We want this truth to provoke real change.
To contact The Truth Seeker Foundation, call 619-676-0430,
Erica McGrath
x207, or Miki Jo Burg x206.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Lange, President
The Truth Seeker Foundation
http://.truthseeker.com
tsnradio@aol.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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