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Section/ADHD
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An International Concern
In 1999, the Colorado State Board of Education passed a resolution which called on all teachers to use academic rather than drug solutions for behaviour, attention and learning difficulties in the classroom.
In 1999, the Colorado State Board of Education passed a resolution which called on all teachers to use academic rather than drug solutions for behaviour, attention and learning difficulties in the classroom. The National Caucus of Black State Legislators passed a similar resolution.
On April 17, 2000, the Green Party of Soermland County in Sweden passed a motion calling for all health and medical personnel to be educated on alternative, natural methods of treating children who display hyperactive behaviour.
And on June 15, 2000, in Switzerland, the socialist party of the state of Luzern asked the Luzern council to investigate the number of children placed on psychotropic drugs and whether parents were being properly informed of the drugs’ damaging side effects.
More than 20 laws/resolutions have been introduced and or passed in states of the United States to curb the excessive and often arbitrary diagnosing and subsequent drugging of schoolchildren.
Summary:
“The protection of the public from various harms has for a long time rested on two pillars. One pillar consists of professionals—architects, engineers, physicians—who guard us from the complex dangers of a modern technological civilization. However, this sort of protection becomes itself a fresh source of danger, the abuse of the guardians’ powers and privileges. And who shall guard us from the guardians? To that question, there can only be one answer: we ourselves. That is why the second pillar on which the protection of the public must rest is an informed public.”
Thomas Szasz, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, 2000
Parents are rarely informed that the information purporting that an “ADHD” child is suffering a “chemical imbalance” or a “no-fault brain disease,” is mere theory. Dr. Baughman says, “When this false information is conveyed to parents and consumers, informed consent doesn’t exist and a fraud is being perpetuated...
“This is especially pernicious when it involves children. Claiming that symptoms of ADHD respond well to treatment with stimulants and that there is little evidence of over-diagnosis or over-prescription of stimulant medications in children, is false.”
With a biased approach towards defining classroom problems as “disease,” the child is presented with access to chemical and behavioral treatments only, without equal access to non-chemical treatment for conditions. This is discrimination and neglect.
Parents are not being informed about the alternatives: that their children could suffer underlying physical problems manifesting as symptoms of “ADHD,” that the child may need to be assessed for special talents and gifts, or that discipline might be lacking.
Children, indeed all of us, must be provided with proper and effective medical care. Sound medical attention, good nutrition and a healthy and safe environment can prevent the stigmatizing and discriminatory effects of psychiatric labels and treatment.
Children have every youthful right to expect protection, care, love and the chance to reach their full potential in life. The straightjackets of psychiatry’s labels and drugs deny these rights.
We hope that this data will give you cause to assess the current reliance upon mind-altering, potentially addictive psychiatric drugs given children and to recommend the most stringent safeguards. In particular, your recommendations must stand firm against endorsing any of these drugs as “safe and effective.”
Additionally, we ask that you demand that all available alternatives be easily accessible by parents for their children and that these are exhausted before any psychotropic drug is considered. This information is vital for informed consent to be valid.
As officials, you represent the lives of all European citizens. Please be aware that many families are grieving for their lost children because not only did psychiatry fail to deliver strong mental health, it directly brought about their child’s addiction and, in some cases, death.
Recommendations:
1. That educational policy is implemented preventing psychiatric or psychological assessment of schoolchildren using any edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the “Mental Disorders” section of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). And that teachers and all school personnel realize that their educational duties do not include suggesting or coercing parents into placing their child on psychiatric drugs, no matter what pressure these personnel may receive from practitioners within the mental health system to do so. This includes rejecting any proposal or recommendation that uses “teachers and other school personnel to be trained to identify ADHD/HKD and to be able to contribute to the treatment which has been implemented….”
2. That government-funded information pamphlets be placed in all state and private schools, as well as issued to Parents and Teachers’ Associations, providing parents and teachers with full information about the diverse and conflicting medical opinion about “ADHD” and “learning” or “behavioural” problems; that this opinion includes scientific evidence that allergies and toxic reactions, and sleeping problems, can manifest as so-called ADHD and should be tested for by a competent doctor preferably trained in environmental medicine. Also, that a child may need educational basics—acknowledging the value of the phonetic-based method of teaching reading, and thereby the value of defining key words—and/or tutoring.
3. That therapies other than drugs be used wherever possible with children, so long as these alternatives are non-abusive and are given with the fully informed consent of the youth, parent, or appointed representative. The information must include advantages, disadvantages, the side effects and known risks as well as available alternative treatments.
4. That on admission to a psychiatric unit, the child or youth must have the right to a full and thorough physical and pathological examination performed by competent personnel to determine whether or not the presenting symptoms are, in fact, due to organic conditions such as vitamin, mineral or blood sugar irregularities.
5. That severe criminal penalties be implemented (if not already available) by governments for any psychiatrist prescribing stimulants or other psychotropic drugs to children or young people, without the full, informed consent of the young person, parent or appointed representative. Informed consent should include information about all alternatives as discussed in this submission.
6. That given the increasing youth drug abuse and suicide problem, Member States seriously review the monies to, and lack of results from, funding of all mental health programs, tests, research costs in schools; additionally, to review how these funds could be re-appropriated towards proven non-psychological/psychiatric teaching methods and extra teachers and tutors.
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Child Drugging