From Mr B. Daniels
SIR,—I write in response to an article entitled "NICE recommends wider use of methylphenidate for ADHD "(PJ, November 4, p675).
While the debate continues regarding the copious use of stimulant drugs in children, the point being missed is that the diagnostic criteria for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are synonymous with normal childhood behaviour: "inability to sit still”, "doesn't pay attention to details”, "makes careless mistakes in schoolwork and other activities”, "is often on the go "or "often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat”. These are just a few of the criteria for ADHD.
It would appear that psychiatrists have taken a set of
behavioural and emotional characteristics and labelled them as a "disease”. This spurious claim has no medical or scientific basis. In fact, it was in 1987 that the American Psychiatric Association literally voted ADHD into existence, whereupon it was enshrined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
While it cannot be denied that some children have problems learning in school, or that some can be excessively active, argumentative and even disruptive, psychiatry's fixation on labelling such difficulties as a mental illness or disorder is not only unscientific, but medical fraud.
The greatest tragedy in all of this, apart from ruined lives, is that parents are being betrayed into believing that categorising their children as mentally disordered and drugging them is therapeutic. These children end up believing that they have something wrong with their brains that makes it impossible for them to control themselves without using medication, and having the most important adults in their lives — their parents and teachers — believing this as well.
Asserting that ADHD is a disorder is testimony to the world-wide psychiatric propaganda on the subject of children which has thoroughly duped well-meaning parents, teachers and politicians alike. Thomas Szasz, a professor emeritus of psychiatry [and co-founder with the Church of Scientology of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)], summed it up in these words in 1994: "The empire of child psychiatry was erected on a moral fault line, namely, the assumption that ‘juvenile delinquency' is a disease that the child psychiatrist is especially qualified to diagnose and treat. But delinquency is not a disease, like diabetes. It is not even a disposition, like compulsivity. It is simply an . . . incapacitating status ascribed to a misbehaving minor.”
While debilitating psychiatric treatments continue to destroy young lives, the CCHR will continue to investigate and expose the psychiatrists who administer these chemical straightjackets in guise of help.
Brian Daniels Citizens Commission on Human Rights (www.cchr.org)