Athenian’s diary the other day struck a nerve with me. (Her perfect breasts.) Not the subject of the diary, but that the obvious bad guy in the discussion was overlooked – the pharmaceutical industry. Bear with me here, since this is my first diary.
I have a very difficult 7yr old. Actually, a very smart, extremely active child that when engaged is a wonderful person to be around. With the classroom enrollment approaching 25 kids the teachers however feel unable to manage her. She gets bored and finds things to do. So in effect we got the speech in first grade, from the experts (teachers) that perhaps she needed to be put on medication. Exact words here. My husband told them to take it themselves, and we walked out. Afterwards I decided to talk to other parents and find out more, and I counted 4 kids my daughter knows that were put on Ritalin between the ages of 4 and 6, and are still on the drug. Three of them were put on the drug by their pediatrician, and only one saw a psychologist.
So I decided to look into this drug (and others like it) some more and came up with some rather shocking findings. One of the first things I found was that is not recommended for kids under 6, since it alters the brain chemistry and the brain does the most growing between 0 and 6 – however it keeps on growing throughout the teenage years. Secondly it is a class 2 narcotic???? It is in the same class as, and affects the same areas of your brain as cocaine, speed etc, and in the same class as opiates. In other words, not only is it damaging, it is also addictive. Here is perhaps a better definition: (Please forgive the unprofessional look).
Julian Whitaker M.D. – “Ritalin: Legally Sanctioned “Speed” Ritalin is the number one prescription drug for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This drug has such tremendous potential for abuse that it is classified as a controlled substance by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ritalin is an amphetamine (in street jargon, “speed”) with a lengthy list of side effects, including nervousness, insomnia, nausea, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, dizziness, palpitations, headaches, irregular heart rhythms, and psychic dependence — in short, addiction. In fact, Ritalin’s appeal to drug users and its potential for abuse are so high that US House Judiciary Chair Henry Hyde (R-IL) recently filed a request with the General Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct an investigation of Ritalin abuse in public schools. In addition, class action lawsuits have been filed in Texas, California and New Jersey charging Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, maker of Ritalin, with conspiracy to create the psychiatric disorder known as ADHD in order to fuel the market for their product.”
Now why, with just this basic information, would you give this to children? The side effects alone are enough to put me off. Furthermore, the manufacturer claims that these kids are less likely to abuse drugs in their teenage year – forgive the obvious here – this is while they are still high on legal drugs. The other side however claims that there is an increase in drug abuse among young adults, when they are less likely to be on the weaker prescription given to them under the supervision of their parents. A controlled experiment in Canada several years back, and I’m still trying to find the source so I won’t quote percentages here, gave one set of kids a placebo and concluded that there was no change in them. The other set received Ritalin, and the doctors found that they experienced additional diagnoses and additional medication at an alarming percentile. That is to say several were furthermore diagnosed with depression and given Prozac, while others were diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and so on.
The US leads the world in drugging children. Now I have to ask why? What makes children here “sicker” than in other parts of the world – or are we being sold an easy way to quiet our kids?
You bring up an interesting subject with your diary and I hardly know where to start with my response.
Perhaps I should start with what I know from the past. The subject of hyperactive children, etc. has been discussed since the 70’s. At that time I had young children and was particularily interested in organic food, organic gardening and the best way to feed your children for optimal mental and physical health.
A lot of research was done in those years of the effect of diet on Hyperactivity and then ADD and then ADHD. It was found by some that certain foods such as sugar and high carbohydrates as well as specific things like red dye #4 (I think it was), that were particular culprits leading to this condition.
Red dye can be found in many foods that most people feed their kids everyday.
So it would appear that diet as well as polution is a great attributer to these conditions.
Correcting diet and lowering polution (such as air filters in your home) can eliminate the need for any medication in most cases.
I do not think medication of this nature should be given to children, unless all other options are exhausted.
I have more to add on this topic but I’m tired right now, so I will post more later.
Oh hi there Diane, ignore my comment below (blush). But yes I do agree with you on diet. Sleep is another factor. The thing is why is this country putting so many kids on it. In some cases up to 20% in any given school district, which strikes me more as a substitute to corporeal punishment, than anything else.
I have watched the rise of the drugs through the years and I think that you might look to the drug companies for that answer, most particularily the profit motive.
Then check out what Bush did in Texas regarding mandatory mental heath screening for children in that state and has plans to make it national. He has ties with the drug companies making these drugs as the principle manufacturers are in Texas.
I have bookmarks on some of this, but can’t put my hands on it at this time.
You could do a google search for mental heath screening for children and I think you will come up with the info.
Absolutely the drug companies are peddling this stuff considering they spend about 33% of their budget on advertising, and with the payback doctors get from prescribing certain drugs, it’s downright shameful. Well they’re many drugs in this category, but with an adult it’s a bit more of a choice – so I don’t want to stray – but they do have a lot of drugs they pull off the shelves. In the 70’s this stuff was not prescribed so much – it hit a boom in the 90’s – so we’ll see what comes of the Ritalin generation when they mature. Bit of a forbidden experiment I’d say.
The mental health screening certainly is ominous, to say the least. Reminds me a bit of ‘Brave New World’ and soma.
This is a narcotic that does cause addiction. Because of the potential for abuse one can’t get refills, though from the families I know that use it that’s not a problem. That, and the fact that unqualified people are prescribing it to preschoolers puts it into category of child abuse.
Anyway Diane, love chatting with you, but it’s two in the morning and I still need to close out the books for the week. My brain short-circuits Monday mornings, and I’ve worked too many weekends to do that intentionally. Feel free to leave a comment (or not) in this oh so lively place, and may your evenings be warmer than mine. I just came back from a walk and it’s about 40.
When we had a similar problem, wee eliminated processed sugar, dairy, wheat, and colors. We experimented a little after being “clean” for a month, and found that wheat and red coloring were 2 things we were much better off without. People couldn’t believe the difference.
Also, some kids fidget to maintain attention. We’ve had some teachers who understood this (God bless them) and some who did not (may they retire soon). Find out which kind your daughter has.
And lastly, take a look at how all of this is making your daughter feel about herself and about school, and use that to help guide your decisions. Good luck!
Did you see “Supersize Me”? Aside from it being the most disgusting thing to watch – not that I’ve been near a McDonalds in 15 years, but wow. Anyway they covered the area of school lunches. This one school for troubled kids received school lunches from a manufacturer that used natural ingredients and a lot of vegetables, and they found that they had fewer problems with the kids. This was done at about the same cost as regular school lunches. It really seems to be a vicious circle.
As for my daughter, the counselor in the school is very good and has worked with her. She basically told us that she needs a smaller classroom size. She learns fast and gets bored – she doesn’t have problems with grades but with socializing.
have never been in a gradeschool on a sugar holiday like Halloween. You are also right about some kids needing to be able to move. There are those children who seem ‘zoned out’, just sitting quietly attending to EVERYTHING (more often girls). Then there are the active kids(more often boys). Once, while observing a 7 year old boy in the classroom, I watched as he came out of his seat, crawled under the desk, then layed on top of his desk looking at the world upside down. He then proceeded to remove his shoes and socks, had the socks on his head and ears for a while before they went back on the feet, singing out loud or calling out, poking the kid in front of him, rocking in his chair… it was endless. That particular child was eventually diagnosed by our school psychologist as true ADHD and did go on Ritalin. Although much improved, he still often had to stand while doing work, be the one to erase the board, pass out papers, etc. We had total cooperation between home and school, and he was quite a bright boy. In those cases, the risks of meds have to be weighed against the student’s ability to attend and learn. Sadly, the best treatment remains medication with a comprehensive behavioral program that is consistent at home and in school. It ain’t easy.
Boo hoo hoo – nobody cares about pushing drugs on kids. Guess I’ll crawl into my little hidey-hole for the time being… Yeah, yeah I know – democracy in India is more important. OK, so it’s far more important.
to me this way: it’s not that a child with ADHD is inattentive, it’s that they are hyper-attentive. He/she may be in a classroom, attention bouncing from the teacher to a fly on the window to the view outside to the boy 2 rows away picking his nose to a glimpse of someone walking past the door, and on and on.
A lot (if not most) of attention problems in gradeschool are due to behavioral issues, not Attention Deficit. I spent 8 years in a gradeschool as the go to person for either teachers or parents to refer a child for help. It was my job to do curriculum based assessments, observations and interviews, meet with parents/teachers, set goals and try to remediate. If it can effect a child’s academic performance, we dealt with it.
Eventually, some children went on to full psychological testing, which is the only way ADHD can and should be diagnosed. Many parents opt to go to outside psychologists. In my area, we have a few ‘prominent’ psychologists (who test) and psychiatrists (who prescribe) who have a real racket going. No child ever comes out of those places without an ADD/ADHD label and a prescription. The child on meds is supposed to be monitered monthly, which often means a 5 minute ‘exam’ and another month’s worth of pills dispensed. It’s not just the drug companies making a fortune here and the schools aren’t always the culprits. In our district, if a teacher recommended meds to a parent and our principal got wind of it, it never turned out well for the teacher.
Then there are those parents who pushed to have their kids declared ADHD and on meds… did you know it’s good for about $450 a month from Social Security? Yeah, it’s a racket from a lot of angles, the kids always loose… except for that small percentage of kids who truely have ADHD, which is a measurable brain disorder. Those kids often blossom with PROPER meds, a good behavioral program and full cooperation between school/home.
I hadn’t heard about the social security angle, that’s disturbing. I live in a more affluent community so I don’t think that’s a problem here. I know one of the moms is a victim of overmedication herself and runs her kid through evaluation after evaluation, without allowing the child to really be a kid. That girl was put on Concerta when she was 4 – she’s 6 now (still on it) and a bit of a zombie, not to mention unnaturally obedient.
Personally I would say drugs that affect the brain chemistry are in their infancy, not to mention that their make-up hasn’t changed much (with the exception of time release vs. not time release). They all still target the same area of the brain, in the same way. A mild dose of cocaine would do much the same thing, but we would not give that to our children. Similarly I passed a bunch of high schoolers last summer discussing their medications and how to cheat with them: by saving several days worth of medication, and then taking it all at once and so on. In this sense it’s a dangerous road we’re taking. Maybe treating for hyperactivity would be a better start.
I understand the unnatural pressures teachers face these days, with class sizes and cutbacks. Mostly the buck stops at the parents, though, and I know many parents see school as a babysitting service.
that’s what I was wondering while reading this..if ADD could be found by specific medical testing before psychiatric testing. You answered my question saying it is measurable brain disorder.
Sorry I may have phrased that stupidly. The only CAT scans it has shown up on are from kids that have previously been on Ritalin. The manufacturers never supplied data from children that were never on the drug. In other words, since the data was tainted, the CAT scans could be showing the effects of the Ritalin.
There is ongoing research on ADD/ADHD. I saw a presentation about 3 years ago about how they were able to detect misfiring neurons in certain areas of the brain. Sorry, the details escape me. It seems to be a matter of almost retraining neuro pathways. I’m so sorry, I’ll need to dig through my piles of old notes… I’ve been retired from teaching for a few years and details on the brain research are just not coming back to me. I know that the people that I respected the most in my field believe firmly that ADHD exists, it is a brain disorder, and at this junction the best treatments are meds along with behavior programs/counseling. Psychologists do use psychiatric testing, but medical testing should be done to eliminate other concerns. I know many people think this whole thing is bull, but you have absolutely no idea of what some of these kids are dealing with until you observe and work with them. I also believe that very few children "diagnosed" with this disorder actually have true Attention Deficit. I absolutely HATE to see any child on horrible medications like Ritalin and hope they keep looking for alternatives.
Back in 1978, we discovered that my son was a friggin’ genius, right off the scale. So, we put the big bucks into sending him to a private school for the gifted. After the first couple of weeks, his teacher approached me and suggested Ritalin. I said, excuse me, but if he’s bored that’s your problem. I will not turn my child into a zombie because you aren’t doing your job.
You see, my son’s father had a childhood friend, Jack, whose parents were affluent enough to have put him on Ritalin at the age of five. And 30 years later the guy was still addicted and had horrible side effects that required even heavier medication. He had done everything — even went to Sweden and had his blood changed — and nothing was going to rid him of his Ritalin dependence except death.
Couple of weeks after the teacher’s suggestion, I did my volunteer work at the school in the Infirmary. Bored out of my skull, I started rifling thru the medical files and discovered, to my horror, that roughly 70% of the students were on Ritalin. I went on a rampage, went to the Headmaster and raised holy hell. I fought for and got time at the next PTA meeting where I presented Jack to tell his own story. Most of the parents had no idea that Ritalin was addictive; their pediatricians had told them it was perfectly safe.
I suggested the Feingold Diet as an alternative — basically eliminating sugar, food coloring and additives. I also suggested that physical hyper-activity is a natural part of mental genius. Gifted children need to learn how to discipline themselves and they’ll never learn with chemical crutches.
As the years went by, whenever I ran into one of the parents from that school, they always thanked me profusely.
hanni, this is an extremely important topic and I’m glad you brought it up.
Good for you for fighting the system, and looking into it back then. There’s more info now of course, but there’s also more pressure from the pharmaceuticals to start with this. Boredom in school is a big problem with class sizes being what they are.
Sorry about Jack. I have a friend in his 40’s now, whos parents put him on ritalin when he was in his teens. He said he felt like someone else was in his body, and managed not take a great percentage of them. He’s one of the best read and brightest people I count among my friends, but he’s never forgiven his parents.
I wouldn’t rule out psychiatric medicine in all cases for all children.
On the other hand, it is likely that Ritalin for ADHD is overprescribed, although I’m certainly in no position to ascertain by just how much.
The fact that medicine is commonly prescribed for a condition doesn’t in and of itself mean that it is a bad idea. A very large share of middle to older age adults should be taking an asprin a day, I suspect that some day, asprin will be reclassified as a vitamin. Tens of millions of women have very good reasons for routinely taking birth control pills. What teenager didn’t spend some of his or her teenaged year applying benzoil peroxide? Lot’s of women appropriately receive epidurals. Measures to correct poor vision, deal with seasonal allergies, and respond to asthma attacks are hardly unusual.
(By the way, the list above, alone, should be more than sufficient to convince any reasonable person that humans were not intelligently designed).
The real issues, of course, in the case of ADHD, are: “Is this really a mental illness?” and “Was the diagnosis correct?”
Mental illness does exist. There are most certainly clear cases of it. But, scientific understanding of mental illness, as advanced as it is compared to the days when it was attributed to demon possession, is still fragmentary. If the brain is a library, we have access only to the first one or two digits of the call numbers. While minds can be both different and broke, there are a significiant number of areas where the principled basis for distinguishing between the two is fuzzy at best.
This ambiguity colors who we treat mental illness. The principle of “first, do no harm”, looms large. Not every physical ailment always requires allopathic medical treatment. And, not every mental illness must be treated. Sometimes, when the choice is between leeches and nothing, nothing is the right choice, even when you are sick.
Ritalin is better than leeches. It has FDA studies to show that it isn’t catastrophically toxic. There is a defined, if not terribly well defined, set of circumstances when it might be used. My wife’s attitude about most medicines is: “Why suffer?” Mine is usually, “Do I really need it?” Both are legitimate positions. Me being me, however, I’d ask, “Does she really need it?” If the answer is that she can’t function without it and is on a road to self-destruction, than the answer should be “yes, she does.” But, if she is happy enough with life and is capable of learning enough to manage, than someone else’s convenience shouldn’t dictate decision making on an issue that goes to questions of what a child’s personality is going to be on a day to day basis.
On another note I’m not sure that I would put Ritalin into the same category as aspirin or even chemotherapy. This is a brain chemistry-altering drug given primarily to children. Now I always take the position that adults should feel free about making decisions for themselves. I’m not arguing about whether ADHD/ADD exists or not, and I’m well aware mental illness exists, though I would make a case that much of it is environmental. The Swedes have been rather successful in treating Schizophrenia without medication, for instance. No, basically my issues are that: 1. It alters the brain chemistry, and 2. It is given to minds that have not matured.
Dr. Peter Breggin, who is the best source for the opposing view to this topic, says that the brain scans the pharmaceuticals claimed could identify kids with ADD/ADHD had been taken after the kids had been already taking the medication. He then asked them to supply a new round of data with test subjects that hadn’t been on these drugs, but they never did. So I would say that at best the manufacturer is being cagey, and at worst liars.
Oh and welcome.
I’ve probably mentioned that I work with kids and adults with learning disabilities, but I felt the need to say it again because I see these debates all the time. And it colors what I’m about to say.
ADD and ADHD are legitimate, physiological problems. As I’m sure many know, they are caused by a lack of blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, which is the last area of the brain to develop (human brains develop back to front). Taking a stimulant such as Ritalin stimulates blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, thus making attention improve. If lack of blood flow is really the problem.
Teachers often report to parents that there’s an issue with attention but often don’t recognize contributing factors. (This is not an attempt to denigrate teachers. They have big classes to try to stay on top of and often they can just see that little Susie is wiggling again.) The parents who’ve written above about having a gifted student understand that boredom contributes. They’re lucky. There’s a whole subset of children who lack the cognitive ability to understand oral or written language. They’re often labeled as ADD or ADHD because they’re not attentive in class. Rather than being caused by a lack of blood flow, though, they may not be processing language. It’s these kids who do not respond to the drugs they’re prescribed because it’s not a medical issue. It’s a cognitive issue. I see it every single day in my work. I could write a diary about the failures of the system for these kids because their weaknesses aren’t as easily identifiable as the struggling reader. Another day.
It gets very scary when pediatricians–not psychologists, psychiatrists or neurologists–prescribe medication after medication because little Johnny isn’t responding to the first, second, third, etc. The checklists the teacher and parent filled out indicate a problem and the doctor is relying on the medication to confirm that the root of the problem is the blood flow. Would we accept that for cancer? Well, we think it might be cancer, so we’ll go ahead and do a course of chemotherapy. If you feel better afterwards, then we were right. Obviously that’s an extreme example. But it’s hopefully illustrative of the problem of diagnosis by trial-and-error medication.
I have spent about a half an hour typing and deleting paragraph after paragraph of rant about this. I’ll stop for now but I just wanted to point out the fallacy of medicating in order to diagnose the true problem. The pharmaceutical companies certainly aren’t pushing for better diagnostic tools that rely on physiological information rather than behavior. With luck, the medical community will continue to research, develop, and refine tests that can appropriately diagnose the problem. The use of medication is so widespread, though, it seems like many doctors have reached a level of complacency in attentional diagnostics. If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, sounds like a duck…
If I had a nickel for every student I see who is improperly medicated…well, I’d be several dollars richer anyway.
I’m not qualified to make a diagnosis nor do I pass judgment on whether these illnesses exist, though I am not sure it is something that can be properly measured by a CAT scan. I agree that too many kids seem to go through a series of medications on a trial basis without a proper evaluation.
Nor do I dispute that these medications have the desired effect, in that as you say certain areas of the brain get stimulated. It’s the undesired effects that concern me and whether or not the children can still be children – unconcerned and happy. I’m worried that we are creating a victim society. Now, any of the side effects listed above is cause for me to personally discredit this drug. I find the analogy with cancer somewhat disturbing, since, well, we’re talking about death as opposed to calm in the classroom.
Now let me ask you this: Could we be doing the wrong thing because it’s easy, rather than spending the required time to address their needs (since time matters to adults, and we just don’t have enough of it) in lengthy sessions. I will add, however that the percentage of kids on this stuff is staggering, and if there are kids that truly need it then giving it to so many is not only doing a disservice to these kids but also discrediting the drug.
I think that we’re doing the wrong thing by lots of kids on any number of fronts.
Educationally, many teachers aren’t equipped to address the needs of all their kids. Classroom size, emphasis on testing, lack of funding for supplies, training, development, etc. all limit a teacher’s ability to differentiate instruction. Then we get round-hole instruction for some square pegs.
Medically, doctors aren’t allowed to spend too much time with any one patient, so yes, I think we do the wrong thing by these kids because of time. I also think that the pharmaceutical companies are insidious in their attempts to make the laypeople feel confident in their own abilities to diagnose. (Ironically, as I type this, there’s an ad for adult ADD from one of the pharmaceutical companies…imagine that.)
The side effects are scary when you think about the ways in which the drugs alter personalities. With some frequency, I hear reports of children becoming robotic and detached. And we don’t know the long-range effects of medicating young, developing brains.
In an ideal world, kids would be exposed to various methods of instruction so that they might find their own best learning style. They would have well-trained, well-equipped teachers who could devote themselves to teaching without worrying about test scores. The wigglers could wiggle without punishment. One can dream, right?