Invented Diseases

July 25, 2000

Dear Herbalists,

Many of you will have wondered about the number of

so-called " diseases " that are being daily thrust upon the Public. As one

who has just gone through Menopause (a Natural Action) I have seen the

dollar signs in Doctors eyes as they look upon a woman's Natural Rythmn

as a money producing " Disease " .

There are other " Diseases " which can be handled with a change of

diet or a Herbal Cleanse or just a quiet rest away from the stress of

life.

So, I found this article very interesting - it IS a bit long - hope

you'll forgive me Ian for its length.

I would appreciate any views that fellow Herbalists have on

this.....Best Wishes Penny

HISTORY OF THE FRAUD OF BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY

By Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD © July 19, 2000

The epidemic of psychiatric drugging in the US as nowhere else in the

developed world has risen from 150,000 in 1970, to 9-10 million today;

15 to 20% of all US schoolchildren. The ADHD/Ritalin portion now stands

at an estimated 6-7 million. Other ‘chemical imbalances’ treated with

other ‘chemical balancers’-drugs--make for a total to 9-10 million-all

of them normal until the first brain-altering, brain damaging drug

courses through their systems.

>From 1965 to the present, the number of physicians in the US has grown 5

times faster than the population, from 140 physicians /100,000

population to 280/100,000! [1] Today, each physician has half the

number of patients they had 35 years ago. But their incomes have kept

pace! To compensate they resort to 'physician-induced need,' or what

the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) refers to as an increased

'volume' and 'intensity' of prescribing. When heightened prescribing no

longer compensates, they take to the inventing of diseases, as typified

by psychiatry. The physician glut and it’s attendant 'physician-induced

need,' is the primary cause of the US health care crisis.

WHEN DID PSYCHIATRY BEGIN DIAGNOSING ‘DISEASES’?

In 1948, the combined specialty of 'neuropsychiatry' was divided into

'neurology,' dealing with organic or physical diseases of the brain, and

'psychiatry' dealing with emotional and behavioral problems in normal

human beings. Nor was there any dispute as to the division of labor;

psychiatrists made no claim that they diagnosed or treated actual brain

diseases. Finding no organic disease in patients with non-specific

symptoms, non-psychiatric physicians, refer patients to psychiatrists.

In other words, finding no objective abnormalities (disease) it can

safely be concluded that the patient’s symptoms are psychological in

origin-psychogenic! This is the main pre-condition for referral of a

patient to a psychiatrist or to any mental health professional.

As the physician glut worsened, medical costs rose and health

maintenance organizations (HMOs) evolved to control costs. HMOs

demanded accountability in diagnosis and treatment that cut deeply into

psychiatry’s open-ended, fictitious, diagnosing (and resultant

prescribing). Psychiatry had already cast its lot with the

pharmaceutical industry [2]. By the late 1960's psychiatric drugs were

'big' business,’ growing ‘bigger.’

By 1970, it was apparent that psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry

had agreed upon a joint marketplace strategy: they would call

psychiatric disorders, that is, all things emotional and behavioral,

'brain diseases' and would claim that each and every one was due to a

'chemical imbalance' of the brain [3]. Further, they would launch a

propaganda campaign, so intense and persistent that the public would

soon believe in nothing but pills--'chemical balancers' for 'chemical

imbalances' [4].

Just as the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the primary

author of the psychiatric condition/disorder-as-a-disease, deception,

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is their prototypical,

most-successful-by-far, invented disease. They regularly revise it's

diagnostic criteria, not for any scientific purpose, but to cast a wider

marketplace ‘net.’ In collusion with Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis),

Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorders (CHADD), and the US

Department of Education they proclaim ADHD a ‘disease’ so real and

terrible that the parent who dares not believe in it, or allow it's

treatment, is likely to be deemed negligent, and no longer deserving of

custody of their child. This is happening in family courts across the

country by the hundreds of thousands.

Every patient’s right of informed consent requires a complete, honest

portrayal both of the condition to be treated (including it’s prognosis

or course, untreated) and of the treatment(s) proposed (and how it/they

will alter the course of the condition). Lacking either, the informed

consent would be incomplete--invalid. Few, if any, questions about ADHD

can be answered without an honest answer to the question: “Is ADHD a

disease with a confirmatory physical (including chemical) abnormality,

or isn’t it? (asking this question of any physician or researcher, ask

for reference to the specific article in the scientific literature, that

documents the confirmatory physical (including chemical) abnormality

proving it is a disease.)

IS IT A DISEASE OR ISN’T IT?

All physicians-psychiatrists included, complete a course of study of

disease-pathology. They know, full-well, that it is the physician’s

first duty, patient-by-patient, to determine whether the patient has an

actual disease or does not-the “disease”/ “no disease” determination.

We learn that substantial numbers of patients seek help from their

physicians for what are “emotional,” “psychological,” or “psychiatric”

symptoms, due to the stresses of everyday life. Such patients have no

disease per se (ruled out by finding no abnormalities- no pathology,

nothing objective, on physical examination, laboratory testing, x-ray,

scanning, etc.).

There were few claims by psychiatry in the sixties and seventies, of a

biologic basis of psychiatric disorders, i.e., that they were

“diseases.” Such claims, without scientific evidence, began, in

earnest, in the eighties and nineties, with the American Psychiatric

Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-III-R (DSM-III-R) [5]

and DSM-IV [6]. ADHD has become psychiatry’s number one,

“biologically-based” “disease.”

PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY: INVENTED DISEASES, BIG BUSINESS

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

has grown from 112 mental disorders in its initial, 1952 edition [7], to

163 in the 1968, DSM-II [8], to 224 in the 1980, DSM-III [9]; 253 in the

1987, DSM-III-R [5], and, 374 in the 1994, DSM-IV [6]. That there is

more to the explosion of psychiatric “diseases” than scientific naiveté

is obvious. To the extent that such research and its dissemination

abrogates informed consent and becomes standard practice, is it not

fraud? That it is a joint, psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry strategy

is obvious.

ONE PHYSICIAN’S QUEST FOR AN ANSWER

Diseases are natural occurrences in the plant and animal world.

Scientific physicians, veterinarians, botanists, and others observe,

describe, and validate the pathology (abnormality), making them

diseases. Diseases are not conceptualized in committee or decided upon

by consensus, as biological psychiatry would have it.

In 35 years as a private practice, adult/child neurologist, making

“disease”/ “no disease” determinations daily, I have discovered and

described real diseases but have found myself unable to validate ADHD,

by whatever name, as an actual disease.

In 1971, Baughman [10] discovered the curly hair-anklyoblepharon (fused

eyelids)-nail dysplasia syndrome (CHANDS). Its description was

published in the Birth Defects: Original Article Series. In 1979,

Toriello, et. al. [11] (myself included) established its autosomal

recessive mode of transmission and published our findings in the Journal

of Medical Genetics . In 1959, Turcot, et al [12], suggested that the

combination of polyposis of the colon with gliomas of the brain was an

autosomal recessive trait. In 1969, Baughman, et al, [13] described the

second, “confirmatory” example of the glioma-polyposis syndrome-Turcot’s

syndrome. Anyone asking whether or not CHANDS exists, whether or not it

has been proven to be “genetic” or, whether or not Turcot’s syndrome

exists, can look up the references and access the proofs. Such is the

way of medical science-with the notable exception of biological

psychiatry.

On September 23, 1993, I [14] testified in hearings on the National

Institutes of Health (NIH) Research on Antisocial, Aggressive, and

Violence-Related Behaviors and their Consequences:

“If, as I am convinced, these entities are not diseases, it would be

unethical to initiate research to evaluate biological

interventions-unethical and fatally flawed scientifically. That such

unethical, unscientific research has, and is, going on, should be the

focus of investigations.”

My testimony, and with it, all consideration of the fundamental

“disease”/ “no disease” issue, was effectively expunged from their 1994,

final report. Moreover, they have refused to share with me informed

consent documents used in such research which would have had to state

how they characterize ADHD, CD and ODD to parents of children who are

research subjects.

AND ALL THE OTHER BIOPSYCHIATRIC DISEASES, TOO?

Regarding their re-conceptualization of psychiatric “disorders” as

“diseases, psychiatrist, Donald Goodwin, [15] acknowledged “a narrow

definition of disease that requires the presence of a biological

abnormality.”

Kety and Matthysse [16] write: “… the recent literature does not

provide the hoped-for clarification of the catecholamine hypotheses, nor

does compelling evidence emerge for other biological differences that

may characterize the brains of patients with mental disease.”

The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment [17] concludes:

“Mental disorders are classified on the basis of symptoms because there

are as yet no biological markers or laboratory tests for them.”

Arthur C. Clarke, scientific thinker, author of “2001: A Space Odyssey”

reminds us: “Science, unlike politics or diplomacy, does not depend on

consensus or expediency-it progresses by open-minded probing, rigorous

questioning, independent thought and, when the need arises, being bold

enough to say that the emperor has no clothes.”

Biological psychiatry has “no clothes!” ADHD has “no clothes!” There

being no scientific explanations, we must look elsewhere for answers to

the epidemic drugging of US schoolchildren in the name of ADHD and every

other invented, fraudulent psychiatric ‘disease,’ those whose only

intent is to make ‘patients’ of every mis-educated, mis-parented,

troubled, pained, biologically normal, child.

I TRY TO LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT ADHD

>From 1993 to the present, I have written to leading agencies and

researchers, asking to be referred to the one or few articles in the

peer-reviewed, scientific, literature that constitute proof that ADHD a

disease or syndrome (medical) with a confirmatory, physical abnormality?

On December 24, 1994, Paul Leber, MD, of the FDA responded: “…as yet no

distinctive pathophysiology for the disorder has been delineated.”

On October 25, 1995, Gene R. Haislip of the DEA wrote: “We are also

unaware that ADHD has been validated as a biologic/organic syndrome or

disease.”

On September 1l, 1996, as if unfamiliar with the concept of scientific

proof, Joyce Moscaritola, MD, Medical Affairs Vice President, Ciba-Geigy

(now Novartis) responded: “A comprehensive computer search of the

literature yielded several articles which discuss the various hypotheses

for the etiology (cause) of ADHD.”

Turning to the top ADHD researchers in the country, those at the NIMH, I

sent, by Fed-Ex, the following request, individually, to Doctors Peter

S. Jensen, F. Xavier Castellanos, Alan J. Zametkin and Judith L

Rapoport, all on the same day, November 3, 1995:

“I would like you to direct me, specifically, to those reports in the

literature which constitute proof that ADHD is a disease or a syndrome

and thus organic/biologic.”

The response came not from any one of the four to whom I had directed

the question-all purveyors of the proposition that ADHD is a “disease”

and that the children are abnormal, but from L. Eugene Arnold, M.Ed.,

MD, December 8, 1995, after consultation with the four. Not until the

final paragraph of a two page letter, replete with 35 references, having

nothing to do with my question, did Arnold get to the question:

However, I suspect you are more interested in evidence that ADHD is

organic/biologic…The evidence here is more nascent, with exciting new

reports at each professional meeting. It is very likely that multiple

causes will be established.

This, of course, was a non-answer.

The 1995, Report of the International Narcotics Control Board [18]

voiced concern regarding the diagnosis of ADD:

The INCB requests the authorities of the United States to continue to

carefully monitor future developments in the diagnosis of ADD in

children…in order to ensure that these substances are prescribed in

accordance with sound medical practice, as required under article 9

paragraph 2, of the 1971 Convention.

On June 7, 1996 I wrote to the INCB asking:

With no confirmation that so-called attention-deficit disorder with or

without hyperactivity (ADHD) is a disease, a “discrete diagnostic

entity” or anything organic or biologic, how could it possibly be sound

medical practice?

Replying on July 3, 1996, INCB Secretary, Herbert Schaep, expressed

satisfaction with the newly-launched Ciba-Geigy campaign to inform the

community about the abuse potential of methylphenidate-Ritalin, but left

the more fundamental question of the validity of a ADD/ADHD as a

disease/medical syndrome un-addressed.

Conner, he of the parent-teacher behavior scales, replied on September

15, 1998. He enclosed his April, 1997, article [19]: “Is ADHD a

disease?” by way of response. Therein, he summarized:

…we see that there is no agreement on a core psychological defect,

anatomic locus, neurochemical or genetic basis, or neuropsychological

pattern, that is characteristic of ADHD… What is wrong with our

approach…that we should have so little success in identifying a specific

marker for the ADHD disease, almost a century after George Still

identified the disorder?

On September 15, 1997, I wrote to Director of National Drug Control

Policy, General (ret.) Barry R. McCaffrey and Secretary of the

Department of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, charging:

that ADHD-the fraudulent, never-validated, “disease”-was fabricated by

experts at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)” and that “On

no less than four occasions (by registered mail as well) I have asked

NIMH experts, Doctors Peter S. Jensen, F. Xavier Castellanos, Judith L.

Rapoport and Alan J. Zametkin to refer me to those articles…that prove

that ADHD is a “disease” (or a medical syndrome) with a confirmatory,

characteristic abnormality (pathology).

At long last, I elicited a reply to my question-or so I thought-from the

one person, who, more than any other, speaks of and for ADHD and

oversees ADHD research in the U.S.-Peter S. Jensen, MD, Chief,

Developmental Psychopathology Research Branch, NIMH, NIH, Department of

Health and Human Services (DHHS). Dr. Jensen urged that I:

“note within the pages of the prestigious British journal Lancet an

article will soon be forthcoming (James Swanson, et al. [20] ) that

reviews all of the biologic evidence for the establishment of ADHD as a

bona fide disorder…”

What Dr. Jensen failed to state, once again, is whether or not the

“soon…forthcoming” Lancet article, or any, anywhere in the

peer-reviewed literature on ADHD, yet constitutes proof of an

abnormality within the child-one that can be tested for and found

patient-by-patient, one proving that we are not drugging millions of

normal children.

On December 5, 1997, I wrote and faxed James M. Swanson, Ph.D.,, Child Development Center, Department of Pediatrics, University

of California, Irvine, and author of the “soon…forthcoming” Lancet

article asking that he:

please send me a copy or reprint of the article referred to by Dr.

Jensen in his letter to me of October 12, 1997 (enclosed). Can you cite

final, confirmatory proof that ADHD is a disease/medical syndrome with a

definite, discernible (patient by patient) physical or chemical

abnormality/ marker?

Getting no response from Swanson, I re-sent my original letter (that of

December 5, 1997) on January 12, 1998, this time by registered mail. In

so doing, I learned that the address I had been using was correct and

that the registered letter had been received and signed for. But still,

no response to my scientific, collegial inquiry.

Next, Swanson appeared as a substitute speaker at a meeting I was

attending in San Diego, that of the American Society for Adolescent

Psychiatry, March 5-8, 1998. He spoke, among other things, of the MRI

brain scan research of Castellanos, et al [21,22], and Filipek, et al

[23], alleged to show brain atrophy in subjects with ADHD, but not in

controls.

I spoke from the audience, pointing out that 93% of the subjects in the

Castellanos [21,22] studies had been on chronic stimulant therapy, and

inquired as to the stimulant status of those in the Filipek [23]

study. Swanson acknowledged that Filipek et al [23], also utilized

ADHD subjects who had been on chronic stimulant therapy-an

acknowledgment nowhere to be found in a review of this research either

in the in the Lancet article [20] or in the more recent Report of the

Council of Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association [24].

Here, we had strong, replicated evidence that chronic stimulant therapy

(methylphenidate, amphetamine) causes brain atrophy, not confirmation of

an ADHD phenotype at all, as we were led to believe.

Next--much to my surprise--came the answer to the AD/HD “disease”/ “no

disease” question. Swanson (from the tape recording of the session):

“I would like to have an objective diagnosis for the disorder (ADHD).

Right now psychiatric diagnosis is completely subjective…We would like

to have biological tests-a dream of psychiatry for many years… I think

we will validate it. I do not think these drugs are dangerous or

addictive when used this way.”

“I think we will validate it,” he said. At long last-an open, honest,

truly scientific appraisal from one within the ADHD industry!

At last, I had my answer from Swanson, and from the greater ADHD

industry. He thinks they will validate ADHD. What he neglected to say

was how he describes ADHD, today, in obtaining informed consent from the

parents of children he treats with stimulants and from those of children

in their research studies using positron emission tomography (PET)

scans, spinal taps and indwelling venous catheters, from which to draw

blood drug levels. I have written him requesting copies. I am still

waiting (7/19/00).

On May 13, 1998, F. Xavier Castellanos or the NIMH wrote to me:

“…I have noted your critiques of the diagnostic validity of ADHD. I

agree that we have not yet met the burden of demonstrating the specific

pathophysiology that we believe underlies this condition. However, my

colleagues and I are certainly motivated by the belief that it will be

possible in the near future to do so.”

Swanson thinks “we will validate it!” Meanwhile, Castellanos and his

colleagues are “… motivated by the belief that it will be possible in

the near future to do so.”

On August 5, 1998 William B. Carey, MD, of the Children’s Hospital of

Philadelphia, wrote to me:

“There are no such articles (constituting proof that ADHD is a

disease). There are many articles raising doubts but none that

establish the proof you or I seek.”

Barkley [25], implies that brain atrophy characterizes and validates

ADHD as a disease. He cites MRI studies by Castellanos, et al. [21,22]

the first of which showed that “Subjects with ADHD had a 4.7% smaller

total cerebral volume,” while the second showed: “Vermal (cerebellar)

volume was significantly less…with ADHD.” Not mentioned was the fact,

acknowledged in the original report [21], that 93% of ADHD subjects had

been on chronic stimulant therapy and, that the same, treated, cohort

was used in the second study. No drug-naïve group (not on Ritalin, or

other stimulants or psychiatric drugs) has been shown to have brain

atrophy. It can only be concluded that their brain atrophy is a

function of their chronic stimulant therapy-the only physical variable.

What does this say about ADHD “science” and “scientists?” NIMH, NIH

Publication No. 94-3572, states: “Brain scan images produced by

positron emission tomography (PET) shows differences between an adult

with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity and an adult free of the

disease.” Nowhere in their peer-reviewed literature do we find

disavowals of their claims of “disease.”

In 1986, Ross [26], a psychiatrist, chided:

…dealing with symptoms or syndromes as if they were specific disease

reflects a trend in psychiatry to regard mental illnesses as biological

entities…But in this surrealistic world of pseudo-entities, the

psychiatrist abdicated reality to embrace biological reductionism.

In 1990, Pam [27], a psychologist, supposing psychiatrists to be naïve,

sought to impose scientific standards. He wrote:

…any studies that do not meet standards for proper research procedures

or interpretation of data must not be accepted for publication or, if

already published must be discredited within the professional

literature…the possibility that that emotional experience (love, hate,

fear, grief) may be physiologically non-specific gets short shrift…If

each emotion is not physiologically distinctive, there can be no

biological marker for each type or subtype of emotional pathology, and

thus most current research would be methodologically inappropriate…the

preponderance of research contributed by biological psychiatry up to the

present is questionable or even invalidated by the criticisms just made.

With research and the peer-reviewed scientific literature substantially

or wholly (as in the case of drug-related research) funded by

industry-who speaks for science? To what extent are scientific findings

muted? Perverted? Are diseases invented where they don’t exist?

Treatments? Acknowledgments appearing on published articles regarding

research funding and sponsorship are wholly inadequate. Readers have

every right to detailed knowledge regarding research funding and the

researchers, as well. Without such information, informed consent is not

fully informed.

In the Clinical Psychiatric News of December, 1994, Houston

psychiatrist, Theodore Pearlman wrote:

“I take issue with Dr. Harold Alan Pincus’ (of the Committee of the

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric

Association) assertion that elimination of the term “organic” in the

DSM-IV has served a useful purpose for psychiatry…Far from being of

value to psychiatry, the elimination of the term “organic” conveys the

impression that psychiatry wishes to conceal the nonorganic character of

many behavioral problems that were, in previous DSM publications,

clearly differentiated from known central nervous system diseases.”

Baughman, wrote in the same issue of Clinical Psychiatric News

(December, 1994):

“The fact that DSM-IV eschews the distinction between organic disease

and disorders …that are not organic, does not mean that treating

physicians can…to contend that something is a disease when that has not

been established is to fail to provide the patient with information

sufficient to make an informed decision.”

In a 1995 review of the neuro-imaging literature on ADHD, Ernst [28]

commented:

“The definition of ADHD has changed over time. This change has

contributed to the selection of research samples with differing clinical

characteristics, making comparisons among studies difficult…samples of

children with ADHD who were diagnosed according to DSM-III-R (1987)

criteria include children who do not meet DSM-III (1980) criteria.”

What Ernst pointed out is that the ADD of DSM-III (1980), the ADHD of

DSM-III-R (1987), and the ADHD of DSM-IV (1994) are 3 separate,

incomparable entities. Moreover, the ADHD of DSM-IV has been divided

(also by consensus-altered diagnostic criteria) into three sub-types:

(a) hyperactive-impulsive, (b) inattentive, and (c ) combined-none

comparable to the other or, to the ADD of DSM-III (1980) or the ADHD of

DSM-III-R (1987). If the neuro-imaging literature for each is separate

and incomparable, then the same is true of the literature on

biochemistry, genetics, epidemiology, co-morbidity, psychopharmacology,

etc. None are comparable, one with the other. Is this science?

In all of medicine, other than psychiatry, there is no inventing or

conceptualizing of ‘diseases’ in-committee. Rather, diseases are

natural occurrences, recognized as abnormalities-diseases--by physicians

who, in turn, find upon review of the literature, that they have not

been previously described, who then describe them. Nor are diseases

revised in committee, as is regularly done at the American Psychiatric

Association for consecutive editions of the DSM. Rather, new features

of established diseases are recognized by astute physicians who, in

turn, learn that the feature is new, hitherto un-described, and describe

it.

Why do ADHD experts regularly extol the sheer volume and longevity of

their research record, as if this alone, as opposed to particular

proofs, were what mattered. For example, the Report of the Council on

Scientific Affairs of the AMA [24] states: “ADHD is a childhood

neuropsychiatric syndrome that has been studied thoroughly over the past

40 years.” ADHD, as such, did not appear until the publication of

DSM-III-R in 1987. Nor have I mentioned it’s many pre-DSM-III, 1980,

conceptualizations. Consider:

The high frequency of “soft” neurologic findings led to designating the

condition “minimal brain dysfunction”, with the expectation that a

consistent neurologic lesion or set of lesions would eventually be found

[29].

Typical of biopsychiatry, “minimal brain dysfunction,” circa, 1960-1970,

better known by it’s acronym, “MBD,” was, itself, re-conceptualized

before “a consistent neurologic lesion or set of lesions” could be

found. Nor was it the same or comparable, to any subsequent

conceptualization-another chapter of the research record, down the

drain.

Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), in

1995, biological psychiatry spokesmen, Marzuk and Barchas [30] stated:

Perhaps the most significant conceptual shift (from DSM-III-R, 1987, to

DSM-IV, 1994) was the elimination of the rubric organic mental

disorders, which had suggested improperly that most psychiatric

disorders…had no organic basis.

Notice that these authors have assumed, but not proven, that “most

psychiatric disorders” have an organic basis, making it improper for

anyone to suggest otherwise. They would shift the burden of proof to

those who doubt and question, hardly in keeping with science. What they

and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), with it’s DSM-IV, have

done, was to absolve psychiatry of every physician’s obligation to make

a fundamental, patient-by-patient, “organic”/ “not organic,” “disease”/

“no disease” determination. They have absolved themselves, and, anyone

wishing to join them in such diagnosing, of having to demonstrate an

abnormality-pathology, by way of proving that psychiatric “disorders”/

“diseases” are actual diseases.

In fact, the essential first step in all diagnosis, even in the

diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, is to make the fundamental “Is it a

disease or isn’t it?” determination. This determination is usually made

by physicians other than psychiatrists; usually by those referring

patients to the psychiatrist (or psychologist, or other mental health

professional). What psychiatrists do from that point on, is nothing,

more or less, than, semantic classification, based upon subjective

symptoms, alone, in patients already-proven to have no disease. The

absence of organic disease, over time, stands as the strongest evidence

that a patient’s symptoms are psychogenic.

An ad placed by “America’s Pharmaceutical Research Companies” in

Newsweek, October 7, 1996, read: “A chemical that triggers mental

illness is now being used to stop it.” Here again, is the “big lie.”

There is no mental illness with a proven chemical abnormality. In their

scheme of things, however, scientific facts are less important, by far,

than that the public at large become believers in the “chemical

imbalance”-chemical “balancer” (pill) view of mental health. When and

in which board-room did they meet to adopt their “disease”-“chemical

imbalance”-“pill” model of all human emotional distress?

Biopsychiatry’s researchers are aware that without proven diseases,

syndromes (in a medical sense) genotypes or phenotypes, that the

“disease” and “control” groups are both physically normal and,

indistinguishable. They know from the outset that their research is

destined to prove nothing and to remain forever theoretical. (this

means that all of their biological research on entities known not to be

biological, i.e., known to have an objective abnormality or physical

marker, are doomed to prove nothing and are fraudulent).

Pam [26] asks:

…how can we account for the tendency to seriously compromise research

and review standards within a medical discipline (all of psychiatry, its

governing bodies and journals) known for its commitment to the

scientific method?

…and, ventures an answer:

“The sociology of knowledge developed by Mannheim [31] postulates that

all intellectual systems-science included-are influenced by special

interest and social considerations; a body of information is never

unrelated to a political-economic context…”

1998,THE AMA COUNCIL ON SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS

With no proof that ADHD is a disease with a confirmatory, physical

abnormality, the ADHD “epidemic,” has grown from 150,000 in 1970, to

five million in 1997; Ritalin production, in the US, rose 700%, between

1990 and 1997, and the AMA, Council on Scientific Affairs [24] has seen

fit to conclude: “…there is little evidence of widespread overdiagnosis

or misdiagnosis of ADHD or of widespread overprescription of

methylphenidate.” Without a confirmatory physical or chemical

abnormality to make of it a disease, with which to diagnose it,

child-by-child, how could they possibly know whether or not there was

“…overdiagnosis or misdiagnosis of ADHD or of widespread

overprescription of methylphenidate”?

Ten years earlier, in 1989, the same AMA Council on Scientific Affairs

[32], evaluated “dyslexia,” a.k.a. “specific reading disability,” and

duly, and scientifically, concluded there was no satisfactory

definition-that it was not a disease. Why, today, in 1998, does the

Council fail to provide a forthright, scientific answer to the same

question about ADHD? “Is it a disease with a confirmatory physical

abnormality, or isn’t it?”

What factors have changed which allowed the Council to speak

forthrightly-scientifically--on the issue of “dyslexia” in 1989, but not

on ADHD, in 1998 [24]?

Is industry (pharmaceutical) control of the practice of medicine more

nearly complete today? How often are scientific conclusions, not

friendly to the “bottom line” published? Quashed?

The AMA and Goldman, et al, authors of the Council Report are, no doubt,

aware of the influence their report will have on the ADHD field in these

times of continued proselytizing and incredible growth of the

ADHD/Ritalin/psychotropic drug epidemic and growing doubts as to the

validity of it all. Is their mandate to represent science, or have they

sided with industry to protect the ADHD “golden goose.” I am shocked at

their avoidance of the main scientific question-the “disease”/ “no

disease” question.

Armed only with the illusion of a disease, no proof that a disease

(ADHD) exists, or that the children are other than normal, the

RECOMMENDATIONS of the AMA [24] are:

1.“The AMA encourages physicians to use standardized diagnostic criteria

in making the diagnosis of ADHD, such as the American Psychiatric

Association’s DSM-IV…”

2.“The AMA encourages the creation and dissemination of practice

guidelines for ADHD by appropriate specialty societies and their use by

practicing physicians…”

3.“The AMA encourages efforts by medical schools, residency programs,

medical societies, and continuing medical education programs to increase

physician knowledge about ADHD and its treatment.”

4.“The AMA encourages the use of individualized therapeutic approaches

for children diagnosed as having ADHD, which may include

pharmacotherapy, psychoeducation (whatever that is), behavioral therapy,

etc., etc.”

5.“The AMA encourages physicians and medical groups to work with schools

to improve teachers’ abilities to recognize (diagnose?) ADHD and

appropriately recommend that parents seek medical evaluation…”

6.“The AMA reaffirms Policy 100.975, to work with the FDA and the DEA to

help ensure that appropriate amounts of methylphenindate and other

Schedule II drugs are available for clinically warranted patient use.”

RECOMMENDATIONS (5) and (6) are particularly reprehensible. The former

(5), further encourages the teachers of the nation to make a diagnosis

leading to the prescription of controlled substances-constituting, in my

opinion, the practice of medicine without a license. The latter (6)

pushes drugs of addiction, Schedule II drugs, upon a population free of

any demonstrable physical abnormality.

Nor are the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association

(JAMA) unaware of the fundamental problem concerning ADHD-the

need-still, for a forthright answer to the “disease”/ “no disease”

question. In a 1993, letter to the editor of the JAMA [33], I wrote:

Unlike definite syndromes, such as Klinefelter’s, Brown-Sequard, and

Down’s, in which there is a constancy of symptoms and signs (objective),

the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Revised,

Third Edition allows any combination of 8 of 14 behaviors for a

diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Is this the

validation of a syndrome, or does it redefine the term syndrome?…If

attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is not a proven syndrome, how

can cause be inferred? How can therapies be evaluated?

In 1995, an article by AJ Zametkin [34], entitled Attention-deficit

Disorder: Born to Be Hyperactive was published in the JAMA. In an

letter to the editor of JAMA that was rejected, I wrote:

Without a statement that there has never been proof that ADHD is a

syndrome, a disease, organic or biologic, the review by Zametkin is

incomplete and misleading. Under the heading “Pathophysiology” -as if

there were a “pathophysiology”-he writes only, “the cause of ADHD is

unknown.”…The ADHD literature reveals that there was never syndrome

validation to begin with. Is this not a fatal flaw?…Regarding ADHD, the

“informed consent” should include the statement that ADHD has never been

proven to be a syndrome/disease; biologic/organic.

Upon rejection of my letter, I wrote to JAMA, Senior Editor, Margaret A.

Winker, MD, September 21, 1995, stating:

…I would be especially disappointed if it turns out that you do not plan

to publish any correspondence asking for such clarification…JAMA would

not wish to be seen as failing to disclose the status of what science

there is regarding what is commonly referred to as ADHD.

Although I was assured that my letter was passed on to Zametkin, I never

received a reply from him. Would JAMA, the AMA, and the AMA Council on

Scientific Affairs wish to be seen as failing to disclose the scientific

status of ADHD?

I have sought, unsuccessfully, for 17 years to get a straightforward

“Yes!” or “No!” answer to the “Is ADHD an actual disease or not?”

question, from the leaders of the ADHD research establishment,

including, most prominently, Peter S. Jensen, MD, of the NIMH in

Rockville, MD, and James M. Swanson, Ph.D., of the University of

California, Irvine (both members of the Professional Advisory Board of

Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorders-CHADD, as well).

As unthinkable as it may seem, what we are dealing with here, is

nothing, more or less, than a for-profit, invented “disease” and a

for-profit invented “epidemic,” perhaps the most successful of all time,

in monetary terms. At the same time it has been one of the most

diabolical and inhuman, of all time, if not, the most diabolical and

inhuman.

Psychiatrist, Walter E. Afield,[35], said it best, and, most

succinctly. He testified before the Select Committee on Children,

Youth, and Families, House of Representative, April 28, 1992, on the

psychiatric hospital fraud of the 1980’s, as follows:

“ …The DSM-III, we’re talking about everyone in this room will fit into

two or three of the diagnoses…In DSM-II, homosexuality was a disease.

In III, it’s not. In IV, there’ll be some new diseases. Every new

disease that’s defined gets a new hospital program, new admissions, a

new system and a way to bilk it, and this bilking continues…

THE SEARCH FOR ADHD 1998 TO THE PRESENT?

On April 15, 1998, I wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno charging:

“the representation of ADHD as a disease, the children as abnormal, and

the psychiatric drugging of the millions of schoolchildren said to have

it, was the greatest health care fraud of the century.”

In May 13, 1998, F. Xavier Castellanos of the NIMH wrote me:

" I agree we have not yet met the burden of demonstrating the specific

pathophysiology that we believe underlies this condition. " (haven’t

found it yet)

As the main invited speaker at the November 16-18, 1998, NIH, Consensus

Conference on ADHD, on the subject: " Is ADHD a Valid Disorder? "

Professor William B. Carey concluded:

" ...common assumptions about ADHD include that it is clearly

distinguishable from normal behavior, constitutes a neurodevelopmental

disability, is relatively uninfluenced by the environment... All of

these

assumptions...must be challenged because of the weakness of empirical

(research) support and the strength of contrary evidence...What is now

most often described as ADHD in the United States appears to be a set

of

normal behavioral variations... This discrepancy leaves the validity

of

the construct in doubt... "

With no proof with which to counter Carey's assertions, the final

statement of Consensus Conference on ADHD (11/18/98) read (p.3, lines

10-13):

" ...we do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there

are no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction. "

Richard Degrandpre, author of Ritalin Nation, and a participant in the

Consensus Conference, took a stand for science, asserting:

“… it appears that you define disease as a maladaptive cluster of

characteristics…in the history of science and medicine, this would not

be a valid definition of disease.”

My own, invited, entirely public, Consensus Conference, testimony,

11/17/98 (un-rebutted), was:

Without an iota of proof or credible science, the National Institute of

Mental Health (NIMH) has proclaimed the behaviors of ADHD a “disease,”

and the children “brain-diseased,” “abnormal.” CHADD (Children and

Adults with Attention Deficit Disorders), 35,000-strong, funded by

Ciba-Geigy, manufacturer of Ritalin, has spread the “neuro-biological”

lie. The US Department of Education, absolving itself of controlling

the children and rendering them literate, coerces the labeling and

drugging…ADHD is a total, 100% fraud. "

In the press conference that followed (11/18/98), National Public Radio

correspondent, Joe Palca addressed the Panel:

" What you're telling us is that ADHD is like the Supreme Court's

definition of pornography, 'You know it when you see it.' "

My response to the 1998, Report of the Council on Scientific Affairs of

the AMA was published in the Journal of the American Medical

Association, April 28, 1999:

“Once children are labeled with ADHD, they are no longer treated as

normal. Once methylphenidate hydrochloride or any psychotropic drug

courses through their brain and body, they are, for the first time,

physically, neurologically and biologically, abnormal.”

In the January, 2000, Readers Digest, F.X. Castellanos summarized a

quarter of a century of ‘biological’ research on ADHD:

“Incontrovertible evidence is still lacking…In time I’m confident we’ll

confirm the case for organic causes.”

Here, Castellanos speaks of “organic causes” when they have yet to

confirm ADHD as a disease, a syndrome, or anything at all, “organic.”

Twenty-five years and 6-7 million patients after it’s ‘invention,’ and

" incontrovertible evidence is still lacking! "

More recently still, J.N. Giedd, writing in Attention, the magazine of

CHADD [March/April, 2000, p. 19], confessed:

“…clinical history remains the gold standard of AD/HD diagnosis.”

This, of course, means that there are no objective abnormalities to be

found. This does not deter CHADD President, Matthew Cohen, Esq., from

continuing to insist to the public that ADHD is a ‘neurobiological

disorder’ when it is neither neurological or biological; when children

said to have it are normal.

ENDLESS MARKET: NORMAL HUMANS--CRADLE TO GRAVE

As if 8-10 million, K-12, on psychiatric drugs were not enough, Zito,

et al [36] reported a two- to three-fold rise of psychiatric diagnosing

and drugging of normal infants, toddlers and preschoolers between 1990

and 1995. We know these drugs are addictive, dangerous and even

deadly. We know that Ritalin and all amphetamines, cause growth

retardation, brain atrophy, seizures, psychosis, tics, and Tourette's

syndrome. We know that Cylert, yet another stimulant, can kill the

liver. We know that Canadian officials, but not those in the US, have

banned it.

RECENT DAMAGES FROM ADHD DRUGS-HEART & BRAIN

I have been consulted in 3 cases in which there appear to have been

cardiac deaths due to Ritalin/amphetamine treatment for ADHD. Stephanie

Hall, 11, of Canton, Ohio, died in her sleep the day she started an

increased dose of Ritalin. In March 21, 2000, Matthew Smith, 14, of

Clawson, Michigan, fell from his skateboard, moaned, turned blue and

died. His myocardium (heart muscle) was diffusely scarred, it’s

coronary arteries, diffusely narrowed. Ritalin was, indisputably, the

cause of death. Randy Steele, 9, of Bexar, County, Texas, became

unresponsive and pulseless while being restrained in a psychiatric

facility. His heart was found to be ‘enlarged.’ He had had ADHD and

had been on Dexedrine; d-amphetamine. Of the 2,993 adverse reaction to

Ritalin, reported to the FDA, from 1990 to 1997, there were 160 deaths

and 569 hospitalizations. 126 of these adverse reactions were

'cardiovascular.'

Further, the brain damaging potential of Ritalin and other of the

psychostimulants (most of them amphetamines, has become increasingly

clear. And with this new clarity, a particularly heinous crime on the

part of ADHD researchers has become clearly apparent-the close-held news

that these drugs cause brain atrophy, that is brain shrinkage. Over the

past 15 years, psychiatric researchers have maintained that the brains

of children with ADHD, as seen on brain scans, were, on average, 10%

smaller than those of normal controls. What they have withheld from the

public as well as their readership and professionals that attend their

professional meetings, is that virtually all of the ADHD subjects in

these many studies over the past 15 years, had been on long-term

stimulant treatment and that this treatment was the only physical

difference between the ADHD subjects and the normal controls and the

only plausible cause of the brain atrophy. Swanson failed to

acknowledge this role of the drugs in his March 6, 1998, address to

the American Society of Adolescent Psychiatry and Swanson, again,

speaking for Swanson and Castellanos, failed again to present these

facts in his address to the ADHD Consensus Conference, November 17,

1998. It was left to me to ask him about the role of drugs from a

microphone in the audience. He then confessed there were no brain scan

studies on record other than those using ADHD subjects on drugs.

Sensitive now to being held accountable for what they say and write on

the issue, Castellanos (NIMH) was quoted in the January, 2000 Reader’s

Digests as saying some critics claim that such brain differences in ADHD

children might actually be caused by Ritalin. To address this,

Castellanos has now embarked on another study, imaging the brains of

ADHD youngsters who have not been treated with drugs. With 15 years of

brain scanning research suggesting that the drugs used in millions of

children are shrinking their brains, and they have just, now, decided to

look at the brain scans of a cohort of children with ADHD before

starting the drugs.

A study, which will be highlighted at the Society for Neuroscience

annual meeting in Miami, Florida from October 23-28,Yale University

researchers have found that brief, low-dose, amphetamine use in primates

caused possibly permanent cognitive impairment. Researcher Stacy

Castner concluded: " It may be the case that even a brief period of

low-dose amphetamine abuse in early adolescence or early adulthood can

produce profound cognitive deficits that may persist for a couple of

years or more after amphetamine use has ended. " Yet, the researchers

observe, Ritalin (generally identical to amphetamines) is being

prescribed to millions of children--including toddlers--who have been

loosely " diagnosed " with ADHD.

Whether ‘loosely’ diagnosed or not, the bottom line is that ADHD simply

does not exist-the children are normal! At least they were until the

amphetamines were started.

THE MARKETPLACE STRATEGY OF BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY

Present-day biological psychiatrists speak to one another, the public

and to their patients as though all emotional and behavioral pains were

diseases--chemical imbalances. This nomenclature serves no scientific

or Hippocratic-healing purpose. It serves only to gain their acceptance

of one-dimensional, drug treatment. It makes ‘patients’ of normal

persons and serves only the profit motive. In every single case, as

well as in virtually all of their drug, electroshock, and

psychosurgical research, they intentionally violate the informed consent

rights of the patient. Quite simply, there is no disease on the risk

side of the risk/benefit equation in psychiatry. Instead, there are

normal, troubled, pained, educable, remediable, adaptable, human

beings--human beings who, if treated appropriately, have the potential

to improve, to prevail, and to lead happy, normal, productive lives.

Until such time as the diagnosis of a disease has been objectively

confirmed, a physician has no right to proceed with any treatment, which

is, itself, a source of risk.

I would not be justified in starting insulin for diabetes, based only on

history, without confirmatory, elevated, blood sugar levels in hand. I

would not be justified in surgically removing a breast based upon the

naked eye appearance of a tumor, without microscopic confirmation of the

presence of a cancer.

Psychiatrists speak to their patients as though their emotional and

behavioral problems were ‘diseases.’ They do so to gain patient

acceptance of drug treatment, when this, and this alone, is in the best

financial interest of both, psychiatrists, and their pharmaceutical

industry partners.

A week ago I got a letter from Frank Heutehaus of Don Mills, Ontario, a

father-of -divorce, whose son is on Ritalin. He enclosed the Toronto

Sun article on the death of Matthew Smith and in his post-script added.

" In regards to my case, I am entertaining the prospect of bringing

criminal charges of assault and battery against some of the doctors who

claimed my son had a disease that doesn't exist. "

Such ‘biological’ psychiatrists, violate the informed consent rights of

their every patient. This is medical malpractice. Their is no

scientific, medical or moral justification for their pseudo-biological

diagnosing or, for the drugging that invariably follows.

On May, 25,2000, I [37 ] wrote to the JF Lucey, Editor of the journal

Pediatrics, stating:

(your) Clinical Practice Guideline opens:

“Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is the most common

neurobehavioral disorder of childhood.” “Neurobehavioral,” implies an

abnormality of the brain; a disease. And yet, no confirmatory, physical

or chemical abnormality of the brain (or anywhere else in the body) has

been found…With no evidence that ADHD is a disease, where has the notion

come from that it is a disease? …It has become apparent that virtually

all professionals who are part of the extended ADHD ‘industry’ convey to

parents, and to the public-at-large, that ADHD is a disease and that

children said to have it are ‘diseased’-‘abnormal.’ This is a

perversion of the scientific record and a violation of the informed

consent rights of all patients and of the public-at-large.

We cannot but conclude that medicine, once a healing mission, is now an

enterprise.

BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH INTO THINGS NON-BIOLOGICAL

A closing word about our own National Institute of Mental Health and

their dedication to a program of biological research into things

emotional and behavioral that are biologically indistinct. Ross [26]

and Pam [27] put it most succinctly.

Ross [26], a psychiatrist, chided:

…dealing with symptoms or syndromes as if they were specific disease

reflects a trend in psychiatry to regard mental illnesses as biological

entities…But in this surrealistic world of pseudo-entities, the

psychiatrist abdicated reality to embrace biological reductionism.

Pursued as medical practice, is this not fraud?

Pam [27] wrote:

…any studies that do not meet standards for proper research procedures

(doing biological studies on biologically indistinct entities) or

interpretation of data must not be accepted for publication or, if