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Rappoport/Shooting Position Paper
>The Truth Seeker Foundation
>WHY DID THEY DO IT?
>An Inquiry into the
>School Shootings in
>America
>
>Position Paper #1
>by
>Jon Rappoport
>Investigative Reporter
>
>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
>
>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.
>
>
>
>
>(c)1999 Jon Rappoport.
>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
>P.O. Box 28550
>San Diego, California 92198
>800-321-9054
>
>
>Website: http://truthseeker.com
>
>__________________________________
>
>
>Why Did They Do It?
>An Inquiry into the School Shootings in America
>by Jon Rappoport
>
>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
>straightforward 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?
>
>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?
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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
>amphatamine-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
>o Brain damage may be seen with amphetamine abuse.
>
>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."
>
>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
>postverdict 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?
>
>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.
>
>
>
>___________________________________
>Some sources of information:
>
>Dr. Peter Breggin, psychiatrist, author, former full-time consultant
>with the National Institute of Mental Health. www.breggin.com
>
>ICSPP News. Phone: 301-652-5580 www.icspp.org
>
>Dr. Joseph Tarantolo, psychiatrist, president of the Washington chapter
>of the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians. Phone:
>301-652-5580
>
>Jon Rappoport. Phone: 800-321-9054
>The Merrow Report can be ordered by phone at 212-941-8060.
>
>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..."
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