Don't say I never do anything for Mongo...On March 21, 2000, 14-year-old
Matthew Smith dropped dead of a heart attack while skateboarding. The
ninth-grader had been on Ritalin since the first grade. Lawrence Smith,
father of the youngster, has testified that he and his wife were forced by
Michigan Social Services to put their child on Ritalin or else be charged
for neglecting their son's educational and emotional needs.
"His last report card was his best," says Lawrence Smith. "But it wasn't
worth it for us. Putting him on Ritalin was the worst decision I've ever
made." And that's because no long-range study had been made of the effects
of Ritalin on children who take it over a number of years.
It has also been known since 1986 that methylphenidate, the generic term
for Ritalin, causes shrinkage of the brain. A study that appeared in
Psychiatry Research (Vol. 17, 1986) states: "The data in this study are
suggestive of mild cerebral atrophy in young male adults who had a
diagnosis of HK/MBD during childhood and had received stimulant drug
treatment for a period of time."
Another study published in Archives of General Psychiatry (July 1996) found
that "Subjects with ADHD had a 4.7 percent smaller total cerebral volume."
Fifty-three of the 57 subjects with ADHD had been previously treated with
psycho-stimulants. Apparently, these drugs constrict the flow of blood.
Despite these alarming findings, nearly 6 million children take Ritalin or
one of a number of other stimulants in order to attend school. According to
the Boston Globe (May 14, 2002): "New Englanders buy more of the stimulant
Ritalin and its generic equivalents per capita than residents of any other
part of the country." Believe it or not, New Hampshire is the nation's
leading consumer of methylphenidate, the generic name for Ritalin. Next in
consumption is Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine.
Why such high consumption in New England? The region has more doctors per
capita, and therefore more children are likely to be prescribed medication
for so-called attention disorders. Also, New England has a high
concentration of liberals who love the public schools and are more inclined
to be cooperative when educators recommend drugging their children. In
addition, more and more adults are taking Ritalin and its competitor,
Adderall.
Parents Magazine and Good Housekeeping of September 2002 had two-page ads
for Adderall XR, suggesting that life for a child could be so much better
if he were on the drug. The ad reads:
Finding the right medication may help you see a big difference in how your
child feels about himself or herself and what he or she is able to
accomplish all day, every day! � Ask your doctor if a change to
patient-friendly Adderall XR could be right for your child.
In other words, "Parents, please switch from Ritalin to Adderall." The ad
then has these cautionary words about side effects:
Adderall XR is for patients with a confirmed diagnosis of Attention-Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) � The most common side effects are decreased
appetite, loss of sleep (insomnia), abdominal pain, and emotional lability
[instability] � Amphetamines have a high potential for abuse. Caution is
advised in patients with a history of high blood pressure or mental illness
�There is a potential for worsening of motor and phonic tics and Tourette's
syndrome.
When parents are advised to put their child on Ritalin, no examination is
made to see if that child might be allergic to its side effects. Of course,
some children seem to benefit from the drug. Otherwise, there wouldn't be 6
million children on it and other similar drugs. But the power of
methylphenadate is closer to cocaine than aspirin.
Recently, I received a call from a father being pressured by a school to
put his son on Ritalin. What did I think of the idea, he asked. I told him
of the sudden death of some children, the violent and murderous behavior of
others, and the fact that Ritalin shrinks the brain. He wanted me to tell
all of this to his wife who was inclined to go along with the school. So he
put her on the phone. She listened politely. But when I told her of the
shrinkage of the brain, she wanted to know if it produced any behavioral
change. I said I didn't know, but I thought that more brain was better than
less brain.
As far as I knew, no investigations had been made by medical researchers on
what happens to intelligence when the brain atrophies. But I got the
distinct impression that this boy's mother was not alarmed by brain
shrinkage per se. If I could not demonstrate a definite loss of
intelligence or nervous-system capability, then brain shrinkage was really
nothing to worry about.
In fact, the Detroit News of Dec. 12, 2002, reported that there was indeed
nothing to worry about. The article's headline said it all: "Ritalin is
safe � and it works." An excited reporter wrote:
For more than a generation, we've been "drugging" our unruly children to
calm them down. And in doing so, we have risked damaging their young brains
and setting them up for long-term drug addiction � or so we have been warned.
But now, that mantra is being turned inside-out. The first long-term
results of what some have called a huge drug experiment on our children
shows what almost no one expected.
Not only do the stimulant drugs used to treat "Attention-Deficit
Hyperactive Disorder" � or ADHD as it is known � not damage the brain, they
appear to enhance brain growth, helping afflicted children catch up in
brain size to their more "normal" peers.
That blockbuster finding, printed recently in the Journal of the American
Medical Association, is finally easing the fears of parents afraid of these
drugs and is sending experts on a mission to get the word out.
Apparently the article in the Journal of the AMA is based on a 10-year
study by the National Institute of Mental Health. The study revealed that
children with ADHD indeed have smaller brains to begin with, but those
treated with psycho-stimulants such as Ritalin experience brain growth.
What is one to believe? The National Institute of Mental Health is a
federal bureaucracy used by Congress to justify expenditures of billions of
dollars to solve such problems as the genetic causes of dyslexia.
What about those studies cited earlier in this article showing that these
drugs reduce brain size? Apparently they were performed by experts not on
the payrolls of the drug companies and not geared to gaining federal
funding. Which means that parents must still be wary of drugs that can kill
young children.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/01/04/6827074
