May/June 2001 Spirituality
Testimony of Neurologist
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD, May 3, 2000, before the Arkansas House
of Representatives, Health Services Subcommittee of the House and
Senate Committees on Public Health, Welfare and Labor
The epidemic of psychiatric drugging has risen from 200,000 in
1970, to 8 to 9 million today, that is, 15 to 20% of all US schoolchildren.
Others will tell you of the dangers of psychiatric medications.
You must be told the reasons behind this wholly unnatural, mainly
school-based, epidemic.
Since the advent of Medicare, in 1965, the number of physicians
in the US has grown 5 times faster than the population, from 150
physicians /100,000 population to 300/100,000! [1] Consequently,
today, each physician has half the number of patients they had 35
years ago. But their incomes have stayed the same! To compensate
they resort to 'physician-induced need,' that is, to what the Health
Care Finance Administration (HCFA) refers to as an increased 'volume'
and 'intensity' of prescribing. This, in fact, is the primary cause
of the US health care crisis.
In 1948, the erstwhile specialty of 'neuropsychiatry' was divided
in two, 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. Other physicians, finding no organic
disease, refer patients to psychiatrists. Psychiatrists do not examine
patients.
As the physician glut worsened, and competition intensified, psychiatry
[2] cast its lot with the pharmaceutical industry [3] By the late
1960's psychiatric drugs were 'big' business,’ growing ‘bigger.’
By 1970 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 [4]. 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'
[5].
Just as the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the primary
author of the psychiatric 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 to believe in
it, or allow it's treatment, is likely to be deemed negligent, and
no longer deserving of custody of their child.
On April 15, 1998, I wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno charging
that 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."
Addressing the November 16-18, 1998, National Institutes of Health
(NIH) Consensus Conference, William Carey of the University of Pennsylvania
concluded: "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 (ADHD)in doubt."
Taking note of psychiatry’s regular claims of ‘overdiagnosis’
and ‘misdiagnosis, my own testimony to the Consensus Conference--wholly
without rebuttal--was that "ADHD is a total, 100% fraud."
In the press conference that followed, 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.'"
The latest word on ADHD as a disease comes to us, once again, from
F.X. Castellanos. In the January, 2000, Readers Digest, he summarizes:
"Incontrovertible evidence is still lacking!" Twenty years
and 6 million patients after it’s ‘invention,’ and
"incontrovertible evidence is still lacking!"
As if 8-9 million, K-12, on psychiatric drugs were not enough,
Zito, et al [6] 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.
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 reactions to Ritalin, reported to the FDA, from 1990
to 1997, there were 160 deaths and 569 hospitalizations. 126 of
these adverse reactions were 'cardiovascular.'
Physicians owe every patient an unbiased risk /benefit assessment..
In medicine, apart from psychiatry, a disease is the primary source
of risk. Treatment, be it medical or surgical, is the main source
of benefit. However, every medication and every surgical operation
is a source of risk. Only if the probability of benefit outweighs
those of risk, does an ethical physician advise the patient to proceed
with treatment. There are many situations in which patients are
better off untreated. Only unethical physicians misrepresent the
risks and benefits so as to bias the patient toward treatment that
would only be in the best financial interest of the physicians.
Present-day biological psychiatrists speak to one another, the
public and to their patients as though the emotional and behavioral
pains they suffer were diseases; chemical imbalances, specifically
for the purpose of gaining their acceptance of one-dimensional,
drug treatment. In every single case, as well as in virtually all
of their drug 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 treatment, which
is, itself, is source of risk. I would not be justified in starting
insulin for diabetes, based only on a suspicion, 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
on the face of it. There is no scientific, medical or moral justification
for their pseudo-biological diagnosing or, for the drugging that
invariably follows.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Arkansas State Legislature, follow
the lead of Patti Johnson and her courageous colleagues on the Colorado
State Board of Education. Banish psychiatry, psychology, psychometrics,
diagnostics, and drugging from your schools; they are not the ingredients
of an education. Instead, make your schools places of literacy,
education, preparation, hopes and dreams, as they were a generation
ago. Your children need nothing less. Your state and nation need
nothing less.
Bibliography
- Baughman, F.A. To Many Doctors, to Little Control. San
Diego Union-Tribune, 5/29/96.
- Lipius LH. Private practice psychiatrist. Clinical
Psychiatric News, 7/99, p. 14
- In Bed Together at the Market. Dumont, M.P. Am.
J. Orthopsychiat, 60 (4), October 1990.
- Federal Involvement in the Use of Behavior Modification
Drugs on Grammar School Children of the Right to Privacy Inquiry—Hearing
before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations,
House of Representatives, 91st Congress, 2nd
Session, September 29, 1970
- The Deception of Biopsychiatry (unpublished), Baughman,
F.A., 10/3/96.
- Zito J, et al. February 23, 2000, Journal of the American Medical
Association.
Dr. Baughman’s website is www.adhdfraud.org