Neurologist, Fred A. Baughman Jr. observes: "Once children are labeled with

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (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." From this premise, Dr. Baughman debunks

recent research claiming ADHD is a brain-based disease.

Addressing the subject: "Is ADHD a Valid Disorder?" at the Fall, 1998, National Institutes of Health, Consensus Conference on ADHD, 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 in doubt..."

With no proof to counter Carey's assertion, the final statement of Consensus Conference Panel read: "...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."

At the press conference that followed, Joe Palca of National Public Radio observed: "ADHD is like the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography—you know it when you see it!"

Addressing the 1998, meeting of the American Society of Adolescent Psychiatry, James M. Swanson of the University of California-Irvine admitted: 'I would like to have an objective diagnosis for the disorder (ADHD). Right now psychiatric diagnosis is completely subjective.'

"Lawrence Diller, author of the book, 'Running on Ritalin,' said that the search for a biological marker for ADHD, 'is doomed from the outset because of the contradictions and ambiguities of the diagnostic construct…as defined by the DSM (The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). I liken efforts to discover a marker to the search for the Holy Grail.'

"Yet, this diagnosis—wholly without a scientific basis--climbs at a rate

of 21% per year. Today, up to 6 million American children are labeled and drugged without evidence of an abnormality. We don’t treat diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, or heart attacks without objective evidence to confirm the diagnosis. Why ADHD? Why in 6 million?

Could this be a marketplace ploy? In 1994, psychiatrist, Theodore Pearlman wrote: "I take issue with…the assertion that elimination of the term ‘organic’ in DSM-IV has served a useful purpose for psychiatry…the elimination of the term ‘organic’ conveys the impression that psychiatry wishes to conceal the non-organic (non-physical, non-biological) character of many behavioral problems that were, in previous DSM publications, clearly differentiated from known central nervous system diseases."

Diller, recently suggested the motive for the ploy: 'Both the professionals and public have come to believe most serious childhood emotional problems have a biological basis and therefore should be addressed with a medication.' The American people haven’t just ‘come’ to believe in emotional and behavior problems as ‘diseases,’ they have been deceived!

"The latest ‘discovery’ of ADHD was published in 'Lancet.' "Researchers from Harvard and ‘Boston Life Sciences,' studied a mere 6 adult subjects 'diagnosed' with ADHD—who were on drug treatment until 4 weeks prior to the brain scanning which was said to show the ‘chemical imbalance.’ The researchers and Lancet editors know as well as I, that the drugs their subjects were on until a month before scanning, cause long-term, even permanent, changes of the brain, and that the changes reported could not be claimed to be other than drug-induced. Consider the following.

Swanson, (collaborating with F. Xavier Castellanos of the NIMH) presented a review of the brain scanning literature at ADHD Consensus Conference. They concluded, that the brains of ADHD subjects were 10% smaller than those of normals, and claimed this as proof that ADHD is a brain disease. What Swanson failed to acknowledge was the fact, that virtually all of the ADHD subjects had been on long-term Ritalin treatment, and that this, the only physical difference between subjects and controls, was the likely cause of the brain smallness. Swanson did acknowledge this fact, immediately thereafter, when I made the point from the audience. Castellanos acknowledged, in an interview published in the January, 2000, Reader’s Digest both that "Incontrovertible evidence (that ADHD is a disease) is still lacking," and also that "these smaller areas of the brain could be the result of stimulant treatment:" that the imaging of the brains of ADHD children not yet treated with drugs, has yet to be done.

Carey makes the additional, startling, observation: 'The ADHD behaviors are assumed to be largely or entirely due to abnormal brain function. The DSM-IV does not say (fb-it does strongly imply that they are) so, but the textbooks and journals do.' So stating, Carey leaves no doubt that psychiatry and medical academia, including their leadership, journals and editors, have promoted the illusion of ADHD as a disease, deceiving the consumer public, leading to the massive, unprecedented drugging of our normal children, that we see today. Articles promoting the illusion of ADHD as a disease in need of ‘treatment’ with addictive, dangerous and, sometimes, deadly, amphetamines—Ritalin, foremost among them, have regularly appeared in every psychiatric and pediatric journal and in the influential Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine and Scientific American, as well.

Unthinkable? Think again!