The Truth About Ritalin: Dangerous Drug for ADHD

Unless we live under giant boulders, most of us have heard about Tom Cruise's recent appearance on the Today Show with host Matt Lauer. In response to direct questioning, Cruise boldly expressed his views on psychiatry, declaring it a pseudoscience and denouncing the use of Ritalin.

His communication lacked the slick social veneer that would have made it more palatable to the masses, and thankfully so--by ruffling some feathers he started a much-needed media firestorm on the subject of psychiatry.

As a result, issues that much of society has conveniently put in an old box marked "someone else's responsibility" and placed in the back of the cultural closet are finally being brought to light.

Not the least of which is this country's obsession with Ritalin, the drug of choice for psychiatrists everywhere.

So in the interest of shedding light on shadowy subjects, let's follow in Mr. Cruise's footsteps and keep that important conversation going.

Let's talk Ritalin, shall we?

ADHD: The Disorder That Can't be Found

Ritalin is actually the medical name given to the chemical methylphenidate, prescribed for the so-called mental disorder known as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD.

According to the Healthyminds.org website from the American Psychiatric Association, "…[ADHD] is the most commonly diagnosed mental health condition in American children today. According to the Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health, ADHD afflicts between 3% and 5% of school-age children in any six-month period...Key features of the disorder include hyperactivity, impulsiveness and the inability to focus."

But according to Chris Garrison, the Massachusetts Director for Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), an international psychiatric watchdog group, "This 'mental disorder' has never been found in the body of anyone," he said, "despite three decades of research trying to find a physical marker for it."

Prominent psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin, practicing since 1968, supports this idea on his website at www.breggin.com: "Advocates of ADHD and stimulant drugs have claimed that ADHD is associated with changes in the brain," he writes. "In fact, both the NIH Consensus Development Conference (1998) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (2000) report on ADHD have confirmed that there is no known biological basis for ADHD."

In other words, there are no known physical causes of ADHD, and thus, no physical tests a doctor can perform to determine whether or not a child has it, like they would to diagnose cancer, diabetes, and any number of physical ailments. So without a biological basis for ADHD, its diagnosis depends entirely on observation and opinion.

Furthermore, the existence of ADHD was created by a show of hands.

According to Kevin Hall, New England Director of CCHR since 1987, "ADHD, like other so-called psychiatric 'diseases,' was voted into existence by the American Psychiatric Association," he said. "There are no medical studies that have ever proven this to be a real disease and no medical tests can be given to determine if a person has ADHD. It's diagnosed by opinion, which isn't real medicine."

Safe and Sound?

Not only is ADHD a physically treated "disorder" without a physical origin that was literally voted into existence, but its "treatment" is at best, physically damaging, and at worst, lethal.

The American Psychiatric Association would have us believe that Ritalin is little more than a super-potent vitamin, a healthy boost for the growing child. According to Healthyminds.org, "The safety and effectiveness of medication such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) is well documented, and typically, it is well tolerated by children. It has minimal side effects and is not addictive when taken according to a physician's instructions."

But the truth is that the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) considers Ritalin a Schedule II Drug and a controlled substance. Other drugs in this category include methadone, methamphetamine and, yes, cocaine.

According to Dr. Breggin at www.breggin.com, "Schedule II includes only those drugs with the very highest potential for addiction and abuse."

According to Dr. Breggin at www.breggin.com, "Schedule II includes only those drugs with the very highest potential for addiction and abuse."

Furthermore, Kevin Hall says, "Per the Journal of the American Medical Association, Ritalin acts like cocaine, only it's a little stronger. Per street snorters of the drug, its withdrawal effects, or speed-crash, is harsher."

So Ritalin is in the same class of drug as cocaine, stronger in terms of its effect on the body, and prescribed for children as young as two and three years old. I'm sorry, what did you say? Yes, you're right. Someone should really do something about that.

Back to the facts, despite the APA's claim that Ritalin has "minimal" side effects, all signs point to the fact that it has gruesome effects on the body, especially the body of a growing child.

Garrison cited a laundry list of these effects. "Common side effects are headaches, stomach discomfort, changes in pulse rate and blood pressure, insomnia, loss of appetite and weight loss," he said. "One of the most common side effects is suppressed growth of the overall body."

This stunted growth was documented in a 2003 Yale University School of Medicine study, titled "Daily Methylphenidate Use Slows the Growth of Children: A Community Based Study." The study showed that after three years of being on Ritalin, 76% of boys and 90% of girls were falling behind in their growth.

An Australian study conducted at two Australian hospitals, also published in 2003, came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Breggin supports these conclusions at www.breggin.com: "All stimulants impair growth not only by suppressing appetite but also by disrupting growth hormone production," he wrote. "This poses a threat to every organ of the body, including the brain, during the child's growth. These drugs also endanger the cardiovascular system and commonly produce many adverse mental effects, including depression."

Specifically, the effects on a child's brain are rather frightening. According to Hall, "Ritalin and the other psychostimulants prescribed to children reduce blood flow, and therefore oxygen and other vital nutrients to the brain."

"In studies of children labeled ADHD who take these drugs," he said, "there is a 5% shrinkage of the brain size and the furrows between the gray matter of the brain start to deteriorate. It's permanent brain damage. These drugs also can cause major depression, suicide, hallucinations, heart problems and permanent body tics."

What's more, www.ritalindeath.com documents the death of a fourteen year old boy whose Certificate of Death reads "Death caused from Long Term Use of Methylphenidate (Ritalin)."

Frightening Dosages

As if small amounts of Ritalin didn't already create sufficient damage to the body, the outrageous dosages administered to children are literally enough to cause heart palpitations.

According to Hall, "Ritalin and other psychiatric stimulants calm children down - or tranquilize them -- because they are prescribed in very heavy dosages," he said. "Little children are usually started at about 20 mg. of the drug while adult-sized Ritalin snorters usually begin at 5mg. - 10mg. to get high all night."

In other words, children are prescribed two to four times the dosage of a Schedule II drug that an adult would take to get high, but are less than half the adult's size. Which means that kids are actually ingesting roughly four to eight times the amount of Ritalin that the average snorter on the street would take to get an excellent buzz going.

An Alarming Trend

Fact: according to www.breggin.com, The United States uses approximately 90% of the world's Ritalin.

Fact: From the www.preventioncolorado.com website: "Prescription of Ritalin to ADD patients has increased 600% over the past five years according to the DEA. The DEA reports show the United States uses 5 times more Ritalin than the rest of the world combined.

Fact: according to www.breggin.com there has been a three-fold increase in the prescription of stimulants to 2-4 year old toddlers based on a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

I would add something to that, but I think the facts speak for themselves.

Ritalin: The New Party Drug

Even with the skyrocketing amount of Ritalin being prescribed to kids across the country, young children aren't the only ones using. Teenagers and adults also take Ritalin; however, when they use it without a prescription it's called "abusing a drug," not "taking their medicine," and the effect produced is called "getting high," not "getting treatment."

According to Garrison, "Kids have been selling and crushing and snorting Ritalin from elementary schools to colleges for years. They often take it to get high or help them stay up all night to study."

"In recent years it has become a large problem on college campuses," he said, "mainly because of the easy access to drugs from the campus medical facilities."

As dangerous as Ritalin is for the typical party animal, clearly a prescription for Ritalin doesn't make it less dangerous for a child. Since it's ingested into a body with no detectable physical problem, it's not like administering insulin to a diabetic, which provides the body with something it's missing, or corrects an existing imbalance. It's just, well, a child taking a drug, even when it's called a medicine.

And as Hall says, "Ritalin is probably more dangerous when prescribed because children have to take it every day and they are prescribed in very high dosages."

Parents Under Pressure

Clearly the situation is dire, with the invention of a disorder that doesn't have a traceable physical cause, a so-called treatment that involves stuffing young children with massive amounts of Schedule II drugs, and ever-increasing amounts of said drug being prescribed each year.

But now, parents are being pressured to put their kids on Ritalin and other stimulants to reign in their supposedly ADHD-afflicted children.

As Dr. Breggin writes, "Parents throughout the country are being pressured and coerced by schools to give psychiatric drugs to their children. Teachers, school psychologists, and administrators commonly make dire threats about their inability to teach children without medicating them."

He says that sometimes schools will even resort to scare tactics to force parents to drug their children.

"They sometimes suggest that only medication can stave off a bleak future of delinquency and occupational failure," he wrote. "They even call child protective services to investigate parents for child neglect and they sometimes testify against parents in court."

But even amidst all the smoke and mirrors, Dr. Breggin says psychiatry's underlying purpose is clear: "Once again, the diagnosis itself, formulated over several decades, leaves no question concerning its purpose: to redefine disruptive classroom behavior into a disease," he wrote. "The ultimate aim is to justify the use of medication to suppress or control the behaviors."

The Alternative: Implementing Real Solutions

So what's the alternative to Ritalin and other stimulant drugs prescribed for so-called ADHD? Do we just wring our hands while little Johnny jumps up and down on his desk? Or could we actually try to get to the root of the problem?

Hall strongly urges us to choose the latter option. "ADHD is just a list of symptoms," he said. "Psychiatrists must stop drugging the symptoms and start acting as real medical professionals by doing the medical tests to find the many sources of such symptoms."

According to Hall, what's commonly diagnosed as ADHD could actually be the manifestation of a child's inability to understand what they're reading.

"Children could be called ADHD because they don't understand how to read properly," he said. "When children aren't taught phonics, grammar or the use of dictionaries to gain an understanding of unknown words on the written page, they cannot pay attention, then start acting up and these behaviors become falsely labeled as mental disorders."

He also says the source of these behaviors could be real physical problems. "Children also could have underlying medical problems such as with the heart, lungs, hyperglycemia, lead poisoning, thyroid conditions and many more," he said. "Children with the symptoms labeled as ADHD could also have allergy problems or nutritional deficiencies."

Garrison also thinks that there are better ways to handle the manifestations labeled as ADHD besides pumping stimulants into the bloodstream.

He says environment plays a huge role in the overall attitude of a child. "Of course, a sane household is helpful," he said. "It won't help a student's grades if his parents are going through a bitter divorce and yelling at each other in front of him every night."

And he points back to effective teaching strategies that keep kids engaged in the material; with seven years of experience working at a private school, he has first-hand knowledge on the subject.

"All students should be well-taught how to read," he said. "Their reading ability affects their ability to study all of their other subjects. As they get older all students should be taught how to use a dictionary and expected to be using one that is appropriate for their grade level."

He says current teaching strategies may only be exacerbating the behaviors classified as ADHD. "Currently kids are taught to guess the meanings of words from the context they are used in," he said. "This is woefully inadequate and even counterproductive as it will make kids want to abandon the materials they are supposed to study."

Finally, Hall says labeling these behaviors with untreated causes as a mental disorder is not only highly irresponsible, but a breach of medical ethics.

"When a psychiatrist or doctor drugs for ADHD symptoms, it's malpractice," he said. "It's like giving an aspirin for a headache when the real source of the problem is an undiagnosed brain tumor. The child ends up being stigmatized as mentally ill, harmed by the drug and the real source of the problem usually worsens when undetected and untreated."

Dr. Breggin's advice to the public on the matter is rather explicit. "It is time to reclaim our children from this false and suppressive medical approach," he wrote.

Looking the Other Way, Or Not

So what do we do about this problem, if we even believe it is a problem at all? Do we continue to let young children be drugged in the name of a disorder that no medical test can detect? And while we're at it, why are we stopping at Ritalin? I mean, if we're going to drug our children, why not go all out?

Aren't there other disorders we can dream up? There's already Mathematics Disorder, why not create one for Geography too?

And why aren't we doing more with heroin? Would it really be that hard to medically manufacture a chemical that closely resembles the popular narcotic, then give it an important-sounding name like Zeterna, if that name's not already taken?

I mean, are we really doing all we can to make sure our children get the "treatment" they need for their "disorders"?

Wake up, America. It's been a nice stay in la-la land, but now it's time to leave.

I know how nice all of those psychiatric credentials might look, how wonderfully the language may be couched, and how happy everyone seems in all those TV commercials.

But the truth is that we, as a society, have been sitting idly by while so-called doctors make up so-called physical disorders that have no physically traceable origin, then prescribe gargantuan dosages of powerful drugs to "correct" them.

The truth is that a cold hard look at the facts, unpalatable as they may be, is long overdue.

Because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that when all is said and done, right is right, and drugging kids with powerful stimulants for a disorder no medical test can find is just wrong.

Come to think of it, it doesn't even take a pseudoscientist to realize that.