Behavior Worth Medicating?

Behavior Worth Medicating?
By Gregory A. Hession, J.D.
Published: 2007-09-17 05:00

http://www.jbs.org/node/5372

When you are there, standing before an actual judge, real courtroom
drama feels much less exciting than what you see on TV. There is no
swelling music soundtrack, no scripted performances, and no overblown
oratory.

Recently, I participated in a typically dull hearing that likely ruined
a life — the life of a little six-year-old mildly autistic boy. The
banality of the process was in contrast with the seriousness of the outcome.

Twelve adults gathered in a small, closed courtroom to decide how many
powerful, anti-psychotic drugs that the child, who is currently in the
custody of the state, would be required to take. The patient did not
have a voice, since he was not there. No doctor was present, but plenty
of lawyers were. The little boy’s lawyer saw nothing wrong with drugging
him into a stupor. As the attorney for the heartbroken mother, I spoke
against the whole idea; I suggested to the court that other factors may
be causing the child’s problems, and that the compulsory administration
of drugs by the state was simply an excuse to avoid addressing those issues.

The verdict: the little guy would be forced to take anti-psychotic drugs
Risperdal, Concerta, and Seroquel, plus the stimulant Clonidine and the
anti-anxiety drug Klonopin.

This outcome begs the question of whether a six-year-old child, let
alone children as young as three, can be diagnosed as psychotic. And,
whether children should be drugged by potions so powerful that most of
them are not approved by the FDA for use in children.
A Disabling Science

“The mechanisms through which most psychotropic drugs produce their
therapeutic effects remain poorly understood,� according to Kaplan &
Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry, a respected source in the field of
psychiatry. When it comes to drugging children, the operation of these
substances is even less understood, and the side effects are often far
more profound and long-lived. Incredibly, most psychotropic drugs (i.e.,
chemicals that alter nervous-system and brain function) are not tested
or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in
children.

All psychiatric treatments exert their primary or intended effect by
disabling brain functions, says Peter Breggin, M.D., author of Toxic
Psychiatry and other books critical of the use of psychiatric drugs. Dr.
Breggin maintains that no existing psychiatric treatment corrects or
improves existing brain dysfunction, such as a biochemical imbalance,
which he argues is the major misunderstanding about psychiatry that the
profession prefers to hide, and which places it outside the realm of
proper treatment for disorders.

Yet courts, state child protective services agencies, and schools are
now working in tandem, backed by the power of the law, to mandate that
children as young as three years old take multiple psychotropic drugs
despite the lack of a provable scientific basis for such treatments.

Psychiatry was born out of the eugenics movement of the late 19th
century, and was used by totalitarians like Bismarck, Stalin, Hitler,
and many more as a tool for social control, explains Kevin Hall, the New
England director of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), an
organization opposing psychiatry as it’s now practiced. Hall, who has
intensely studied the history and development of the profession,
provides a terrifying summary of how psychiatry has been misused from
the beginning, particularly as a tool of state compulsion.

“Prussian dictator Otto von Bismarck,� explained Hall, “used the work of
German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt to attempt to create a war machine
based upon nationalism, as Napoleon had done. Wundt changed psychology,
defined as study of the soul or mind, to the current belief that man is
a stimulus-response animal without a soul or free will.�

Ivan Pavlov (of “salivating dog� fame), a student of Wundt, created a
system of what Hall called Russian psycho-politics for use by dictator
Josef Stalin. Millions of citizens were sent to gulags because of their
opposition to the state, many of whom were given drugs or other
treatments to cure them of their politically defined mental problems.

German psychiatrist Ernst Rudin founded psychiatric genetics, the belief
that mental health characteristics are passed down genetically, and the
German Society for Racial Hygiene, which used psychiatric genetics in
Hitler’s service to establish that different races are genetically
inferior or superior to others. Rudin’s theories provided justification
for the campaign against Jews, in which he was integrally involved.

Starting in the mid 1930s, psychiatrists started on a spree of 50,000
lobotomies, which largely ended in the 1950s once psychotropic drugs
became widely available to control persons acting in anti-social ways.
The first widely used such drug was Thorazine, released in 1954. This
was a major tranquilizer, now called an “anti-psychotic.� But at the
time it was enthusiastically marketed to the public as “a chemical
lobotomy,� as it would put a person in a drooling stupor similar to a
lobotomy. Within months, millions of persons began to use it. A
staggering array of highly addictive psychiatric drugs followed. And
though lobotomies would now be considered an extreme treatment, the same
does not apply to their chemical substitutes.

The drug pushers (legal ones, that is) began to target children shortly
thereafter, according to Hall. He points to the year 1963 as critical in
the expansion of psychiatry to children. That was the year when
psychiatry coined the term “learning disorder,� which was followed by
federal legislation, the Primary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, to
provide money for disabled children in schools. Soon, “mental illness�
was added to the list of qualified disabilities under that law, and that
is now the largest category of disability for which funds are available.

Hall claims that various maladies began to be literally invented, in
order to have a diagnosis or category within which to fit what would
otherwise be fairly innocuous behavior. All mental health diagnoses are
codified in a book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM),
published by the American Psychiatric Association. When it started in
1952, it had 112 entries. Over the years, the APA has added hundreds
more, based on the current whims of the profession and what malady may
be politically or socially in vogue.

The real purpose of these categories is to provide a basis for insurance
reimbursement. The DSM, in its fourth iteration as DSM-IV, and the soon
to be released DSM-V, contains such gems as Mathematics Disorder,
Caffeine Disorder, Disorder of Written Expression, Telephone Scatalogia,
and Malingering. Thus, virtually any visit to a mental health
professional can result in a diagnosis which qualifies for payment by
health insurance agencies.
School as a Referral Service

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was created by a vote at
a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in 1987. Prior to
this, hyperactivity was called Minimum Brain Dysfunction. Some of the
many symptoms of this “disorder,� listed in the DSM-IV a

* “(1)(a) Often fails to give close attention to details or makes
careless mistakes in schoolwork, work or other activities�;
* “(1)(c) Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly�;
* “(1)(i) Is often forgetful in daily activities�;
* “(2)(a) Often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat�;
* “(2)(c) Often runs about, climbs, or talks excessively.�

This sure sounds like most boys in their growing years. In fact, three
out of four youths diagnosed with ADHD are boys. Just about any child at
any time could be diagnosed with such a disorder. There is no biological
test for ADHD; the diagnosis is based only on observation of behavioral
symptoms. Put simply, if a doctor examined a child diagnosed with ADHD,
he would not be able to identify a physical or medical condition, in the
brain or elsewhere, showing the presence of ADHD. A conference held by
the National Institutes of Health in 1998, to investigate the diagnosis
and treatment of ADHD, concluded that “there is no independent, valid
test for ADHD; further research is necessary to firmly establish ADHD as
a brain disorder.... Our knowledge about the cause or causes of ADHD
remains speculative.� Thus, a diagnosis is entirely discretionary.

Despite this official and professional equivocation, a 900-percent
increase in the number of hyperactive children since the official ADHD
naming ceremony in 1987 has been reported. Rather than help a child to
learn to control his or her behavior, schools, state child protective
services, and psychiatry work together in a coercive alliance to addict
millions of children to amphetamines in order to “treat� these normal
childhood behaviors.

The underlying theme in this epidemic of hyperactivity is state
compulsion. When a school spots a child exhibiting these symptoms, the
school uses on-staff psychologists, or demands that the parents have the
child evaluated for ADHD. If the parents refuse, the school will often
arrange for the state child protective services to demand that the child
be evaluated. If the parents still refuse, the school could expel the
child and the state agency could intervene in the family on the basis
that the parents are neglecting the child. In many cases, the agency
will bring a case to court to force the family to obtain “services,�
which almost always include drugs. In my experience defending families
faced with such a demand to medicate a child against the parents’ will,
the parents will often “voluntarily� agree to have their children
medicated to head off problems with child protective services.

That cure is far worse than the disease, in most cases. The first and
most widely known drug to treat ADHD is Ritalin, which has been joined
by many others in recent years. Since 1987, when ADHD was included in
the DSM, there has been a 665 percent increase in the production of
drugs to deal with it. Eight million school children, or one in nine,
are now on medication, half of which are ADHD drugs, according to CCHR’s
Kevin Hall.

The drugs used to treat ADHD are called psycho-stimulants, more
popularly known as amphetamines, or “uppers� in street language.
Ironically, since these are stimulants, which could be expected to
produce a euphoric high, the dosage has to be extremely large in order
to produce a flat response. According to Hall, the initial “street dose�
of Ritalin, sold illegally on the corner to produce a high, would be
about 5-10 mg for an adult. Children, weighing much less than an adult,
and thus affected proportionally more, are routinely given a dose of 20
mg, meaning that the drug is prescribed in high dosages in order to
overwhelm the child into a tranquilized effect.

Dr. Fred Baughman, Jr., a pediatric neurologist and author of The ADHD
Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes Patients of Normal Children, and an
outspoken foe of the use of these drugs, has stated, “The ‘medication’
typically prescribed for ADHD and ‘learning disorders’ is a hazardous
and addictive amphetamine-like drug.� Its side effects are intense and
often permanent: stunted growth, depression, tics, rashes, spasms,
psychosis, and ironically, “attentional disturbances� and hyperactivity
when the drug is taken for a long period.
Giving Children the Hard Stuff

The problem with Ritalin and other amphetamine-type drugs like Adderall
and Dexedrine is pervasive enough, but psychiatrists have several more
dangerous and powerful classes of drugs that they routinely prescribe to
children, namely neuroleptics (also called anti-psychotics),
anti-depressants, and mood stabilizers. Neuroleptics, which means
“nerve-seizing,� are the most frequently prescribed drugs in mental
hospitals, and are widely used in prisons, nursing homes, and by state
child protective services and juvenile courts. Most of the prescriptions
used in those institutions are issued by state fiat.

Neuroleptic drugs go by trade names such as Thorazine, Haldol, Seroquel,
Zyprexa, Risperdal, and many others. Greatly simplified, all
neuroleptics work by blocking receptors in the dopamine pathways of the
brain. This means that dopamine released in these pathways has less
effect, the excess of which has been linked to psychotic experiences.
These drugs are major tranquilizers that mask symptoms, causing a
deadening of the personality and brain function, but which cure nothing.
Studies funded by the World Health Organization and the National
Institute of Mental Health have shown that people labeled schizophrenic
actually have much higher rates of recovery when they don’t take these
drugs.

These drugs also have the potential to cause permanent neurological
disorders in a large percentage of patients, such as constant motion,
Parkinson-like symptoms, psychosis, dementia, shuffling gait, extreme
writhing, and other problems. Half or more of long-term patients develop
a devilish syndrome called tardive dyskinesia, which is an
uncontrollable twitching and writhing of the body. It can include
grimacing, tongue protrusion, lip smacking, puckering and pursing of the
lips, and rapid eye blinking. The term “tardive� means that the
affliction continues even after the drugs are no longer being taken. A
variation of this syndrome, called tardive akathisia, manifests as
anxiety along with an uncontrollable urge to move the body.

Depending on the study and population, these maladies strike between 10
percent and 50 percent of long-term users of neuroleptics. These deadly
substances are also a major reason why the average life span of a
mentally ill person is only 51 years according to a USA Today article
entitled “Mentally Ill Die 25 Years Earlier.�

The problem in children is even more tragic. Long-term use afflicts a
large percentage of the children who take these drugs with devastating
side effects, and these children tend to suffer particularly
incapacitating cases of these tardive reactions.

The nation’s state child protective services agencies have over 500,000
children in their custody at any one time. These children are often
force-fed drugs, and can do little to resist them. A large percentage of
those children are subjects of compulsory psychotropic drug use. The
motives for doing so range from the need to control the behavior of
children who are distraught from being seized from their parents, to the
large federal reimbursements available to the state for drugging children.

A 2006 study by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human
Services documented the scope of drugging of children in the custody of
that particular state. Despite the statistics being artificially rigged
downward by not including all drugged children in the figures, and by
only including those who had been on drugs for a certain period of time,
the results are still chilling.

Over one-third of the children in custody, with an average age of 10.4,
are on psychotropic drugs, with almost all of them on multiple
varieties. Even more surprising were the statistics for the control or
comparison group for the study, which consisted of children not in
custody, but on welfare of some sort. In that group, 38.3 percent of the
children were taking drugs. If all drugged children in state custody
were included in the figures, the percentages would likely be even higher.

A newer trend is to use many of these drugs simultaneously on the same
child, euphemistically called “polypharmacy.� This tendency to prescribe
many drugs for children necessitates experimentation until they “get it
right.� Many drugs produce side effects which often must be dampened by
the use of even more drugs. In the aforementioned study in
Massachusetts, nine out of 10 children on compulsory state-prescribed
drugs took more than one of them. Of those polypharmacy victims, 60
percent took three drugs, 30 percent took four, and the rest took more,
up to seven drugs each.
What Can Be Done?

Children in America are confronted with a hostile and threatening world,
which presents new mental, emotional, and societal challenges that their
parents have not faced. And the challenges often seem counterintuitive.
On the one hand, children have never been more hyper-connected to each
other or their parents by way of electronic devices; on the other,
they’ve never been more alienated from personal familial affection and
guidance. When a child has difficulty navigating this greatly
dehumanized, governmentalized world, the reflexive answer is to give the
child a drug, in lieu of guidance or truth. They become fodder for an
unscrupulous mental-health profession, which makes billions of dollars
convincing parents to give chemicals to their maladjusted children,
rather than helping them to regain balanced, emotionally fulfilling
lives. Or worse, the professionals use the power of the state to force
drugs on the children.

Psychiatry has a reflexive impulse to treat life’s vicissitudes with
drugs, rather than help patients to deal with root causes. It has been
linked since its inception with government compulsion, usually for a
nefarious purpose.

Given the climate of treating any discontent with drugs, who can blame
children for absorbing that message, when it has been relentlessly
promoted to them? Don’t confront your problems — medicate them. Is it
any wonder that many children grow up choosing to skip the doctor — the
middleman — and just “self-medicate,� using illegal drugs instead?

Psychiatrists seem to start and end their treatment with a pill.
However, unlike medical conditions that are scientifically verified with
x-rays, blood, urine, and other lab tests, psychiatric disorders are
merely subjective behavioral symptoms. If the first resort is to drugs,
the doctor could readily miss, and fail to treat, the actual root cause
of the problem.

On the other hand, addressing the root cause can solve the behavioral
symptoms without resorting to drugs. For instance, in children,
inability to read can manifest itself as ADHD, owing to an inability by
the child to understand what is happening in the classroom. The use of
“see-say� reading methods in government schools, rather than teaching
phonics, has ensured the reading failure of millions of children, many
of whom are falsely assumed to have ADHD. The solution to this problem
in most cases is very simple: teach phonics!

Poor nutrition can also provoke a child to act out, and to be mistakenly
diagnosed with ADHD. The solution: good nutrition.

Reaction to family problems can also be mistaken for mental illness.
This is particularly true when a child is forcibly taken from parents by
a state child protection agency. In such a case, the child is going to
be traumatized and emotional. The solution: remove the trauma by
providing as stable a family life as possible.

The growing cultural rot to which our kids are subjected — from the
sexually suggestive shows they may see on TV to the music they may
listen to — also greatly impacts their behavior. The solution: protect
our children as much as possible from destructive outside cultural
influences.

Bad behavior on the part of kids may also point to the lack of any kind
of moral compass. The solution: provide that compass; instruct children
about what’s right and what’s wrong — and teach them about God and His laws.

Religious faith has always served as a ground for inner peace and
stability, but that is increasingly rejected as a method for coping with
problems. David the Psalmist described a picture of perfect mental
health when he said, “I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned
child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me.� This
is a description of a peace which comes from within, which cannot be
disrupted by the jangling communication protocols of today, nor which
can possibly be achieved by chemical means.

Faith in fact is the key to happiness. Corroboration for this assertion
comes from an unlikely source: a survey by the AP and MTV, the often
vulgar music network, recently published on MSNBC.com. The conclusion of
the survey was that people aged 13 to 24 who describe themselves as
religious or spiritual tend to be happier than those who don’t.

If there is a comprehensive solution to the tragic trend toward drugging
our children, it is to provide the moral compass including the belief in
God that will lead to peace and happiness. Providing that upbringing is
the awesome responsibility of the parents, who have been entrusted by
God to raise the child. But too often the parental responsibility to
raise the child is being impeded by a growing Nanny State that sees
itself and not the parents as being responsible for the well-being of
the child. Consequently, the solution must also entail the elimination
of the Nanny State, including state-ordered and -pressured psychiatric
drug use. Parents must be allowed to be parents. And in the case of boys
who are now drugged for mildly hyperactive “symptoms� that would have
been considered normal only a generation or two ago, boys must be
allowed to be boys.

Gregory A. Hession practices constitutional and family law in
Springfield, Massachusetts.



CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.


CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...


BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...