Pushing Dangerous Drugs

According to psychiatrist and neurologist Dr. Sydney Walker III, author of The Hyperactivity Hoax, “A child who sees a DSM-oriented doctor is almost assured of a psychiatric label and a prescription, even if the child is perfectly fine. … This willy-nilly labeling of virtually everyone as mentally ill is a serious danger to healthy children, because virtually all children have enough symptoms to get a DSM label and a drug. And, of course, DSM labeling is a danger to ill children, whose true diagnoses remain undiscovered and untreated.”

The drugs prescribed to children are not safe and effective; on the contrary, they are dangerous and addictive. The Physicians’ Desk Reference Guide reports increased heart rate and blood pressure can result from the use of the major stimulant drug that is used to “treat” ADHD. Suicide is a major complication of withdrawal from this stimulant and similar amphetamine-like drugs. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warned that taking Ritalin predisposes the user to cocaine’s reinforcing effect—in other words, addiction.

Psychologist Ty C. Colbert, author of Rape of the Soul: How the Chemical Imbalance Model of Modern Psychiatry Has Failed Its Patients, explains that Ritalin restricts blood flow to the brain: “Blood flow delivers the necessary energy source (glucose) to the brain. The brain cannot function without glucose. It has been observed that many children who take Ritalin (or other stimulants) exhibit zombie- like behavior.”

Millions of children are also prescribed antidepressants, especially Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs). In 2003, the British medicine regulatory agency warned doctors not to prescribe SSRI antidepressants for under 18-year-olds because of the risk of suicide. The following year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a similar warning, as did Australian, Canadian and European agencies. In October 2004, the FDA took this much further, ordering that a “black box” warning be prominently placed on SSRI bottles, emphasizing the fact that the drugs can cause suicide. But this warning does not go far enough. Children are dying, are killing others or being turned into addicts because of these and other psychiatric drugs. Their future will only be safeguarded when the unscientific “mental disorders” they are diagnosed with are abolished and dangerous psychotropic drugs are prohibited. Over a 10-year period, one SSRI was associated with more hospitalizations, deaths, or other serious adverse reactions reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration than any other drug in history.

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