In 2004, Beverly Eakman, best-selling author and president of the U.S. National Education Consortium, stated: “These drugs make children more manageable, not necessarily better. ADHD is a phenomenon, not a ‘brain disease.’ Because the diagnosis of ADHD is fraudulent, it doesn’t matter whether a drug ‘works.’ Children are being forced to take a drug that is stronger than cocaine for a disease that is yet to be proven.”

Dr. Louria Shulamit, a family practitioner in Israel, said, “ADHD is a syndrome, not a disease (by definition). As such, it is diagnosed by symptoms. The symptoms of this syndrome are so common that we can conclude that all children, especially boys, fit this diagnosis.”

Dr. Fred A. Baughman Jr., a pediatric neurologist and Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, tells parents, teachers and children that they have been horribly betrayed when a child’s behavior is labeled as a disease.

Psychiatrists misleadingly argue that ADHD requires “medication” in the same way that diabetes requires insulin treatment.

Dr. Mary Ann Block, author of No More ADHD, points out that “The psychiatrist does not do any testing. The psychiatrist listens to the history and then prescribes a drug.” She states further: “ADHD is not like diabetes and [the stimulant used for it] is not like insulin. Diabetes is a real medical condition that can be objectively diagnosed. ADHD is an invented label with no objective, valid means of identification. Diabetes is an insulin deficiency. Attention and behavioral problems are not a [stimulant] deficiency.”

“If there is no valid test for ADHD,” Dr. Block adds, “no data proving ADHD is a brain dysfunction … why in the world are millions of children, teenagers and adults … being labeled with ADHD and prescribed these drugs?”

Psychiatrists have also redefined teen behavior as a mental “disease” with disorders such as “Conduct Disorder” and “Oppositional Defiant Disorder.”

In his 2002 book, The Culture of Fear , Barry Glassner, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, said the DSM makes children good candidates for imprisonment in psychiatric wards if they do any five of the following: argue with adults, defy adult requests, do things that annoy others, lose their tempers, become easily annoyed, act spiteful, blame others for their mistakes, get angry and resentful or swear.

According to Dr. Thomas Szasz, “Because the mental diseases that supposedly afflict children are undeniably misbehaviors, and because the child mental patient is in an even more helpless position than the adult mental patient, child psychiatry is a doubly problematic enterprise.” Furthermore, “delinquency is not a disease, like diabetes. … Although the term juvenile delinquency implies that the child so diagnosed is guilty of a misconduct, the diagnosis is often made in the absence of any proof that the accused child actually disobeyed authority or broke the law.”

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