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IMPORTANT
FACTS
1. More
than 6 million U.S. children have been put on mind-altering psychiatric
drugs for an invented mental disorder called �Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder� or �ADHD.�
2. Another
1.5 million children are prescribed antidepressants known to cause
suicidal ideation and violent behavior.
3. Australia�s
stimulant prescriptions for children increased 34-fold in the
past two decades, while in Britain it increased 9,200% between
1992 and 2000.
4. In Spain, the consumption of methylphenidate (Ritalin) increased
363% between 1991 and 2000, while in Mexico, sales of methylphenidate
rose 800% between 1993 and 2001.
5. The
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that neither
animals nor humans can differentiate between cocaine, amphetamines
and methylphenidate: �[T]hey produce effects that are nearly identical.�
CHAPTER
ONE: The Drugging of Our Children
Are
children being overdrugged? An examination of data and statistics
such as those summarized on the preceding page reveals the alarming
rate at which children are being medicated for mental disorders.
In addition
to the more than 6 million children in the United States who have
been prescribed mind- altering psychiatric drugs for so-called
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), 2 million have
been put on antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs.
These soaring
numbers of children internationally being drugged parallel the
increase in the number of mental disorders in the fourth edition
of the American Psychiatric Association�s (APA) Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) and
the mental disorders section of its counterpart, the International
Classification of Diseases (ICD). (See Chapter Two for more
information about DSMand ICD.)
In 1952,
the first edition of the DSM contained only three �disorders�
for infants or children. By 1980, there was a nearly ten-fold
increase in the number of child disorders. Today, children barely
out of diapers are already diagnosed with mental illness, leading
to a substantial increase in prescribed psychiatric drug consumption
by very young children in the last 15 years.
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