UNDERLYING HEALTH AND LEARNING PROBLEMS

"knowledgespeak" knowledgesp...@yahoo.com

UNDERLYING HEALTH AND LEARNING PROBLEMS After Dr. Block completes a comprehensive history and medical exam, she often uncovers a variety of underlying health and learning problems that were overlooked by other doctors. Dr. Block has seen, time and time again, the attention and behavior problems resolve after treating the identified health issues. The most common causes of attention and behavior problems that Dr. Block finds in her practice are undiagnosed allergies and food sensitivities, nutritional deficiencies, low blood sugar, learning differences, gastrointestinal problems, thyroid problems and other chronic health problems.

pwaltbl ...@yahoo.com

??? problems and other chronic health problems.
Isn??™t it despicable that psychiatrists immediately put children on drugs that have horrendous side effect, rather then taking a little time and testing to find out what the underlying problem really is?
Pwalt

Mikkiblack313 Mikkiblack313_mem...@newsguy.com

Yes, it is disgusting that the psychiatrist is only too willing to jeapordize their patients by prescribing dangerous drugs to cure something that is not a mental illness or disorder, but some problem easily remedied with simple handlings such as diet. Why put someone on a disatrous drug with frightening side effects instead of handling the siituation in some natural way that does not cause death, violence or suicide?
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NewsGuy.Com 30Gb $9.95 Carry Forward and On Demand Bandwidth

"roger gonnet" r...@antisectes.net

Spamming by the crime cultists of scientology secret services OSA in charge of disrupting this newsgroup...

"Gina_and_Phil" phillip_gin...@hotmail.com

How Mikki said it: "Yes, it is disgusting that the psychiatrist is only too willing to jeapordize their patients by prescribing dangerous drugs to cure something that is not a mental illness or disorder, but some problem easily remedied with simple handlings such as diet. Why put someone on a disatrous drug with frightening side effects instead of handling the siituation in some natural way that does not cause death, violence or suicide?" good questions mikki. I hate the answers. They do it because they need to prove the incompetence of their past. They do it because they don't have any other solution but for destroying the rich lives of others.
They do it to hide their own failures and fantasies. They do it because they have to get more drug and government money into their clinics.
They do it because they don't care. They do it because there are always people who will comce to them asking for ways to torture, to rape and get away with it. they do it because this is their way to seperate their version of the riff-raff from their version of the valuable.
They may not start out as evil. but they certainly finish off that way.
gina

Mikkiblack313 Mikkiblack313_mem...@newsguy.com

>UNDERLYING HEALTH AND LEARNING PROBLEMS >After Dr. Block completes a comprehensive history and medical exam, she >often uncovers a variety of underlying health and learning problems >that were overlooked by other doctors. Dr. Block has seen, time and >time again, the attention and behavior problems resolve after treating >the identified health issues. The most common causes of attention and >behavior problems that Dr. Block finds in her practice are undiagnosed >allergies and food sensitivities, nutritional deficiencies, low blood >sugar, learning differences, gastrointestinal problems, thyroid >problems and other chronic health problems.
Oops! But why treat something like a food allergy when someone could become addicted to a nasty, disgusting mind altering drug? That is so much more fun -
NOT!
Seriously now, it would be much better for everyone if these things that Dr.
Block has found were addressed naturally - there are no unalterable side effects then and maybe even the creation of a healthy, bright and productive person insead of a zombie.
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NewsGuy.Com 30Gb $9.95 Carry Forward and On Demand Bandwidth

pwaltbl ...@yahoo.com

Oops! But why treat something like a food allergy when someone could become I just posted an article that proves with studies that children treated by psychiatrist's drugs actually have their growth stunted. How would you like to explain to your child later in life that he's 5 ft 5 inches because you forced him to take drugs for years and what he really had was a food allergy? That would be a tough one.
Pwalt

wbarwell wbarw...@mylinuxisp.com

Has this been peer reviewed and proven or is it another one of your quack doctors spewing bullshit again, like Breggin?
When you clamhead believe crap like Xenu and BTs, its obvious YOU do not have good judgment and cannot tell the difference between bona fide experts and quacks.
Hubbard guff....
You're studying the basic structure. This is the most elementary level of its study. We're studying the basic structure and experience. Get that, structure and experience, called the MEST universe. That's the most elementary of these studies.
Now the reason we have to study this, and the only reason we have to study this is because it sums up into what they laughingly call natural laws. And these natural laws are the outgrowth of the composite agreement of all the beings in this universe. These laws, you might say, are the inevitable average of agreement if you start out with something like the first entrance into the MEST universe.
The first postulates of the MEST universe. If you start out from there, you wind up seventy-six trillion MEST universe years later with things squirreled up the way they are.
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Just when did the children of Cthulhu take over our government anyway?
Cheerful Charlie

wbarwell wbarw...@mylinuxisp.com

Isn't it despicable how cult morons repeat bullshit from quacks and never correct their lies and stupidities?
Has this set of claims been tested and peer reviewed or is it quack babble from a kook?
Withg you, you can't tell teh difference between the two. We can see that you scientologists can't distinguish bullshit from truth.
The Clam A variety of incidents may intervene between the HELPER and the WEEPER. These are the evolution chain which includes jellyfish, seaweed and some other forms. It is interesting that immobile states are most liable to have heavy incidents. It is also interesting that bulbous seaweed, uprooted and cast shore by storms, gave Man some of his early experiences with sunlight in the absence of water.
A distinct somatic of drying and itching is felt by preclears when they encounter this incident, a restimulation of the drying outer skin of the dying seaweed. It is also interesting that bulbous seaweed is an early pattern of Man's later general form.
Jellyfish incidents are quite remarkable for their occasional aberrative force; the jellyfish sometimes drifts into a cave or grotto and is pressed against the stone by rising tide and waves, thus gaining the first facsimiles which later become a shell as in the clam. Here is an example of the principle of counter-effort moulding the physical shape and necessities of forms.
THE CLAM is a deadly incident but mostly when restimulated on purpose. Although this area of the track is called the CLAM, it is improbable that the actual animal was a clam such as our razorbacks. Visios on this seem to indicate that it is a scalloped-lip, white- shelled creature.
The clam was, of course, quite thoroughly fixed to the rocks and the state is very static. The clam had many troubles. The first of these troubles is the double-hinge problem. One hinge wishes to stay open, the other tries to close, thus conflict occurs.
Here we have two control centres, both of them more or less equal in power, having no internal communication.
In the jellyfish we have the first third dynamic engrams where the goal is to hold together at all costs. As soon as the hinges are formed in the clam, we have our first efforts to be completely contrary and internally at war. The solution occurs when one hinge goes into apathy and the other ***umes complete control.
The hinge epicentres later become the hinges of the human jaw. Should you desire to confirm this, describe to some uninitiated person the death of a clam without saying what you are describing.
"Can you imagine a clam sitting on the beach, opening and closing its shell very rapidly?" (Make a motion with your thumb and forefinger of a rapid opening and closing). The victim may grip his jaws with his hand and feel quite upset. He may even have to have a few teeth pulled: At the very least he will argue as to whether or not the shell stays open at the end or closed. And he will, with no hint of the death aspect of it, talk about the "poor clam" and he will feel quite sad emotionally.
The clam had an astonishing number of adventures for so minor a creature. It would get things into its shell and be unable to get them out. It would get its shell stuck open and be unable to shut it. And it would come loose from its rocks under the surface of the water and get tossed into the broil of the surf.
And it would become deserted by the tide and left to bake under a frying sun, a quite uncomfortable situation which restimulates sometimes in a sunburn.
There was or is a spore method of procreation used by the clam.
The spore was put on the inside of the lip and permitted to grow.
Eventually it became large enough to become a clam on its own and would depart. There is a guardian-emotion on the part of the clam for these spores and a sadness on their departure.
But there is more to the spore than this. The spore was like a barnacle. When the clam was cast ashore, these spores were still alive in the shell. The sun would kill the inner cells of the "barnacle" while the outer shell cells still lived. The dead inner cells would form a gas which, under the heat, would explode violently to the agony of the living barnacle shell cells. This bursting was sudden and painful. These spores gave incidents which permitted the human teeth to have a pattern. The ancient bursting engrams are still dramatized by the teeth which, under stress, burst or feel like bursting. Running out some of these bursting incidents will take the ache out of a tooth rapidly. The "fifth nerve channel" is around the mouth and is heavy out of all proportion. A nerve channel is as heavy as it has to conduit pain away from the area.
Thus I deduced that there must have been much pain in this area and that the "fifth channel" is the oldest main conduit and so it is.
Audit all such incidents for all teeth and you have permanently taken the pain out of toothache and cut down decay. By the way, a barnacle, because of this bursting possibility, at length developed a "blow-out area" a cap which would blow easily.
And teeth have such an area. It gives way and makes cavities.
The clam had many, many deaths. A scan across its deaths locates the one in restimulation. You will be amazed to find the clam sufficiently advanced as a cellular-somatic mind to have postulates, to think thoughts.
THE CLAM is actually a group of incidents rather than a single one.
The Weeper After leaving the sea, the GE spent a half a million years on the beach. It had already known about air as a plankton, had known about the beach as seaweed and dying clam. But it nevertheless required some half a million years, according to the evolutionists, for the creature to learn to use the land.
The plights of THE WEEPER are many and pathetic.
Still obtaining its food from the waves, it yet had to breathe.
Waves are impetuous and often irregular. The WEEPER would open up to get food from the water and get a wave in the shell. It would vigorously pump out the water and try to get some air and then, before it could gulp atmosphere, be hit by another wave. Here was anxiety. Being still a shell animal, the mobility of the WEEPER is poor.
It could not withdraw rapidly nor advance rapidly. Tides went out and left it to bake and thirst. The sand got into it. And it had to pump water swiftly in order to continue to live.
The WEEPER is so-called because it had to pump salt water. It was deduced that crying in a human being is very unnatural. Why is it that a human has to pump out some salt water in order to feel better - which is to say, why does crying out a grief charge produce such a change in a case? The incident must be one of pumping out salt water. And this is practically the total activity of the WEEPER which, living perilously on the edge of the surf, had to pump to eat and to breathe. The creature had two pumping tubes.
These later became, because they were furthest toward the light, the eyes of the human being. These tubes had very rough treatment, getting full of sand, being battered by surf.
The inability of a preclear to cry is partly a hang-up in the WEEPER. He is about to be hit by a wave, has his eyes full of sand or is frightened about opening his shell because he may be hit. An occluded case is sometimes merely a case of "shell-shut".
Get the preclear to imagine that his eyes are in his mouth, looking out. Get him to scan through such a situation. You will find the weeper which he has in restimulation.
It you make a preclear go through all the physical motions of sobbing convulsively, no matter what his emotion may be, he may connect with the weeper. Belching, gasping, sobbing, choking, shuddering, trembling, are all manifestations of emotional dramatization of the weeper.
The weeper (originally called "the Grim Weeper" or the Boohoo) had trillions of misadventures. Scanning over these, the auditor will find the one or two which have remained in restimulation and which are open to auditing.
The Volcanoes Earth was undergoing volcanic upheavals during the days of life on the beach. Possibly it was this volcanic action which served the chain of evolution for there is a lack of real reason why this evolution should not be continuing on even today.
The progress of evolution was cut at the beach, possibly, because the beach is peculiarly subject to violence during volcanic upheavals, sea and land being in clash. Now and then the auditor will find a volcanic upheaval incident in restimulation with its palls of choking sulphurous smoke. It has been suggested that smoking tobacco is a sort of dramatization of volcanoes which, at the least, were spectacular.
The Birds Occasionally the creatures of the beach, still shell animals, had their troubles with birds which had become so earlier. Birds of a very crude construction developed a taste for clams. Clams had no adequate defence against them. If a clam opened its shell, the bird would thrust in a beak or a claw. If the clam then closed, the bird would fly up into the air. The clam would let go, drop on a rock and become bird food. If the clam didn't close, it became bird food anyway.
Falling sensations, indecision and other troubles go with the BIRDS.
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Just when did the children of Cthulhu take over our government anyway?
Cheerful Charlie

wbarwell wbarw...@mylinuxisp.com

You are evil as you spread propaganda from proven quacks.
You clowns believe Hubbard, you utterly lack judgment on anything important, much less medicine or mental health.
"The History of Man" - By L. Ron Hubbard CHAPTER EIGHT THE BOXER: This incident is a cousin to the "FLY-TRAP." Its purpose was to make the thetan into a complete stimulus-response mechanism. He was hit from every angle by a device not unlike a boxing glove. He would be forced to kick back against it with his force. At length he would be psychotic enough to return every motion be received. This is actually aberration itself. It is the psychologist's definition, though vaguely put, of a "well adjusted human being," one who stimulates and responds without thought.
--
Just when did the children of Cthulhu take over our government anyway?
Cheerful Charlie

wbarwell wbarw...@mylinuxisp.com

http://www.additudemag.com/additude.asp?DEPT_NO=20 1&ARTICLE_NO=8&ARCV=1 January 2002 We, the undersigned consortium of 75 international scientists, are deeply concerned about the periodic inaccurate portrayal of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in media reports.
This is a disorder with which we are all very familiar and toward which many of us have dedicated scientific studies if not entire careers. We fear that inaccurate stories rendering ADHD as myth, fraud, or benign condition may cause thousands of sufferers not to seek treatment for their disorder. It also leaves the public with a general sense that this disorder is not valid or real or consists of a rather trivial affliction.
We have created this consensus statement on ADHD as a reference on the status of the scientific findings concerning this disorder, its validity, and its adverse impact on the lives of those diagnosed with the disorder as of this writing (January 2002).
Occasional coverage of the disorder casts the story in the form of a sporting event with evenly matched competitors. The views of a handful of non-expert doctors that ADHD does not exist are contrasted against mainstream scientific views that it does, as if both views had equal merit.
Such attempts at balance give the public the impression that there is substantial scientific disagreement over whether ADHD is a real medical condition. In fact, there is no such disagreement
--at least no more so than there is over whether smoking causes cancer, for example, or whether a virus causes HIV/AIDS.
The U.S. Surgeon General, the American Medical ***ociation (AMA), the American Psychiatric ***ociation, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), the American Psychological ***ociation, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), among others, all recognize ADHD as a valid disorder. While some of these organizations have issued guidelines for evaluation and management of the disorder for their membership, this is the first consensus statement issued by an independent consortium of leading scientists concerning the status of the disorder. Among scientists who have devoted years, if not entire careers, to the study of this disorder there is no controversy regarding its existence.
ADHD and Science We cannot over emphasize the point that, as a matter of science, the notion that ADHD does not exist is simply wrong. All of the major medical ***ociations and government health agencies recognize ADHD as a genuine disorder because the scientific evidence indicating it is so is overwhelming.
Various approaches have been used to establish whether a condition rises to the level of a valid medical or psychiatric disorder. A very useful one stipulates that there must be scientifically established evidence that those suffering the condition have a serious deficiency in or failure of a physical or psychological mechanism that is universal to humans. That is, all humans normally would be expected, regardless of culture, to have developed that mental ability.
And there must be equally incontrovertible scientific evidence that this serious deficiency leads to harm to the individual. Harm is established through evidence of increased mortality, morbidity, or impairment in the major life activities required of one's developmental stage in life. Major life activities are those domains of functioning such as education, social relationships, family functioning, independence and self-sufficiency, and occupational functioning that all humans of that developmental level are expected to perform.
As attested to by the numerous scientists signing this document, there is no question among the world's leading clinical researchers that ADHD involves a serious deficiency in a set of psychological abilities and that these deficiencies pose serious harm to most individuals possessing the disorder. Current evidence indicates that deficits in behavioral inhibition and sustained attention are central to this disorder -- facts demonstrated through hundreds of scientific studies. And there is no doubt that ADHD leads to impairments in major life activities, including social relations, education, family functioning, occupational functioning, self-sufficiency, and adherence to social rules, norms, and laws. Evidence also indicates that those with ADHD are more prone to physical injury and accidental poisonings. This is why no professional medical, psychological, or scientific organization doubts the existence of ADHD as a legitimate disorder.
The central psychological deficits in those with ADHD have now been linked through numerous studies using various scientific methods to several specific brain regions (the frontal lobe, its connections to the basal ganglia, and their relationship to the central aspects of the cerebellum). Most neurological studies find that as a group those with ADHD have less brain electrical activity and show less reactivity to stimulation in one or more of these regions. And neuro-imaging studies of groups of those with ADHD also demonstrate relatively smaller areas of brain matter and less metabolic activity of this brain matter than is the case in control groups used in these studies.
These same psychological deficits in inhibition and attention have been found in numerous studies of identical and fraternal twins conducted across various countries (US, Great Britain, Norway, Australia, etc.) to be primarily inherited. The genetic contribution to these traits is routinely found to be among the highest for any psychiatric disorder (70-95% of trait variation in the population), nearly approaching the genetic contribution to human height. One gene has recently been reliably demonstrated to be ***ociated with this disorder and the search for more is underway by more than 12 different scientific teams worldwide at this time.
Numerous studies of twins demonstrate that family environment makes no significant separate contribution to these traits. This is not to say that the home environment, parental management abilities, stressful life events, or deviant peer relationships are unimportant or have no influence on individuals having this disorder, as they certainly do. Genetic tendencies are expressed in interaction with the environment. Also, those having ADHD often have other ***ociated disorders and problems, some of which are clearly related to their social environments. But it is to say that the underlying psychological deficits that comprise ADHD itself are not solely or primarily the result of these environmental factors.
This is why leading international scientists, such as the signers below, recognize the mounting evidence of neurological and genetic contributions to this disorder. This evidence, coupled with countless studies on the harm posed by the disorder and hundreds of studies on the effectiveness of medication, buttresses the need in many, though by no means all, cases for management of the disorder with multiple therapies. These include medication combined with educational, family, and other social accommodations. This is in striking contrast to the wholly unscientific views of some social critics in periodic media accounts that ADHD constitutes a fraud, that medicating those afflicted is questionable if not reprehensible, and that any behavior problems ***ociated with ADHD are merely the result of problems in the home, excessive viewing of TV or playing of video games, diet, lack of love and attention, or teacher/school intolerance.
ADHD is not a benign disorder. For those it afflicts, ADHD can cause devastating problems.
Follow-up studies of clinical samples suggest that sufferers are far more likely than normal people to drop out of school (32-40%), to rarely complete college (5-10%), to have few or no friends (50-70%), to under perform at work (70-80%), to engage in antisocial activities (40-50%), and to use tobacco or illicit drugs more than normal.
Moreover, children growing up with ADHD are more likely to experience teen pregnancy (40%) and sexually transmitted diseases (16%), to speed excessively and have multiple car accidents, to experience depression (20-30%) and personality disorders (18-25%) as adults, and in hundreds of other ways mismanage and endanger their lives.
Yet despite these serious consequences, studies indicate that less than half of those with the disorder are receiving treatment. The media can help substantially to improve these circumstances.
It can do so by portraying ADHD and the science about it as accurately and responsibly as possible while not purveying the propaganda of some social critics and fringe doctors whose political agenda would have you and the public believe there is no real disorder here. To publish stories that ADHD is a fictitious disorder or merely a conflict between today's Huckleberry Finns and their caregivers is tantamount to declaring the earth flat, the laws of gravity debatable, and the periodic table in chemistry a fraud. ADHD should be depicted in the media as realistically and accurately as it is depicted in science -- as a valid disorder having varied and substantial adverse impact on those who may suffer from it through no fault of their own or their parents and teachers.
(75 signatures follow. See URL for these).
http://www.additudemag.com/additude.asp?DEPT_NO=20 1&ARTICLE_NO=8&ARCV=1
--
Just when did the children of Cthulhu take over our government anyway?
Cheerful Charlie

wbarwell wbarw...@mylinuxisp.com

http://www.fumento.com/adhd/adhdtnr.html Trick Question: A Liberal Hoax Turns Out to Be True By Michael Fumento The New Republic, February 2, 2003 Copyright 2003 The New Republic Read a reaction to this article.
Political scientist Francis Fukuyama devotes an entire chapter to bashing Ritalin and Prozac ? in a book ostensibly about biotechnology!
It's both right-wing and vast, but it's not a conspiracy. Actually, it's more of an anti-conspiracy. The subject is Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), closely related ailments (henceforth referred to in this article simply as ADHD).
Rush Limbaugh declares it "may all be a hoax." Francis Fukuyama devotes much of one chapter in his latest book, Our Posthuman Future, to attacking Ritalin, the top-selling drug used to treat ADHD. Columnist Thomas Sowell writes, "The motto used to be: 'Boys will be boys.' Today, the motto seems to be: 'Boys will be medicated.'" And Phyllis Schlafly explains, "The old excuse of 'my dog ate my homework' has been replaced by 'I got an ADHD diagnosis.'" A March 2002 article in The Weekly Standard summed up the conservative line on ADHD with this rhetorical question: "Are we really prepared to redefine childhood as an ailment, and medicate it until it goes away?" Many conservative writers, myself included, have criticized the growing tendency to pathologize every undesirable behavior - especially where children are concerned. But, when it comes to ADHD, this skepticism is misplaced. As even a cursory examination of the existing literature or, for that matter, simply talking to the parents and teachers of children with ADHD reveals, the condition is real, and it is treatable. And, if you don't believe me, you can ask conservatives who've come face to face with it themselves.
Myth: ADHD isn't a real disorder.
Some influential conservative writers have reduced a medical disorder on which over 10,000 articles have been written to mere ?ants in the pants.
The most common argument against ADHD on the right is also the simplest: It doesn't exist.
Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg thus reduces ADHD to "ants in the pants." Sowell equates it with "being bored and restless." Fukuyama protests, "No one has been able to identify a cause of ADD/ADHD. It is a pathology recognized only by its symptoms." And a conservative columnist approvingly quotes Thomas Armstrong, Ritalin opponent and author, when he declares, "ADD is a disorder that cannot be authoritatively identified in the same way as polio, heart disease or other legitimate illnesses." The Armstrong and Fukuyama observations are as correct as they are worthless. "Half of all medical disorders are diagnosed without benefit of a lab procedure," notes Dr. Russell Barkley, professor of psychology at the College of Health Professionals at the Medical University of South Carolina. "Where are the lab tests for headaches and multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's?" he asks.
"Such a standard would virtually eliminate all mental disorders." Often the best diagnostic test for an ailment is how it responds to treatment. And, by that standard, it doesn't get much more real than ADHD.
The beneficial effects of administering stimulants to treat the disorder were first reported in 1937.
And today medication for the disorder is reported to be 75 to 90 percent successful.
"In our trials it was close to ninety percent," says Dr. Judith Rapoport, director of the National Institute of Mental Health's Child Psychiatry Branch, who has published about 100 papers on ADHD. "This means there was a significant difference in the children's ability to function in the cl***room or at home." This brain scan shows changes in ADHD and non-ADHD brains while the children solved math problems.
Additionally, epidemiological evidence indicates that ADHD has a powerful genetic component.
University of Colorado researchers have found that a child whose identical twin has the disorder is between eleven and 18 times more likely to also have it than is a non-twin sibling. For these reasons, the American Psychiatric ***ociation (APA), American Medical ***ociation, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, the surgeon general's office, and other major medical bodies all acknowledge ADHD as both real and treatable.
Myth: ADHD is part of a feminist conspiracy to make little boys more like little girls.
Many conservatives observe that boys receive ADHD diagnoses in much higher numbers than girls and find in this evidence of a feminist conspiracy.
(This, despite the fact that genetic diseases are often heavily weighted more toward one gender or the other.) Sowell refers to "a growing tendency to treat boyhood as a pathological condition that requires a new three R's ? repression, re-education and Ritalin." Fukuyama claims Prozac is being used to give women "more of the alpha-male feeling," while Ritalin is making boys act more like girls. "Together, the two sexes are gently nudged toward that androgynous median personality ... that is the current politically correct outcome in American society." Sommers was going to include the ADHD ?myth? in her book ? until she found out it wasn?t one.
George Will, while acknowledging that Ritalin can be helpful, nonetheless writes of the "androgyny agenda" of "drugging children because they are behaving like children, especially boy children." Anti-Ritalin conservatives frequently invoke Christina Hoff Sommers's best-selling 2000 book, The War Against Boys. You'd never know that the drug isn't mentioned in her book ? or why.
"Originally I was going to have a chapter on it," Sommers tells me. "It seemed to fit the thesis." What stopped her was both her survey of the medical literature and her own empirical findings.
Of one child she personally came to know she says, "He was utterly miserable, as was everybody around him. The drugs saved his life." Myth: ADHD is part of the public school system's efforts to warehouse kids rather than to discipline and teach them .
"No doubt life is easier for teachers when everyone sits around quietly," writes Sowell. Use of ADHD drugs is "in the school's interest to deal with behavioral and discipline problems [because] it's so easy to use Ritalin to make kids compliant: to get them to sit down, shut up, and do what they're told," declares Schlafly. The word "zombies" to describe children under the effects of Ritalin is tossed around more than in a B-grade voodoo movie.
ADHD naysayers can?t decide whether the drugs turn kids into zombies or Mach-speed cocaine junkies.
Kerri Houston, national field director for the American Conservative Union and the mother of two ADHD children on medication, agrees with much of the criticism of public schools. "But don't blame ADHD on crummy curricula and lazy teachers," she says. "If you've worked with these children, you know they have a serious neurological problem." In any case, Ritalin, when taken as prescribed, hardly stupefies children. To the extent the medicine works, it simply turns ADHD children into normal children. "ADHD is like having thirty televisions on at one time, and the medicine turns off twenty-nine so you can concentrate on the one," Houston describes. "This zombie stuff drives me nuts! My kids are both as lively and as fun as can be." Myth: Parents who give their kids anti-ADHD drugs are merely doping up problem children.
Limbaugh calls ADHD "the perfect way to explain the inattention, incompetence, and inability of adults to control their kids." Addressing parents directly, he lectures, "It helped you mask your own failings by doping up your children to calm them down." Mona Charen, prominent defender of traditional family values: ?Nothing replaces the drugs." Such charges blast the parents of ADHD kids into high orbit. That includes my Hudson Institute colleague (and fellow conservative) Mona Charen, the mother of an eleven-year-old with the disorder. "I have two non-ADHD children, so it's not a matter of parenting technique," says Charen.
"People without such children have no idea what it's like. I can tell the difference between boyish high spirits and pathological hyperactivity. ... These kids bounce off the walls. Their lives are chaos; their rooms are chaos. And nothing replaces the drugs." Barkley and Rapoport say research backs her up.
Randomized, controlled studies in both the United States and Sweden have tried combining medication with behavioral interventions and then dropped either one or the other. For those trying to go on without medicine, "the behavioral interventions maintained nothing," Barkley says. Rapoport concurs: "Unfortunately, behavior modification doesn't seem to help with ADHD." (Both doctors are quick to add that ADHD is often accompanied by other disorders that are treatable through behavior modification in tandem with medicine.) Myth: Ritalin is "Kiddie Cocaine." One of the paradoxes of conservative attacks on Ritalin is that the drug is alternately accused of turning children into brain-dead zombies and of making them Mach-speed cocaine junkies. Indeed, Ritalin is widely disparaged as "kiddie cocaine." Writers who have sought to lump the two drugs together include Schlafly, talk-show host and columnist Armstrong Williams, and others whom I hesitate to name because of my long-standing personal relationships with them.
Mary Eberstadt wrote the "authoritative" Ritalin-cocaine piece for the April 1999 issue of Policy Review, then owned by the Heritage Foundation. The article, "Why Ritalin Rules," employs the word "cocaine" no fewer than twelve times. Eberstadt quotes from a 1995 Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) background paper declaring methylphenidate, the active ingredient in Ritalin, "a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant [that] shares many of the pharmacological effects of amphetamine, methamphetamine, and cocaine." Further, it "produces ...

"Gina_and_Phil" phillip_gin...@hotmail.com

as pwalt said: "Oops! But why treat something like a food allergy when someone could become I just posted an article that proves with studies that children treated by psychiatrist's drugs actually have their growth stunted. How would you like to explain to your child later in life that he's 5 ft 5 inches because you forced him to take drugs for years and what he really had was a food allergy? That would be a tough one." That would be a tough one - Honey, I stunted the kids! High heel shoes aren't going to make up the difference, how about some more drugs!
The shrinks know, the corporate druggies know, but they are addicted to money - short term profit at societies long term loss. Disgusting bastards.
gina

"Gina_and_Phil" phillip_gin...@hotmail.com

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