Thanks in part to the members of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, the epidemic diagnosing and psychiatric drugging of America's children has suffered a recent setback.

November 16-19, 1998, the National Institute of Mental Health sponsored the "NIH Consensus Development Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder." The plan of the conference was straightforward enough--end the controversy around ADHD and Ritalin and convince Americans to give psychiatric drugs to their children to control their behavior.

In the week prior to the conference, NIMH tasted potential victory in a series of newspaper headlines around the country such as "Study boosts use of Ritalin to help youths with hyperactivity disorder." The "study" is a multi-million dollar, multi-site series of research projects financed by NIMH. They are aimed at proving--after forty years of failure--that Ritalin and other stimulants have real value. The media once again accepted on faith the unpublished claims of drug advocates.

A week before the conference, a reporter spoke with Novartis, the manufacturer of Ritalin, and asked about the conference. She was told, "It will finally end the controversy around Ritalin."

Consensus conferences are intended to present scientific data about controversial treatments to an independent panel or jury which then, the day after hearing all the evidence, writes a consensus statement. The statement is handed out to the press, put on the web and later published in a medical journal. The purpose is to develop an objective viewpoint based on "data" and "scientific evidence." In fact, the government has a history of manipulating the conferences to serve powerful vested interests.

This consensus conference was organized to promote the psychiatric drugging of children. Of the original 30 scientific presenters, not one of the experts had any history of voicing even mild reservations about using the drugs. The main drug researcher, who was also on the planning committee, was psychiatrist Dr. Laurence Greenhill. His written abstract for the conference noted a study by conference planner Peter Jensen showing that only 1 in 8 diagnosed children "received adequate stimulant treatment." Remarkably, Greenhill's abstract devoted only one paragraph to adverse effects and found no serious ones.

The organizer of the conference, NIMH's Peter Jensen, had no intention of inviting any scientific presenters who would discuss the manifold serious adverse effects of Ritalin, from brain damage to withdrawal and rebound, addiction, impaired learning, psychosis, depression and apathy, obsessive-compulsive disorder, motor tics, cardiovascular disease, and growth suppression. He certainly did not want to hear about the dozens of animal studies showing that Ritalin works by suppressing spontaneous and social behavior, and enforcing obsessive compulsive behavior. He didn't want the panel to know that Ritalin makes good caged rats--or children.

OMAR, an office at the National Institutes of Health, supervises all consensus conferences and is responsible for their scientific integrity. ICSPP informed OMAR of the unbalanced nature of the conference and provided OMAR with Dr. Breggin's scientific materials and credentials. The National Institutes of Health recognized the lopsided nature of NIMH's consensus conference and invited Dr. Breggin as the scientific presenter on "Risks and Mechanism of Action of Stimulants."

For the several weeks, Dr. Breggin added an enormous project to his already overloaded schedule. He had to survey the latest (1997-98) scientific data and write a paper of such quality that it would, in the eyes of an objective scientific panel, counterbalance the multiple presentations by the drug advocates. For one table in the paper, he reviewed 8 recent controlled clinical trials concerning adverse drug reactions. He reviewed 20 controlled clinical trials for another table to show that the adverse reactions are in fact the "therapeutic effect." That is, Ritalin works by suppressing spontaneous and social behaviors, creating a relatively isolated and docile child who is driven to act in an obsessive-compulsive fashion. More briefly, he examined reviews showing Ritalin's lack of "positive" effect on academic and social problems, and its lack of any "positive" effect at all beyond several weeks.

ICSPP broadly informed concerned professionals about the conference in the weeks prior to its occurrence. As a result, several ICSPP members as well as other concerned professionals came at their own expense to the conference. Professionals representing themselves and varied organizations who took an active part by addressing questions or short presentations to the conference included neurologist Fred Baughman, occupational therapist Susan Parry, neuroscientist Candice Pert, and psychologists David Stein and Michael Valentine.

The panel came back with a consensus statement far more scientific, honest, and honorable than we could have anticipated. It raised fundamental questions about whether ADHD is a "valid" diagnosis. It found no known "cause" and "no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction." It found that Ritalin had no long-term proven positive effects and that it has "little improvement on academic achievement or social skills."

When questioned by the press, panel members made even more negative statements.

"The diagnosis is a mess," said panel member Mark Vonnegut, pediatrician from Massachusetts.

"There is no current validated diagnostic test," said Dr. David J. Kupfer, panel chairman and a University of Pittsburgh psychiatry professor.

Panel member Dr. Donald A. Berry of Duke University Medical Center said he thought Ritalin and other drugs were prescribed too often and added that "if one focuses on long term effects we treat too much."

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration presenter Gretchen Feussner, domestic Ritalin sales have increased nearly 5-fold since 1990 and the increase is attributed to the use of Ritalin for ADHD. Ninety percent of all Ritalin prescriptions are for children diagnosed with ADHD, although prescriptions for adults diagnosed with ADD are escalating. Indications that Ritalin prescriptions have leveled off in the past two years are offset by a marked rise of prescribed amphetamine drugs, such as Adderall, that are taking a greater share of the market. The U.S. produces and consumes about 90 percent of the entire world's supply of Ritalin.

ICSPP is very pleased that the final statement of the Consensus Development Conference on the Treatment and Diagnosis of ADHD recognized many of the serious questions that surround the diagnosis of ADHD/ADD and the prescription of stimulants for children. But the emphasis of the presenters upon biological causes and psychoactive drug solutions did a grave disservice to the children and families who struggle with the ADHD label. A more informed and multidisciplinary selection of presenters could have transformed this consensus conference from an attempted celebration of psychopharmacology to an examination of the needs of individual children and how to meet them. Not to have done so is a missed opportunity.

We remain deeply concerned about the number of children already diagnosed and being administered Ritalin and other stimulants. When we drug millions of children to make them more compliant and easier to manage at home and in school, it says much more about our society's distorted values than about our children.

For More Information Contact: Ginger Ross Breggin (301) 652-5580