The ADHD FRAUD: How Psychiatry Makes “Patients” of Normal Children

by Martin Whitey
Perth, Australia
B. Com. Dip. Ed. JP MLA
Member of the Legislative Assembly
Parliament of Western Australia

ADHD was not discovered by science; it was voted into existence in 1987 by a committee of the American Psychiatric Association.

Beginning with that vote a series of political processes have resulted in widespread international recognition of ADHD as a “psychiatric disorder.” Medicine and psychiatry are supposed to be driven by hard science, not politics supported by pseudo-science. ADHD has snowballed internationally because the outrageous claims of the ADHD industry have often escaped scrutiny.

As a result, across the globe over the last 15 years, millions of responsible loving parents have accepted at face value the advice of an “expert” child psychiatrist or pediatrician and “medicated” their child for ADHD:

• Typically these parents have been told their child has a biochemical imbalance in the brain best treated with safe, effective stimulant medication.

• Most are never told the truth, that there is no proof of a biochemical imbalance in their child’s brain.

• Most are never told the diagnostic criteria are no more objective than a teachers observation that their child avoids homework, interrupts, fidgets, squirms in their seat, loses pens and pencils and is forgetful and disorganized.

• None are ever shown a blood test or a brain scan or any scientific proof of their child’s supposed chemical imbalance of the brain. Why? Because they don’t exist.

• Most are never told that the amphetamines used to treat ADHD are drugs of addiction with a startling range of adverse side effects and unknown long-term effects on developing minds and bodies.

• These parents are denied their right to informed consent about their child’s treatment.

• Many children are naturally inattentive, impulsive and hyperactive. In these cases normal behavior is pathologized, and healthy children are drugged.

Some children, however, do have a range of real problems that cause disruptive behavior. Children who can't hear or see properly may be inattentive or impulsive because they are frustrated with not being able to keep up with the rest of the class. Likewise, children not taught to read properly and children traumatized by events beyond their control. It is hardly surprising that drugging these children with behavior-altering amphetamines alters their behavior, masking the symptoms but doing nothing to deal with the underlying cause.

Brandon’s story is disturbing, but typical of too many children worldwide. Brandon had been first medicated for behavioral problems when he was 4. By early 2004 Brandon (then 12) was on Dexamphetamine for ADHD, Sodium Valproate for mood stabilization and tranquilizers to calm him down. Brandon suffered mood swings, migraines, and insomnia and sleepwalked, had chronic stomachaches, and was unnaturally thin.

A residential intensive intervention program turned around Brandon and his family’s life. Brandon was initially detoxified and his mother Katherine participated in effective parenting sessions. Brandon’s real problems--hearing and learning difficulties, were identified. Brandon is now drug free, happy, well-behaved; and with extra in-class support, he is performing well academically.

Virtually all the symptoms of ADHD relate to classroom behavior. Children who don’t do homework, fidget, squirm, interrupt and are forgetful and disorganized are assumed to have a biochemical imbalance in their brain. These children can be difficult to control in a classroom and in many cases are more compliant when drugged. However, there is absolutely no scientifically valid evidence that compliant drugged students learn faster.

ADHD is a “disorder” manufactured to match our times. It is a quick, catchall diagnosis with a magic bullet treatment. The contrived ADHD epidemic started in the United States and has been adopted around the globe with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

My home Perth, Western Australia, has the highest prescription rates of amphetamines in Australia. Western Australian children are 4 times more likely than other Australian children to be diagnosed ADHD and drugged with amphetamines. Perth, with a population of 1.5 million, is one of the most isolated cities in the world. It has one medical school and a closed medical community who are reluctant to criticize each other.

This lack of a critical culture allowed a handful of irresponsible clinicians to diagnose and drug without proper scrutiny. It was only the intervention of a parliamentary committee of the Western Australian Parliament that turned the debate in Perth. Ironically, it was Perth’s politicians who reminded Perth’s medical fraternity that medical practice should follow science not fashion.

The testimony of Dr. Fred Baughman to the parliamentary committee was crucial in exposing the scientific fraud that underpins ADHD. He said that when asked for proof of ADHDs existence, ADHD “experts” will typically respond there are hundreds of scientific papers validating ADHD. However, when asked which report confirms the existence of an objective physical abnormality making ADHD a disease, psychiatry cannot identify a single such report. As a substitute for real evidence the ADHD industry presents “consensus statements” of “ADHD experts” who all sign a document devoid of scientific substance but concluding unanimously that ADHD is real and common.

Like the fabled adulation of the Emperors New Clothes, the growth of and enthusiasm for ADHD ignores the blindingly obvious. In the minds of the medical profession, politicians and policy makers, ADHD has gotten so big it must be real. But like the emperors new clothes ADHD has no substance.

Dr. Baughman is filling the role of the boy who pointed out that the Emperor was naked. He has reminded us that children are inattentive, impulsive and hyperactive and amphetamines are addictive and dangerous. Fred Baughman has exposed ADHD and the industry it has spawned for what it is. Fraud.

Excerpted with permission from The ADHD Fraud--How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children by Fred A. Baughman, Jr., MD., Trafford Publishing, Copyright 2006, 1-888-232-4444, orders@trafford.com.