Neurology & Child Neurology

Dear Chairwomen Ortiz & All Members,

 

It appears that the California legislature, like all parents everywhere, and the entire rest of the country have been deceived as to the true nature of ADHD and all "mental illnesses."

 

Yes, I did tell you that no such disease/abnormality as ADHD (or any childhood psychiatric condition/diagnosis) has been validated within the medical/scientific literature of the world medicine, as an actual disease, having a confirmatory abnormality within the child/person. In medicine a disease is an abnormality; no abnormality-normal--no disease. The abnormality may be gross, i.e. visible to the macroscopic, microscopic, or molecular-chemical (a with to much sugar in diabetes, to much phenylalanine in PKU), but, unless some abnormality has been objectively demonstrated, disease cannot be said to be present in that individual; that individual is normal.

 

Throughout the testimony taken by your committee, 2/13/02, you were told "there are no diagnostic tests." This statement itself is deceiving. The reason there are no diagnostic or "biological" tests is that there are no abnormalities to test for-and all in medicine and psychiatry who practice and orchestrate the practice of "mental health," know it.

At the March, 5-8, 1998 meeting of the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, James M. Swanson, of the University of California, Irvine, acknowledged (tape recording): " I would like to have an objective diagnosis for the disorder (ADHD). Right now psychiatric diagnosis is completely subjective.We would like to have biological tests--a dream of psychiatry for many years." Nor is the situation different today, nor will it be tomorrow--the reason being that true diseases are natural occurrences, in plant, animal and human life, described by observant professionals in those fields as they are encountered, not in-committee, contrivances/inventions as in psychiatry with their Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals, each with more labels with which to victimize.

 

In other words, all ADHD children and all children with psychiatric/mental health diagnoses, are medically/physically normal children-normal until the drugging/intoxication/poisoning (knowingly drugging a normal individual) begins.

 

Throughout the ADHD industry and all of children's mental health parents/guardians are fraudulently induced to see their children as diseased/abnormal-as "patients" to get them accept psychiatric/mental health treatments (usually psychiatric drugs; in ADHD, usually Schedule II, addictive, controlled substances).

Not all such parents are explicitly told ADHD (or "bipolar" or OCD) is a "disease" but all of them, one way or another, are lead to believe that the entity diagnosed in their child is a disease, which means, an abnormality within the child--their child. Regardless of the specific language, when parents are lead to believe their normal child is somehow abnormal/diseased, with this belief leading to the acceptance of medical treatment (usually drugging) their has been (1) violation of informed consent, which, in most jurisdictions is tantamount to (2) medical malpractice (3) medical fraud as defined in California, SB-836, Figueroa, under which: "It is unlawful for any person . to disseminate or cause to be disseminated any form of public communication. containing a false, fraudulent, misleading, or deceptive statement or claim." (4) violation of the California Uniform Controlled Substances Act, which states [page 36, Article 2, 11190. Prescriber's Record for Schedule II Substance]: "The prescriber's record shall show the pathology (pathology equals abnormality equals disease, and in ADHD there are none of the above) and purpose for which the prescription is issued, or the controlled substance administered, prescribed, or dispensed," (5) having lead normal persons to believe that they are abnormal/diseased, to gain their consent to treat, all subsequent medical or surgical treatment constitutes assault and battery pursuant to Penal Code sections 242/243.

 

On the absence of bona fide diseases in psychiatry, Valenstein [1], writes, "There are no tests available for assessing the chemical status of a living person's brain."[i] Nor has any "biochemical, anatomical, or functional signs have been found that reliably distinguish the brains of mental patients."[ii] van Praag [2] tells how researchers thought they had discovered a deficiency in a chemical cousin to serotonin in the cerebrospinal fluid of some depressed patients. "In the end, the deficiency proved neither diagnostic nor specific for any psychiatric condition. Glenmullen [3] writes: ".not one (disease, chemical imbalance) has been proven. In every instance where such an imbalance was thought to have been found, it was later proven false."[iii]

 

As to why patients throughout mental health are lied to, Valenstein [1], makes clear: "The theories are held on to.because they are useful in promoting drug treatment."[iv]

Healy [4], observes: "The advent of the psychotropic drugs has also given rise to a new biological language in psychiatry. The extent to which this has come to be part of popular culture is in many ways astonishing. It can reasonably be asked whether biological language offers more in the line of marketing copy than it offers in terms of clinical meaning." In Mad in America, Whitaker [5] writes: "At the top of this wish list, though, would be a simple plea for honesty. Stop telling those diagnosed .that they suffer from too much dopamine or serotonin activity and that the drugs put these brain chemicals back into 'balance.' That whole spiel is a form of medical fraud, and it is impossible to imagine any other group of patients-ill say, with cancer or cardiovascular disease-being deceived in this way."

 

The American Medical Association, the California Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the California Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Practice, the American Academy of Neurology, the American Society of Adolescent Psychiatry, the Child Neurology Society, CHADD, NAMI, the NIH, the NIMH, the FDA, the DEA, the US Congress, the world-wide pharmaceutical industry, and others, know there are no bona fide diseases within psychiatry/mental health but continue as a matter of market-place strategy to portray them as such to their patients and to the public-all of them potential "mental health" patients-consumers of pharmaceuticals.

 

I have corresponded with the California Medical Board [6,7] on this issue on two occasions. As physicians, the members of the board know the truth of what I speak, but hesitate to act because-if I read them correctly, and I believe I do, the fraud of calling normal children "diseased" to make "patients" of them has become the standard of practice in the state, making it alright.

 

While I testified as to the deficiencies of information parents routinely get regarding the drugs used to treat ADHD (and all psychiatric "diseases"), it should be apparent that having lead them to believe their normal children are diseased/abnormal to make "patients" of them, in and of itself, dooms that family's right to informed consent. In fact, the "disease" lie in present-day psychiatry/mental health, is the crux of what is the greatest US health care fraud in history (and, increasingly, around the world).

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

 

REFERENCES:

 

1.. Elliot S. Valenstein, Ph.D., Blaming the Brain (The Free Press, New York, 1998)

2.. van Praag[1] Hermann. "Make-Believes" in Psychiatry. 1993.

3.. Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., Prozac Backlash, (Simon & Schuster, NY, 2000)

4. David Healy, The Anti-Depressant Era, (Harvard University Press, 1999)

5. Robert Whitaker, Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, (Perseus Publishing, 2002)

6.. Letter to California Medical Board, November 3, 2001.

7.. Letter to the California Medical Board, January 4, 2001.

 

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[i], p.4.

[ii]Elliot S. Valenstein, Ph.D., Blaming the Brain (The Free Press, New York, 1998), p. 125.

[iii]Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., Prozac Backlash, (Simon & Schuster, NY, 2000), p. 196.

[iv]Elliot S. Valenstein, Ph.D., Blaming the Brain (The Free Press, New York, 1998), p.4.

[v]), Intro p 5

[v] Robert Whitaker, Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, (Perseus Publishing, 2002), p. 290.