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CCHR Says Federal Resolution Strikes Effective Blow to Behavioral Drug Use on Children

LOS ANGELES: In the latest counter against the nation's epidemic of behavioral psychotropic drugs use on children, Congressman Bob Schaffer (Colo) introduced legislation this week to the House of Representatives encouraging school personnel to use proven academic and/or classroom management solutions instead of drugs to resolve behavior, attention and learning problems. This mirrors the concern of the Colorado State Board of Education last year which passed a resolution warning about the negative consequences in which psychiatric drugs had been used to quell disciplinary problems in classrooms.

Mr. Bruce Wiseman, the U.S. President of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) welcomed Congressman Schaffer's resolution as "a step towards dismantling the profitable business of drugging millions of normal children with mind-altering and often addictive psychiatric drugs, and returning schools to halls of learning." Congressman Schaffer cited an 800% increase in the use of behavioral drugs in children over the past decade and said that many kids today are "automatically forced into this drastic measure (of drug) therapy before more conventional methods have been attempted." Wiseman said that a 30-year history of using schools as mental health clinics has caused today's drugging frenzy. The 1965 passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) followed by the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), provided the massive federal funds needed to introduce a flood of psychiatrists, psychologists and behavioral assessments into schools—a flood that continues today. "Special Education—vital for the physically and intellectually impaired—was usurped and broadened to include children 'diagnosed' as having learning 'disorders.' In 1987, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) voted on its cash-cow, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Within a year, 500,000 American children were labeled with this, despite a total lack of scientific evidence validating it as a disease," Wiseman stated.

In 1991, financial incentives were made available when eligibility rules for federal special education programs provided $400 in annual grant money for each child diagnosed as having ADHD. By 1997, 4.4 million children had been diagnosed with ADHD—a 780% increase over 1988.

Jan Eastgate, the International President of CCHR and author of "Psychiatry Committing Fraud," a public awareness book that exposes how stigmatizing psychiatric diagnoses have helped fuel multi-billion dollar mental health fraud, said that the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has perverted classroom problems into a lucrative business for psychiatry. "In 1952, the DSM had no categories for infants or children, except three 'adjustment reactions.' In 1968, three years after the ESEA was passed, there were suddenly 7 behavior disorders for childhood and adolescence. In 1980, another 32 mental disorders were attributed to children and by 1987, everything from writing to arithmetic and language difficulties had been redefined as psychiatric problems.

"This led to a whole population of children being assessed as mentally ill and placed on debilitating psychotropic drugs without accountability. At the same time, education was stripped of its basics, such as phonics. If children couldn't read properly, they were 'disordered,' and if their attention wavered they were seriously disturbed with ADHD."

CCHR highlights medical research which suggests many children could be suffering toxic and allergic reactions manifesting as "psychiatric" symptoms. CCHR accuses mental health practitioners of discriminating against children by failing to provide safe and effective traditional medical and diagnostic procedures and, instead, forcing children onto heavy drugs. For example, an estimated 1.7 million American children are affected by lead toxicity with almost 900,000 affected being under the age of six. The symptoms of lead poisoning are "strikingly similar to several psychiatric 'diseases' (and) can exhibit…learning disorders, hyperactivity, aggressive or disruptive behavior," according to a California doctor.

Parents have testified before CCHR's Public Hearings into Psychiatric Labeling and Drugging of Children that once their child's nutritional problems or allergies were resolved, educational basics addressed and tutoring implemented, the child became a productive and happy member of his class with no sign of attention or behavioral problems.

"Congressman Schaffer's resolution allows for a much broader discussion about not only the effects of psychotropic drugs on children but also alternative solutions to toddlers and children being misdiagnosed and doped out, a situation that has shocked the nation and brought condemnation by the International Narcotics Control Board," Wiseman said.

CCHR was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and has been responsible for legislative reforms that protect the rights of individuals internationally.


Published: April 06, 2000
Author: Marla FIlidei

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