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In 1987, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was voted into existence by members of the American Psyychiatric Association (APA) during the compilation of its DSM-III-R mental illness register. Within one year, 500,000 children in America alone had been diagnosed with an affliction, created by a show of hands, which had no apparent corresponding physical brain disorder and no science. Many children have subsequently been prescribed dangerous, mind-altering drugs to control their behaviour. By 1997, 4.4 million citizens had been labelled ADHD.
In 1975, US federal law had provided funding and psychology-based education for ‘learning disabilities’. By 1989, 1.9 million had been diagnosed as having Learning Disorder (including Attention Deficit Disorder). At the end of 1996, 2.6 million American children had been branded ‘special needs’. Did funding play a factor in this mass diagnosis? Today, ADHD is said to account for a third to half of all child mental health referrals.
In my book The Mind Game, I expose the cynical manipulation and deceit practised by psychiatry and the truth behind what ‘mental illnesses’ actually are. They are physical problems that affect the way we think and behave, and the phenomena of ADD and ADHD are no exception. If you, or someone you know, suffers from behavioural abnormalities that have been diagnosed ADD/ADHD, before you or your family resort to the proffered drug treatments, which include mind-altering substances such as Ritalin and Prozac, often provoking mental aberrations of their own, please read the remainder of this chapter.
Symptoms
Little Billy has a problem. He doesn’t finish his homework. He is rowdy in class. He can’t sit still at mealtimes and fidgets constantly. When his parents buy him a new toy, he smashes it or wears it out. He is a beast with the furniture, tumbling around the room and getting into things with boundless energy.
But Billy’s temper tantrums have caused problems at school as well as home. He is unpopular with his peers, defiant of authority, sometimes exhibits a speech impediment and lies to get out of trouble. Billy’s parents have been warned by the principal to ‘get something done’ or Billy won’t be allowed to return to school to disrupt others. “Billy needs help,” the head intones sombrely. He gives them a telephone number to call. Drugs such as Ritalin, Halcion, Xanax, Dexedrine and Prozac are routinely prescribed.
Physiological indicators to watch for in a child labelled ADD/ADHD are those symptoms usually associated with allergy: excessive mucus, ear infections, skin rashes, facial swelling, tonsillitis, discolouration around the eyes, bloating and digestive problems, bad breath, bedwetting, eczema and asthma. These symptoms are linked to chronic dehydration and an inability of the body to manufacture prostaglandins (chemical mood modulators that affect the brain). Chronic dehydration has become routine since the advent of popular, mostly carbonated and sugared beverages aimed at the young. Bad diets resulting from an over-dependence on junk foods has also risen to the fore since the ‘70s fast-food revolution. A combination of these two paradigm shifts is more than sufficient to account for the symptoms of ADD/ADHD, resulting in an inability of children to convert essential fats into prostaglandins and neurotransmitter hormones, and lack of sufficient water to avoid the inevitable ‘drought-management’ procedures from being implemented in the body.
Why ADD/ADHD are not ‘diseases’
In millions of households across the world, parents have noticed behaviour in their children far more aberrant than expected with their particular age-group. These traits have been prescribed bogus medical epithets or disease classifications by psychiatry. But do these ‘mental diseases’ have more straightforward explanations? How likely is it that millions of children have suddenly become ‘mentally ill’?
Retired California neurologist Fred A Baughman Jr sent a letter in January 2000 to US Surgeon General David Satcher in response to Satcher’s Report on mental illness. “Having gone to medical school,” Baughman wrote, “and studied pathology — disease, then diagnosis — you and I and all physicians know that the presence of any bona fide disease, like diabetes, cancer or epilepsy, is confirmed by an objective finding — a physical or chemical abnormality. No demonstrable physical or chemical abnormality: no disease!”
“You also know, I am sure,” Baughman continued, “that there is no physical or chemical abnormality to be found in life, or at autopsy, in ‘depression, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses.’ Why then are you telling the American people that ‘mental illnesses’ are ‘physical’ …?’”
Baughman concluded his six-page letter to Satcher by declaring that “your role in this deception and victimization is clear. Whether you are a physician so unscientific that you cannot read their [the American Psychiatric Association’s] contrived, ‘neurobiologic’ literature and see the fraud, or whether you see it and choose to be an accomplice — you should resign.”
Researchers Bunday and Colquhoun tested the theory to see whether supplementing with essential fatty acids would make any difference. They tested evening primrose oil, a rich source of gamma-linolenic acid (omega 3), on children who had been diagnosed ADD/ADHD. The following, provided by the Hyperactive Children’s Support Group, is typical of such anecdotal reports:
“Stephen, aged 6, had a history of hyperactivity, with severely disturbed sleep and disruptive behaviour at home and at school. Threatened with expulsion from the school because of his impossible behaviour, his parents were given two weeks to improve matters. They contacted the Hyperactive Children’s Support Group, and evening primrose oil was suggested. A dose of 1.5g was rubbed into the skin morning and evening. The school was unaware of this, but after five days the teacher telephoned the mother to say that never in 30 years of teaching had she seen such a dramatic change in a child’s behaviour. After three weeks, the evening primrose oil was stopped, and one week later the school complained. The oil was then introduced to good effect.”
Scientists at Purdue University in the US have found that children exhibiting hyperactivity have altered fatty acid metabolism and lowered levels of these essential nutrients in their blood, compared to controls. One fatty acid, DHA, has shown to be low in children marked with low mental performance. Fish oils are rich in DHA. Other evidence however demonstrates that genuine hyperactivity and attention deficit may not be caused by poor nutrition alone. Two other elements play large in causation – that of chemical toxins and food allergies.
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