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Child Deaths
The price of psychiatric profits. The controversial, unscientific labeling and drugging of children with "learning disorders" is a mounting worldwide tragedy. |
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MATTHEW SMITH
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The children here died directly from the effects of psychiatric drugs on their
young bodies. As Dr. Baughman has written: |
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STEPHANE HALL
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SAMMY GROSSMAN
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Through the persistence of Baughman and others, the Food and Drug Administration admitted in 1994 that ADHD has no medical basis: "We acknowledge that the condition currently known as ADHD has been historically controversial and that as yet no distinct pathophysiology for the disorder has been delineated."
A report from the National Institutes of Health's Consensus Conference on ADHD, held in November 1998 and before which Baughman provided testimony, reached the same conclusion, that ADHD is based on no science: "[W]e do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there are no data to indicate that ADHD is due to brain malfunction."
Experts have noted, more-over, that while amphetamine-type drugs are commonly prescribed for ADHD, they bring no academic benefit.
But the fraudulent representation of ADHD persists, Baughman said, because of lavishly funded PR and marketing campaigns that convince medical doctors to place children, even year-old toddlers, on drugs that can radically alter and permanently damage the brain and central nervous system. At the same time, he said, the pharmaceutical industry has hiring and firing power over top positions at many medical schools. As a result, those in key positions who might speak out on the subject of certain drugs' harmful effects have had to bite their tongues.
"Dr. Baughman has achieved what he set out to do —save children's lives." — JAN EASTGATE, CCHR INTERNATIONAL |
Empowering Parents
Lawrence Smith, father of Matthew, is one of the countless parents whose lives Baughman has touched. He acknowledged the importance of Baughman's work on his web site, www.RitalinDeath.com.
Smith told Freedom that Baughman inspired him to set up the site and to speak out on the dangers of psychiatric drugs. Of note, Matthew Smith began on Ritalin only after a school social worker threatened his parents with being charged with neglect by the state's Child Protective Services system if he was not taken to a doctor with the school's recommendation that he be given the drug. (See "The Child Protection Racket," page 7.)
In his efforts to bring the truth to parents, educators and others, Baughman has written and published more than 150 articles, appeared on more than 100 television and radio programs, and spoken out persistently on behalf of children and parents.
At his own expense, he has testified before courts, school boards, legislative committees and other official bodies throughout the United States, and in Europe and Australia.
Baughman appeared in federal court as an expert witness in 1991 in Jesson vs. Derry, New Hampshire, Board of Education, for example, helping parents nationwide win the right to say whether or not their children should take psychiatric drugs. That right was buttressed by the Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment, signed into law by President George W. Bush in December 2004.
He also co-authored the book, The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children, with Craig Hovey, Ph.D.
Changing Children's Lives
Across the globe, leaders and decision-makers recognize the value of his work. Martin Whitely, for example, a member of Western Australia's parliament, told Freedom that Baughman furnished "influential evidence" to a parliamentary committee investigating ADHD, "the recommendations of which will be instrumental in a significant decline in amphetamine-prescribing rates to children for ADHD."
Psychiatric interests, including the American Psychiatric Association, CHADD and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), are supported by the deep pockets of the psychopharmaceutical industry. These interests, Baughman believes, and psychiatry itself must answer for destroying children's lives and damaging America's future.
Jan Eastgate, president of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, told Freedom, "Dr. Baughman has taken on the psychiatric cartel to expose its biggest hoax: that ADHD and all childhood 'mental disorders' are scientific fraud.
"He has ensured that millions of parents get the medical facts, and not psychiatric opinion. He has educated many legislators, which has helped secure laws that now protect children against enforced psychiatric drugs. More importantly, Dr. Baughman has achieved what he set out to do — save children's lives."
