Protecting
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN

The false labelling of schoolchildren with “learning disorders” has given rise to an international explosion of child drugging, with millions of youngsters now chained to a strong and potentially dangerous stimulant drug which threatens their right to a productive future.

Children have a fundamental right to protection and care by adults. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims the right of every human being to life, liberty and security of person; Article 12 establishes the right of each person to freedom from arbitrary interference with his privacy; and Article 26 declares that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality. Each of these rights is violated when a potentially dangerous drug is forced onto a child on the basis of a “condition” for which no scientific, verifiable evidence exists.

The “condition” is called ADHD — Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Although there is no evidence to support the existence of ADHD, that has not stopped millions of schoolchildren from being stigmatised with the label and forced to take drugs.

This false labelling of our schoolchildren has given rise to an explosion of child drugging. In America, the number of children prescribed stimulants for ADHD amounts to an epidemic at 6 million. In Britain in 1992, 2,000 children were prescribed stimulants for this “condition”; by 2000, the number had soared to 186,200. In Sweden, the figures increased 100-fold between 1990 and 2000.

Many parents do not know that the “mental illnesses” such as ADHD listed in psychiatric textbooks are not based on scientific evidence, but on a show of hands at psychiatric conventions. The number of “mental disorders” voted for inclusion in the American Psychiatric Association’s official manual of such disorders has gone from 122 in 1952, when the first manual was published, to 374 in 1994, when the current edition was released. ADHD, like other “disorders,” came into being by vote. But once listed in the manual, drugs to “alleviate” the new disorder can be legally prescribed. As bio-ethicist Carl Elliot put it, “the way to sell drugs is to sell psychiatric illness.”

Psychiatrists are not only unable to substantiate ADHD’s existence, they are unable to trace its “cause.” A 1995 report by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) found that, “Despite the frequent reference to ADHD as a neurological disorder, the cause of ADHD remains unknown.”

Moreover, the evidence indicates that environmental and nutritional factors may play a part in producing the type of behaviour labelled “hyperactivity.” It is common knowledge today that the level of toxins in our environment far exceeds anything experienced by previous generations. The extent to which environmental toxins influence human beings has yet to be determined, but existing evidence indicates that research into their effects is long overdue. As a pointer to what such research might yield, studies in Sweden have shown that the symptoms of “hyperactivity” and “learning disorders” can be created by ingestion of flame retardant, synthetic chemicals present in furniture and electronic equipment manufactured since the 1960s. These purely physical causes can be addressed and handled through standard medical and nutritional treatment.

The DEA report indicated strong concerns about the use of drugs to treat children labelled ADHD, noting that the drug methylphenidate was being prescribed to children as young as six years of age. Methylphenidate is a controlled substance classified in the same category as cocaine.

Many other reports bear out the DEA’s findings. A 2001 study led Dr. Nora Volkow who, in May 2003, was appointed director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the United States, discovered methylphenidate’s effect on the brain to be more potent than cocaine itself.

A 1995 report by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration found that, “Despite the frequent reference to ADHD as a neurological disorder, the cause of ADHD remains unknown.”

The Church of Scientology began to fight this growing abuse in its infancy. Since the onset of ADHD in 1987, the Church has warned that the drugging of our children will spiral out of control. CCHR has been steadily working with legislators worldwide to enact laws that prohibit schools from requiring students to take medication as a prerequisite to school admittance.

Six U.S. states have now passed such laws, and bills to this effect are pending in many other states. In March 2003, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 425-1, a federal version of the same legislation — the Child Medication Safety Act.

European officials share these concerns. In June 2003, the United Kingdom’s regulatory body, the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) banned a psychiatric drug commonly prescribed for children on the grounds that it carries a substantial risk of suicide. In August 2003, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported that a government health study that examined 5,000 research papers over a seven-year period found that an enormous amount of the research advocating drugs for children is funded by the pharmaceutical industry and has suppressed negative results. The Swedish study recommended against the use of psychiatric drugs on children.