Talking Back to Ritalin : What Doctors Aren't Telling You About Stimulants for Children

by Peter R. Breggin

Almost perfect..., June 18, 2000
Reviewer: Dathan A. Paterno from Chicago, IL
This book records what I have guessed for the past 9 years in my career in the mental health field: that stimulants do not help children in the long run. Yes, a few children may be helped enough by it--often by its placebo effects on the teachers, parents, and children themselves--but most children do not benefit academically at all. Furthermore, I have seen droves of children who entered the pharmacological factory as 5 or 6 year olds, only to continue in it for 10 plus years, having had so many drugs in their system that the drugs no longer touch them. Whereas they were once little hyperactive "monsters", now they are big hyperactive "monsters". Ritalin and other medications allowed the parents and teachers to skate along happily for years, while totally ignoring the underlying issues. Nothing has been done except to create a culture of children who believe that their brains are screwed up and that drugs are the answer. A recipe for disaster. And I'm seeing it simmering.

I applaud Dr. Breggin for his work. He tolerates a great deal of ridicule for his position, as do those who come to similar conclusions. His writing can be a bit simplistic and propaganda-like, but so is all of the opposition's. I look forward to more research from scientists who don't have the bias that so many have now. I doubt it will happen; the drug culture has sciece by the balls...

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Reviewer: A reader from Eagle River, Wisconsin
We need to start somewhere to stop drugging our children and this book is an excellent start, coming from a practicing credentialed physician. Seems people no longer have trust in their own ability to do what is right but go blindly on the word of their physican's advise. We need someone out there to tell the public what drugging our children is all about besides increasing performance.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Praise for Breggin, April 1, 2000
Reviewer: Andrew Blauner from New York, NY
John Horgan author of "The End of Science" and "The Undiscovered Mind" writes, "Peter Breggin's courageous, compassionate writings serve as a much-needed antidote to the genetic determinism and pro-drug bias of modern psychiatry and psychology."

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Abuse is bad, but use is _very_ good, March 14, 2000
Reviewer: A reader from Oxford University, England
Agreed that abuse is certainly bad, and that alternative therapies should be explored, but this book takes scare-mongering way too far. I am a 24 year old and before I started taking ritalin I suffered all of 'usual' signs of ADD and did very poorly in school, but like many with ADD I was ambitious and creative. After going on ritalin, I graduated at the top of my high school class, went to stanford university where I received a perfect 4.0 and graduated again at the top of my class and won a scholarship to study at Oxford University, where I am now the senoir scholar in the humanities (at 24! and at 11 I was crying because I could barely spell!). This is not to say that all of this is b/c of ritalin, but ritalin undoubtly helped. Many people who have had similar success with ritalin often are quiet about it, since they do not want to be labeled 'minimally brain deficient' or hyperactive, etc. but there are a number of people for whom the drug has done wonders. That said, my parents played a very important role and took me to a number of very good doctors and did in a sense approach ritalin as a drug of last resort after a battery of test from neruologists, psychologists, physicans, etc. Breggin's book was then very disappointing (and in many places scientifically irresponsible). In my case it certainly wasn't true.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Good solid counter-propaganda, October 3, 1999
Reviewer: A reader from Vermont, USA
Breggin's argument is considerably more nuanced and interesting than the reader from New England implies. Ritalin's side effects, unlike ADHD, have been proven to exist, and most of them are quite unpleasant. Breggin outlines how a drug that should be used as a drug of last resort-- if it should be used at all-- has increasingly been seen in the US and Canada as a 'quick fix' for any difficulties a child may have. This book should be required reading for any parent with a child given the ADHD label.

30 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
Sorry, but I have to agree., July 21, 1999
Reviewer: A reader from Maryland
For the reviewer who is talking back to Peter Breggin, I'm sorry to say that I have to agree with him. It used to be that Ritalin was practically unheard of, but now the number of children taking it has increased fivefold over the last five years, and if ADHD were a "disease", just like cancer or diabetes, as psychiatrists like to claim, then we wouldn't be seeing an increase in children being labeled with this disorder.

Furthermore, I see nothing wrong with trying alternatives to Ritalin. Many parents with children labeled ADHD have looked for allergies and other physical conditions, such as thyroid problems, and have found them. Many other parents have changed their child's diet to one that is low in sugar, and that has also worked wonders. Still other children may be having trouble at home, such as parents going through a divorce, or a new baby in the family. Stress impacts greatly on the lives of children. I'm not blaming the parents for anything, I'm just stating the facts. Granted, there are children who are troubled despite the fact that everything seems to be okay in their lives, but I really believe that this is the exception, not the rule, and that children often begin acting out when they have stressors at home and/or at school. Parents need to be informed and keep an open mind, and identify possible physical conditions or stressors in their child's life before giving their children stimulants. To so hastily prescribe Ritalin before looking for other causes of hyperactivity and telling the parents what THEY want to hear to make money is a grave disservice to our children, and most definitely a cause for concern in our society, as children are our future.

If you like facts, I'll state one: children who were prescribed Ritalin in childhood are three times more likely to use cocaine later in life. Don't try to tell me that this is because their "biochemically defective brains" cause them to make bad choices and use drugs. I don't buy it. And I also don't buy that you don't seem to think that ADHD children are our "best and our brightest", as Peter Breggin believes. I have actually found data that says that ADHD tends to disappear once the child is past school age, and that many of these children tend to do well as artisans or at other jobs where they work "on their feet" when they grow up. Albert Einstein is thought to have had ADHD, and a teacher once wrote on his report card, "You'll never amount to anything." What if Einstein had taken Ritalin? Would he have reached his full potential with his brilliant mind altered by speed? I doubt it.
When I was about ten, my mother took me to a psychotherapist because I was fidgety and nervous in school, and I would come home in tears nearly every day. Some of my classmates were picking on me, and school had become a hellhole for me as a result of their torments. I was also often fidgety and emotional at home as well. The therapist told my mother to try changing my diet, and in the meantime, he talked to me about my problems with the children at school picking on me, and he also talked about a past issue that still bothered me: I was sexually molested at the age of nine by a neighbor, and had been afraid to tell anyone. Needless to say, changing my diet and getting to the root of my problems took some time, but I greatly improved.

That was 1988. What would happen to me eleven years later in 1999 if I was a child and I walked into a psychologist's office? He would probably refer me to a psychiatrist, who would prescribe me speed and fifteen minutes a week to monitor the speed. Meanwhile, he would feed my parents the unproven myth that I had a "biochemical imbalance" or "crossed wires". I find it very insulting to find that a doctor would see my reactions in childhood to stressful events and my personality in general as nothing more than a "diseased brain". And that's what we have turned to, and its really sad. Oh, and for your information, New England, I turned out pretty well, I believe, despite the fact that I didn't get the stimulant drugs that NAMI members and psychiatrists today would say that I needed back then. I'm not rich and famous or anything, but I work, I go to college, I'm married, I have lots of good friends, and I plan to have a baby next year. I have never been in trouble with the law, and I don't intend to ever be. Not bad for someone who a doctor would call "defective". Oh, sitting still is still a bit difficult for me, and I'm definitely sometimes what you could call "hyper", but I don't necessarily see that as a defect. I see that as the way that I am. Some people are less excitable and can tolerate sitting still; others are not.

Here's another fact: the U.S. makes and consumes 90% of the world's Ritalin. If it were true that "untreated" ADHD led to kids committing crimes, then we'd see a rash of crimes in other countries that don't use Ritalin. Obviously, the pill solution isn't working, because plenty of kids in this country are shooting their classmates and planting bombs in schools. You don't see this in other countries. In two of the school shootings in recent years, the shooter was taking a mind-altering drug. Who's to say that the drug didn't contribute to the teens' behavior and make them violence-prone?

Dr. Breggin, you are right. This IS a cause for concern. Too many kids are being given stimulants, and increasingly, Prozac and other mind-altering drugs. Will we win the war on Joe Camel only to find that Mr. Prozac has taken his place? Just because a drug is prescribed by a doctor doesn't mean that it's the right course of action to take. And Dr. Breggin, you have done a great thing for our youth by writing this book. You have done no harm. The doctors doing harm are the ones that are handing out pills like candy to kids, and saying to the parents, "Oh, it doesn't matter if your child goes to three different sitters and you drink like a fish and his father never spends time with him; its all his broken brain's fault." THESE are the doctors that have violated the sacred oath.