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Point Of View! with Barb Sumner Burstyn
How to Score Ritalin -
October 2002
 So
the kids have wised up and following the US trend, have started
dealing their Ritalin in the schoolyard. In New Zealand Ritalin
retails for around $5 a tablet while in the States the street
value is considerably higher - the equivalent of nearly NZ$ 20.00.
And just like in the States, where it's estimated that six million
kids are taking the mind-altering drug, New Zealand police have
become concerned that parents are pressuring doctors to prescribe
Ritalin for their children. Not only as an antidote to the annoyances
of parenting but so they can sell it themselves on a growing black
market. So perhaps you're also making the connection, wondering
how your kid could present with ADHD to help with the family income.
It turns out its not that hard. New Zealand uses the DSM-IV,
the US Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, to help diagnose ADHD.
In descending order your doctor is looking for at least eight
of these fourteen things: A child who often fidgets with hands
or squirms in his seat, has difficulty remaining seated and is
easily distracted by extraneous stimuli. He needs to show difficulty
waiting turn in group situations and he needs to often blurt out
answers to questions before they have been completed. He needs
to sometimes have difficulty following through on instructions
such as his chores or homework and often have difficulty sustaining
attention in activities, shifting from one incomplete activity
to another. He has to have difficulty playing quietly, he must
talk excessively, interrupt or butt into other kids games, not
seem to listen to what is said, often losing things at school
or home and of course he has to engage in physically dangerous
activities without considering possible consequences, like running
into the street without looking.
Easy? You bet. Show me a kid that doesn't present with at least
half of these 'symptoms', especially before the age of seven -
which is the optimum time for diagnosis and he'll be your oddity.
But if you think it's difficult for a doctor accustomed to dealing
in science to suddenly have to make a diagnosis based on judgment
alone imagine how hard it's been for the scientists doing clinical
research into the causes of ADHD, working as they must, with mainly
subjective data, cultural and individual perceptions, values and
opinion. In fact, only last year the Washington Post reported
that they haven't actually tested Ritalin on at least one group
of children it's routinely prescribed for, the under six year
olds. Seems testing mind altering drugs on little kids was a just
a little too sticky.
But outside of Canada, the U.S.A, Australia and New Zealand very
few doctors make the diagnosis at all. On the European continent
a drug for kids with side effects such as insomnia, decreased
appetite, stomach-ache, headache and dizziness is unacceptable.
As far back as 1976 Shrag and Divorky, in their book, The Myth
of the Hyperactive Child, traced the origin of the diagnosis to
advertising campaigns run by drug companies which manufacture
cures for social problems.
More recently high profile American lawyer Richard Scruggs accused
Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp., makers of the drug Ritalin and
the American Psychiatric Association of conspiring to promote
an overly broad diagnosis of ADHD with the result that it's given
to too many youngsters.
Despite this, Ritalin is fast becoming a widely accepted parenting
tool, a medical substitute for that most precious parental commodity;
time. Canadian child psychologist and author of The Omnipotent
Child Dr Thomas P. Millar says the behaviours on the ADHD checklist
are no more symptoms than a rash, or a cough, or sore feet. "These
behaviours are common and normal in preschool children. In older
children they are more appropriately called immaturities. Getting
over immaturity is called growing up." He goes on to state
the obvious, that it seems many parents have forgotten in their
rush to embrace the latest wonder drug. "Children grow up
when they are parented properly, that is nurtured and trained
in a fashion appropriate for their temperament."
But perhaps the scariest part of the Ritalin epidemic (as if
there could be anything scarier than parental abdication of parenting)
is the increasing pressure schools are putting parents under.
All the behaviours on the checklist are guaranteed to irritate
even the most patient teacher but a child on Ritalin becomes submissive,
passive and socially inhibited. Perfect schoolroom material. So
much so that earlier this year a New York State judge ordered
parents to resume giving their seven year old son Ritalin after
they'd stopped dosing him, fearing it was harming him. Their school
board reported them to the Department of Social Services, which
filed child abuse charges for medical neglect. To avoid having
their son removed from them the couple reinstated his court ordered
doping.
Not even the largest advocate group set up to protect suffers
of this supposed illness is immune. Recently it was revealed that
Children and Adults with ADHD received more than a million dollars
in funding from the makers of Ritalin. But last week, the group,
vocal promoters of Ritalin, did a dramatic about face. They agreed
with the National Institute of Mental Health that many doctors
are misdiagnosing kids with ADHD and turning hospitals and clinics
into pill mills.
In New Zealand Ritalin prescriptions are running at an all time
high. 72,186 prescriptions were written to March this year up
from 49,811 in 2000. So it's clear that in this trend at least
we're not lagging behind the US. Now if we can just get the street
price up a bit more we might even have a nice black market earner
for parents as well.
Have your say on this column:
Barb Sumner Burstyn.
© Barbara Sumner Burstyn
August 2002.
P.O.V. with
Barbara Sumner Burstyn @
http://www.spectator.co.nz/POV
and now @ http://www.mensnewsdaily.com
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