So Dr. Breggin has a valid point about children. I agree there are way too many children out there on "Ritalin - the Alternative to Parenting."
but one thing he writes is positively false:

"Well, almost all medical disorders in fact have biological markers of one kind or another, ... But beyond that, all medical disorders have some definitive physical aspect to them, if only physical pain. Now, there is no such physical aspect to any psychiatric disorder, so we have to look at how did it even become defined as a disorder."

To state that THERE IS NO SUCH PHYSICAL PAIN TO A PSYCIATRIC DISORDER is evidence that Dr. Breggin's has never suffered from Depression or Bi-polar disorder, or, say schizophrenia.
Depression is very painful, physically. It is exhausting, physically painful and mentally painful, including headaches. And the headaches and body aches caused by the racing thoughts of someone on a manic high are not an illusion, they are real pain. He also knocks the Serotonin theory, which has been proven in multiple studies. Alcoholics and people with depression have lower levels of serotonin and dopamine in their brains.
Prozac helps elevate it, thus alleviating many symptoms.
Like any drug, it's not perfect and doesn't work for anybody, but many people I know swear by it. Just because this Dr. is outraged by the misuse of certain drugs does not mean he needs to try to refute them all. He is obviously very emotional about this issue and, therefore, his opinion should be viewed with a rather large grain of salt.
He is, however entitled to his opinion. I consider it just that: An opinion. And we all know what most opinions are.

LOL

> FRONTLINE
> homefour familiesthe
> drugsadhdbacklashdiscussion

> interview: peter breggin

> Psychiatrist and author of Talking Back to
> Ritalin, Breggin founded the nonprofit
> Center for the Study of Psychiatry and
> Psychology. He has been a vocal opponent of
> the ADHD diagnosis and he strongly opposes
> prescribing psychiatric medications to
> children.

> FRONTLINE interviewed Breggin on May 3,
> 2000.

> There are many, many reasons why we're
> giving more and more psychiatric drugs to
> children. Probably the most important reason
> is simple marketing. The drug companies,
> like the tobacco industry, like the alcohol
> industry, are highly competitive, and are
> always searching out new markets. The adult
> market has been saturated for antidepressant
> drugs. How many millions and millions of
> people can take Prozac and Zoloft and all
> the other drugs? We have more adults taking
> antidepressants than the National Institute
> of Mental Health estimates there are
> depressed people in the United States. The
> market is saturated, so the pressures move
> automatically to other markets. And the
> biggest next market is children. So you have
> drug company representatives, you have drug
> company-sponsored conferences examining this
> issue, or encouraging this issue of
> marketing to children.

> In addition, you have physicians faced with
> the problems of managed care. They are not
> going to get paid for sitting down and
> talking to the family for a few hours, or
> doing what I do, which is to sit down with
> the whole family and anybody who will come,
> to discuss the life of the child. They get a
> 15-minute med check. And if they make it 10
> minutes, they can get six in an hour, and
> they can make a good living; they can get on
> with their business.

> But if they stop for an hour to talk to the
> child and the family, they're losing money
> and time, and their waiting room is
> complaining. In addition, physicians have
> been very hard-pressed to compete in the
> therapy market. If you think about it,
> there's no reason to go to a psychiatrist or
> pediatrician for help with your family
> problems. If you've got a child out of
> control, if a teacher can't manage a
> classroom, there's no inherent reason to see
> it as a medical problem. Why go to a
> pediatrician? Why go to a psychiatrist?

> Well, what medicine and psychiatry have done
> is to take essentially behavioral problems--
> problems of conflict between adults and
> children--and redefine them as medical
> problems. ...

> And they've done this for economic reasons?
> For livelihood?

> Doctors need to define these problems as
> medical for their livelihood, for their
> authority in the community, for their own
> sense of identity. What are they going to do
> with all these millions of children that
> parents are concerned about? Are they going
> to say, "Well, actually, I don't have
> much training in family life, and actually I
> know very little about the classroom. In
> fact, I haven't been to a classroom in
> years. Take your child to an educational
> specialist. Take your child to a social
> worker who is familiar with family
> work." Physicians have never done that
> as a general means of practice. . . .

> So do you feel that giving psychiatric
> medication to children provides no
> usefulness whatsoever?

> I believe that there is no scientific reason
> or justification for giving psychoactive
> agents to children. Let me look at Ritalin.
> We have a lot of studies showing that
> Ritalin in fact does subdue children, and
> that's all we have. Take a healthy animal,
> like a chimpanzee , who wants to groom its
> neighbor, wants to play, socialize, wants to
> explore, and particularly would like to
> escape--that's a normal animal.

> If you give the animal a stimulant drug, it
> loses all its spontaneous behavior. It stops
> wanting to socialize. It stops wanting to
> play. Initiative is crushed. The desire to
> escape disappears. And instead, obsessive
> narrow behavior is enforced--probably from a
> direct effect on the basal ganglia that
> these drugs have. You get obsessive
> behavior. So now the chimpanzee is picking
> at its own skin rather than grooming a
> neighbor. Now it's pacing a corner of a
> cage, rather than systematically trying to
> escape. These drugs make good caged animals.

> Now, if you get all that same behavior in a
> child, if you crush a child's desire to
> socialize, to play, to escape, to be full of
> stuff like kids are, and instead you enforce
> a narrow obsessive focus, teachers will see
> this universally as improved behavior. They
> will not say, "Child lost spirit. Child
> now bearing down hard on pencil. Focusing so
> hard on work, tearing through paper."
> But if a study looks for these things, like
> when an NIH study looked for obsessive
> behaviors produced by the drug, you find
> horrible obsessive behaviors. Now the child
> who wouldn't rake leaves not only has raked
> all the leaves, but is waiting for each leaf
> to fall. Now the child who wouldn't play by
> himself with his Legos for an hour alone
> before, is doing it for 24 hours and doesn't
> want to eat dinner. These drugs produce
> abnormalities that we then call
> improvements. ...

> We have lost track of what childhood is
> about, what parenthood and teaching is
> about. We now think it's about having good
> quiet children who make it easy for us to go
> to work.How do you respond to the parents
> who give glowing testimonies about how that
> drug has helped their child?

> In America today, it's easy to go out and
> get glowing testimony from parents about how
> wonderfully their children have been doing
> on Ritalin. There was a caged animal, a
> polar bear, in the zoo in Toronto, who was
> pacing up and down and looking
> uncomfortable, and looking like he'd really
> like to go back to the Arctic or the
> Antarctic. And they put him on Prozac, and
> he stopped pacing. His name was Snowball. He
> sat quietly and looked happy. And animal
> rights people gathered to the zoo and
> protested the drugging of a polar bear to
> make him into a good caged animal, and he
> was taken off the drug.

> We have lost track of what childhood is
> about, of what parenthood and teaching is
> about. We now think it's about having good
> quiet children who make it easy for us to go
> to work. It's about having submissive
> children who will sit in a boring classroom
> of 30, often with teachers who don't know
> how to use visual aids and all the other
> exciting technologies that kids are used to.
> Or there are teachers who are forced to
> pressure their children to get grades on
> standardized tests, and don't have the time
> to pay individual attention to them. We're
> in a situation in America in which the
> personal growth and development and
> happiness of our children is not the
> priority; it's rather the smooth functioning
> of overstressed families and schools. ...

> There are no miracle drugs. Speed--these
> drugs are forms of speed--don't improve
> human life. They reduce human life. And if
> you want less of a child, these drugs are
> very effective. These parents have also been
> lied to: flat-out lied to. They've been told
> that children have a neurobiological
> disorder. They've been told their children
> have biochemical imbalances and genetic
> defects. On what basis? That they fit into a
> checklist of attention deficit disorder,
> which is just a list of behaviors that
> teachers would like to see stopped in a
> classroom? That's all it is. ...

> Why isn't the drug, in your view, a useful
> tool in some circumstances--let's say, in
> extreme circumstances?

> One of the questions that comes up a great
> deal is, what about the extreme child? In
> effect, what about the monster child? What
> about the bad seed child? What about the
> child that nobody can control? Once you
> define some children in that category, you
> open up exactly the Pandora's Box we have
> now. ... How we treat our most distressed
> children ultimately will define how we're
> really going to treat all of our kids. And
> yes, it's very convenient, with a very
> distressed child, to drug them into
> submission, to stop the signals. But it's
> not only a crime against that individual
> child; it sets a paradigm, which we have now
> unleashed on all of our children.

> In my practice, I have never had a child
> brought to me who couldn't calm down in one
> hour in my office. The most extremely
> out-of-control children that I've had, you
> can watch the interaction between the child
> and the parents. The kid is poking the
> parent, the parent is poking the kid. The
> kid is insulting the parent, the parent is
> insulting the kid. And you can see it. ...

> I'm actually seeing two tragic phenomena now
> on a regular basis. One is where there is a
> divorce, the parents split up, the children
> go with the mother, and the mom can't
> control the boy. Why can't a mom control a
> boy as readily as the father? In our
> culture, little boys aren't taught a lot of
> respect for women, and that big booming
> voice often gains a certain amount of power
> that mom's gentleness might not produce. So
> we have moms who are having trouble
> controlling their children, and who are
> giving them drugs. And when the child is
> with the dad on the weekend, then the child
> doesn't need any medication, and mom goes to
> court and sues to make dad give medication
> to the child on weekends.

> But an even more common problem is that mom
> brings in the child wanting to get some
> help, and dad is nowhere to be seen. In
> fact, I can't get dad to come to the office,
> even though he lives down the block. Because
> in our culture, dads are not putting their
> children on a high enough priority. ...

> You're going to be saying these things on
> television, and you're going to make
> enormous numbers of parents feel enormously
> guilty and terrible.

> One of the really obscene things that has
> happened is that psychiatry has sold the
> idea that if you criticize drugs, you're
> making parents feel guilty. What an
> obscenity that is. We are supposed to be
> responsible for our children. . . . If we're
> not responsible for raising our children,
> what are we responsible for? If children
> aren't entrusted to us for the specific
> purpose of our turning ourselves inside-out
> to be good parents, what is life about? It
> is a disgrace that my profession has
> pandered to the guilt of parents by saying,
> "We'll relieve you of guilt. We'll tell
> you your child has a brain disease, and that
> the problem can be treated by a drug."

> That's pandering to the worst desires that
> we have as parents--all of us--which is to
> say, "I'm not guilty of this
> problem." ... I'd rather be guilty as a
> parent, and say, "I did wrong,"
> than say, "Son, you have a brain
> disease." Sure, we're all tempted.
> We're all tempted, when we're in conflict
> with our children, to hold them responsible.
> And how much easier it is if we don't even
> have to hold them responsible. ...

> It is a disgrace that my profession has
> pandered to the guilt of parents by saying,
> 'We'll relieve you of guilt, we'll tell you
> your child has a brain disease, and the
> problem can be treated by a drug.'You've
> been accused of having something to do with
> Scientology. Is that true?

> ... I have nothing to do with Scientology.
> For approximately 25 years, I have conducted
> reform work with nothing to do with
> Scientology. There is no issue whatsoever
> about me and Scientology. I'm the
> editor-in-chief of a journal with 40
> professional members on it. I'm director of
> a center with 200 professional people on the
> advisory council and 1,000 general members.
> I have taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins
> and George Mason. I have nothing to do with
> Scientology. It's a drug company PR
> campaign. ... I have the letters. If I had
> known you were going to go to this level of
> journalism, I would have brought the letters
> along where Eli Lilly tries to link people
> like me to Scientology.

> And didn't they attack and make accusations
> about your wife?

> My wife was a Scientologist, and is now so
> strongly anti-Scientology, that if I even
> took a phone call from a Scientologist,
> she'd be on my back. ... I don't want to
> take on the Scientologists. I've got enough
> trouble taking on psychiatry. ...

> But when people see you alongside
> Scientologists at a hearing before a state
> legislature in Arkansas ...

> I recommend personally that Scientologists
> not be brought to these hearings, but I have
> no control over that. I'm just an expert
> witness. I have no control over it. ... The
> average parent doesn't see that it's
> Scientologists who are against taking these
> drugs. It is strictly the drug companies and
> the media who bring up the Scientology
> issue. ...

> Let's talk about the lawsuits that have been
> filed against the Novartis, the manufacturer
> of Ritalin.

> On Tuesday, May 2, a class action suit was
> brought against the manufacturers of Ritalin
> and Novartis, against [CHADD], a parents'
> group that has been heavily funded by the
> drug companies, and the American Psychiatric
> Association--for the fraudulent overemphasis
> on the ADHD diagnosis and treatment with
> Ritalin. The American Psychiatric
> Association, CHADD, and the drug
> manufacturer are accused of conspiracy. The
> case has been brought in Texas by the law
> firm of Waters & Krause, and is now
> actually in the courts. ... Probably there's
> going to be a series of related cases, or at
> least a number of attorneys coming together,
> around this issue of fraud and conspiracy in
> the promotion of the diagnosis and the
> promotion of the drug.

> So that will hinge on showing what? Damage
> to the children?

> No damage is required to be shown to the
> children in this case, because it's not that
> kind of product liability case. All that the
> parents have to show is that they spent
> money on Ritalin, when they were in fact
> fraudulently induced to think that it would
> be worth something. ...

> So it's based then on the ADHD diagnosis,
> the DSM-IV diagnosis, as being fraudulent?

> It's based on the over-promotion of the
> diagnosis and the drug as being fraudulent,
> and involving a conspiracy.

> And so the defense will be, "No, this
> is a wonder drug. This is helping millions
> of children." Sounds like a stalemate
> to me in the current sort of atmosphere. ...

> There's actually a great deal of evidence
> for a conspiratorial relationship. According
> to international law, you cannot directly
> promote a highly addictive Schedule II drug
> to the public. Ritalin is in Schedule II
> along with amphetamine, methamphetamine,
> cocaine and morphine. And you're not allowed
> to put ads in the newspaper for that. You're
> not allowed, according to international
> conventions, to directly promote to the
> public. What Ciba-Geigy, now a division of
> Novartis, has done is to fund a parents'
> group, CHADD, and the group has then gone
> and promoted Ritalin to the public. So
> that's one potential aspect to the
> situation.

> How is it different than another
> pharmaceutical company supporting the
> American Diabetes Foundation or the American
> Cancer Society with funding? How is it
> different that Ciba-Geigy is providing some
> funding to CHADD?

> One of the big differences in what
> Ciba-Geigy is doing, say, compared to a drug
> company who might give money for a diabetes
> drug to the AMA, is that Ritalin is a
> Schedule II--a highly addictive drug. And
> there are special controls put upon it by
> the US government. CHADD, in fact, has
> lobbied the US government to try to get
> Ritalin taken out of Schedule II. They
> couldn't do anything more valuable for the
> drug company, and more dangerous to the
> public, than that. Fortunately, they failed,
> and they failed in part because of our
> disclosures . . . about CHADD having so much
> money from the drug companies. ...

> What role did the pharmaceutical industry
> play in promoting Ritalin and Prozac to the
> country? ...

> Even before Prozac was approved by the FDA,
> the drug company was sponsoring seminars for
> doctors throughout the country on the
> biochemical basis of depression, mentioning
> over and over again serotonin, which is the
> neurotransmitter that's affected by Prozac.
> They didn't happen to mention that there may
> be 200 neurotransmitters in the brain, and
> that connecting any one to depression is
> absolutely foolish speculation. The brain is
> an integrated organ, with probably thousands
> of substances participating in its function.

> To label one, serotonin--which is, in fact,
> a widespread neurotransmitter that goes to
> every single lobe of the brain and affects
> everything from memory to coordination to
> cardiovascular function--imagine that that
> one happens to be the one that's out of
> balance, because Eli Lilly is selling
> Prozac.

> But people are so eager nowadays for
> biological explanations. So physicians and
> the public grabbed on to what is essentially
> a PR campaign--perhaps the most successful
> one in the last 30 years in the Western
> industrialized nations--that if you have a
> mental disturbance, it's biochemical.

> Now they run into problems. Because the next
> drug that comes along affects a different
> neurotransmitter, and then the next one
> affects a different neurotransmitter. And
> they're all working, because they all cause
> certain disabilities of the brain that some
> people experience as an improvement. They
> either can anaesthetize your feelings, or
> they give you an artificial high, or simply
> give you an enormous placebo boost.

> Taking a sugar pill gives an enormous number
> of people the feeling that they're doing
> better. In fact, taking a placebo can affect
> physical function.

> If somebody has a migraine headache, would
> you prescribe a drug for them?

> I have no objection to the legitimate use of
> medical substances for defined medical
> disorders. In psychiatry, none of the
> disorders are defined clearly in a medical
> way, and none of the substances are directly
> addressing the real problem. Now, when you
> get to something like migraine headaches,
> you get a great deal of over-medication. You
> get people being addicted to all kinds of
> substances. But that's a little different,
> because, in fact, you can address the pain,
> and in some cases, perhaps, the
> physiological mechanisms behind the
> headache.

> But isn't a migraine a case where we don't
> really understand what causes it? There's no
> real biological marker, as there is no
> biological marker for a whole host of
> medical conditions. But yet we treat it.
> People are saying, "What's the
> difference between that and ADHD?"

> Well, almost all medical disorders in fact
> have biological markers of one kind or
> another, and there are vascular problems
> associated with migraine headaches. But
> beyond that, all medical disorders have some
> definitive physical aspect to them, if only
> physical pain. Now, there is no such
> physical aspect to any psychiatric disorder,
> so we have to look at how did it even become
> defined as a disorder.

> The way you define a medical disorder is, a
> person comes in sick. They look sick, they
> feel sick, they have physical symptoms. You
> may not be able to figure out what it is.
> But it's a disorder of the body. ADHD
> doesn't even involve emotional suffering on
> the part of the child. There is nothing in
> the diagnosis that says the child is
> distressed. It's all about distressing
> behaviors. It's a list of behaviors that
> distress adults. ... So we've actually taken
> something which is, literally, a bunch of
> behaviors that make adults disappointed and
> uncomfortable about children--often where
> the children are not distressed, or they may
> be sometimes--and we've made it a medical
> disorder. It is such a leap of the
> imagination that it can only be made in
> terms of the public's willingness and the
> profession's willingness to try to make
> something medical that, in fact, is not. ...