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© Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesDr. Susanna Visser presented a CDC report Friday to the Georgia Mental Health Forum in Atlanta on the drugging of young children for ADHD.
The CDC has shocked parents and many of the country's child welfare experts with it's release of a disturbing report showing the high number of very young children being prescribed mind-altering drugs. The report states that some 10,000 toddlers across the US are being diagnosed and medicated with psychotropic drugs like Ritalin and Adderall.

"It's absolutely shocking, and it shouldn't be happening," said Anita Zervigon-Hakes, a mental health consultant for children from the Carter Center. "People are just feeling around in the dark. We obviously don't have our act together for little children."

In interviews with the New York Times and NBC, Dr. Lawrence H. Diller, a behavioral pediatrician in California, thought the news was outrageous:
"People prescribing to 2-year-olds are just winging it. It is outside the standard of care, and they should be subject to malpractice if something goes wrong with a kid."

"We're giving Adderall to 2-year-olds? I mean, that's nuts," said Diller. "There's no evidence that it works. There's no evidence that it's safe. These are desperate measures."
According to Diller the U.S. uses 70 percent of the world's Adderall and Ritalin even though we only make up 4 percent of the world's population.


Readers may be surprised to know that there is no consensus about what 'ADHD' (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) actually is, but that hasn't stopped thousands of physicians from doping our children based on highly questionable criteria. This 'disease' with mythological undertones is now the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder in children. Statistics from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) indicate that 6.5 million U.S. children are labeled with ADHD.

"Families of toddlers with behavioral problems are coming to the doctor's office for help, and the help they're getting too often is a prescription for a Class II controlled substance, which has not been established as safe for that young of a child," said Dr. Susanna N.Visser, the lead researcher of the CDC study. "It puts these children and their developing minds at risk, and their health is at risk."

The CDC's study also found that toddlers covered by medicaid were far more likely to be drugged than those who had private insurance. Dr. Visser could not offer an explanation for why the poor are being targeted.

The New York Times has previously reported on a Rutgers and Columbia study from 2009, which found that children who were covered by Medicaid were four times more likely to be prescribed powerful drugs than those who had private insurance. Those children were also prescribed medications for less severe conditions.

An investigation by the Boston Globe found that congress' Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program was being used to serve those with common 'behavioral disorders' like ADHD. It provides a financial incentive for poor families to accept powerful medications for their children.

"To get the check,'' Geneva Fielding, mother of three boys, has unfortunately concluded, "you've got to medicate the child.''

Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke University and former chairman of the DSM-IV wrote, "Treating babies with stimulants is based on no research, is reckless and takes no account of the possible harmful, long-term effects of bathing baby brains with powerful neurotransmitter drugs."

There's been very little scientific study on the use of stimulant medications in very young children and none for those younger than three years old. One study from 2006 found that methylphenidate reduced 'ADHD-like' symptoms in preschoolers. Most researchers on that study had significant ties to pharmaceutical companies that make ADHD medications.

Dr. Bruce Perry, a senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Texas, says ADHD is not a "real disease. It is best thought of as a description. If you look at how you end up with that label, it is remarkable because any one of us at any given time would fit at least a couple of those criteria," said Perry.

Neurologist Richard Saul seems to agree. In fact, he doesn't think there are any American children suffering from ADHD because he doesn't think it exists. In his book, ADHD Does Not Exist: The Truth About Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, Saul sees ADHD as a collections of symptoms, not as a disease.

Parents are bewildered and angered by these findings too.

"I don't get how you diagnose somebody. I mean, if they're hyper or all over the place then you probably have a 2-year-old," said Craig Lewis, a dad. Indeed, it's as if, in this psychopathic reality, just being a child is a 'disease'. Heck, as far as Big Pharma is concerned, being a human being with any kind of agency whatsoever is a disease. And now even toddlers are being abused by doctors who are supposed to be helping. Of course, when you consider the sugar and chemical-loaded 'Western diet', it's not surprising that young children are often hyperactive and cranky, but the solution is to change their diets, not load them up with chemical suppressants to cover up the toxic stimulants they are ingesting every day.

Putting toddlers on drugs for ADHD is not only shameful, it's criminal. Adderall is a Schedule II drug, the same classification as cocaine and morphine. Their brains are in the critical stages of development and permanent damage results from long-term use of such drugs.

Stress is mounting in our increasingly dystopian society, and vulnerable children may feel the effects most acutely. It's up to us, as adults, to learn how to cope by informing ourselves and passing on that knowledge to our children. While the truth is not something that is taught in schools (an informed population is a threat to psychopaths in power), by learning and applying the necessary knowledge and skills in our own lives, and sharing them with others, we can protect ourselves and our children against the worst effects of our 'modern' society. Children need to go through the process of learning how to cope on their own, understanding boundaries and how to control impulses during the formative years of their brain development. By forcing them to take drugs in a futile and harmful effort to avoid this responsibility, we rob them of the necessity of learning how to cope and destroy their ability to build the emotional bonds that come as a result.

There are effective means of managing stress and the symptoms that are lumped together and called ADHD. A ketogenic diet that is free from grain, low in carbs and high in saturated fat provides protective measures to help body and brain withstand stress. See Dr. Gabriela Segura's article The Ketogenic Diet - An Overview for more information.

Learning how to turn on the body's natural relaxation systems and turn down it's stress responses can also provide immediate and long-term relief. The breathing exercises taught in Laura Knight-Jadczyk's stress control and rejuvenation program, Éiriú Eolas, can get you there.