The CancerCoverUp.com, APRIL 2005 Newsletter, BRAVE NEW WORLD? Part Two

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The CancerCoverUp.com Monthly Newsletter | APRIL 2005 |

Volume 4, Issue 4

 

Mon, 4 Apr 2005 16:00:16 -0700

 

http://www.cancercoverup.com/newsletter/print-version/brave-new-world_02.asp

 

BRAVE NEW WORLD?

Part Two

By Kathleen Deoul

( Part One)

 

One of the relationships our society and culture hold most sacred is

the bond between parents and their children. Underlying this central

societal value is the fundamental assumption that parents are the

individuals most likely to put a child's welfare ahead of all other

considerations. For the most part, history has amply demonstrated the

truth of this assumption. Of course, there are always exceptions to

the general assumption that parents are the best guardians of child

welfare, but our society also has enacted laws to address cases of

unfit parents or child abuse - laws that are intended to further

protect children.

 

Today, however, these laws are being applied in ways that make a

mockery of their original intent to engage in what is tantamount to

state-sponsored child abuse!

 

With increasing frequency, child abuse laws are being used by faceless

bureaucrats to force parents to administer powerful, dangerous and

often unnecessary psychotropic drugs to children as young as three

years of age; in more than one case, with tragic results.

 

Take for example, the case of Patty Weathers.

PATTY'S STORY

 

Patty's story began with an experience more and more common to parents

of school-aged children.

 

When Michael was in the first grade, teachers at Millbrook Elementary

School in Dutchess County, New York contacted Patty to tell her that

they believed that he was exhibiting symptoms of

Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder. If she did not have him

medicated, they would transfer him to special education classes.

 

Like any parent told their child was suffering from an illness, Patty

initially deferred to the " experts. " She took Michael to see a

pediatrician, who, after a few minutes reviewing the file the school

had prepared on Michael prescribed Ritalin for him.

 

But instead of getting better, Michael kept getting worse.

 

He suffered from insomnia and lost his appetite. He began to exhibit

anti-social behavior and experience acute anxiety. He would chew on

his shirtsleeves, collar and pencils. He even once tried to eat a test

sheet.

 

School officials told the increasingly distraught step mom that

Michael was bipolar and suffered from social anxiety disorder. The

answer, of course, was more medicine - this time a cocktail of

Dextrostat and Paxil. Dextrostat is the generic name for Adderall and

is an amphetamine or " upper. "

 

Canada recently banned the use of Adderall for ADHD due to its

association with strokes, heart problems and sudden death in children.

Paxil has never been approved for use by children and is associated

with an increased risk of suicide, depression and hostile behavior in

children and teens.

 

Despite all of the drugs and diagnoses, Michael's behavior continued

to deteriorate. Things came to a head when he said to Patty:

 

" Mom, make it stop - there's a person inside my head telling me to

do bad things! "

 

Michael was becoming psychotic!

 

Patty had heard enough. She stopped Michael's medication in December

of 1999.

 

This did not, however, sit well with the school bureaucrats who saw

her action as a challenge to their authority.

 

They refused to allow Michael to return to class without medication

and filed a complaint with the New York State Department of Children

and Family services charging Patty with child abuse!

 

In their complaint, the school bureaucrats said:

 

" His behavior at school is bizarre: He hears voices and appears

delusional, he chews on his clothes and paper, he talks to himself and

rambles when he talks. "

 

Of course there was no mention of the fact that he did not begin

exhibiting these symptoms until AFTER he was placed on the powerful drugs!

 

Ironically, Patty had to have Michael examined by an independent

psychiatrist to prove her innocence.

 

His conclusion?

 

Michael's bizarre behavior was being caused by the drugs!

 

Unfortunately the behavior was not the only side effect of the medication.

 

Six months after Michael was taken off the drugs, a doctor discovered

that he had developed a heart murmur - one of the potential side

effects of Ritalin.

 

Patty has now sued school officials for wrongly filing medical neglect

charges and a District Federal Court Judge William Connors has

dismissed the school system's motion to dismiss the case.

 

In his decision Judge Connors cited a 1991 case in which District

Court Judge Martin F. Loughlin ruled that a school district in New

Hampshire could bar nine-year old Casey Jesson from regular classrooms

for failing to take a stimulant.

 

Unfortunately, these two cases are not unique.

MEDICATE OR ELSE!

 

In the Bronx, Michelle Lawson was pressured by school officials to put

her 6-year old on psychotropic drugs after they " diagnosed " him as

suffering from ADHD.

 

And what were his symptoms?

 

Apparently he son Dominick

 

" …was disorganized, forgetful, and had a problem sitting in his seat. "

 

While this sort of behavior might not seem all that unusual in a

6-year old to you and me, to the elementary school bureaucrats it was

apparently a sign of serious psychotic disturbance. They placed

increasing pressure on Michelle to medicate her child. When she

complained to the district superintendent's office it only made

matters worse!

 

Finally caving into the intense pressure, she took Dominick to the New

York Psychiatric Hospital to be examined.

 

That was when she got the next shock.

 

All that the doctor did was review the school's report and have a

brief talk with Dominick. On the basis of that cursory examination he

wrote a prescription for Ritalin for Michelle's son!

 

Unsatisfied, Michelle continued to resist medicating her son, and that

is when the final shoe dropped.

 

If she did not give Dominick the powerful psychotropic drug, they

said, they would have her charged with child abuse, her parental

rights would be terminated and they would take her son away!

 

At this point, despite the fact that it was an enormous financial

burden, Michelle took Dominick out of public school and enrolled him

in a private school.

A FATHER FIGHTS BACK!

 

Chad Taylor, a New Mexico resident had a similar experience. His son,

Daniel was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin.

 

Chad soon noticed, however, that after going on Ritalin Daniel began

suffering from insomnia and had lost his appetite. Since he knew that

these were both potential side effects of Ritalin, he took Daniel off

the drug and his condition soon improved.

 

But then school officials found out what he had done and filed a

complaint with the state's child welfare authorities.

 

The next thing Chad knew, a detective and child welfare worker showed

up at his door threatening to have him arrested for child abuse and

neglect if he did not put his son back on the medication.

 

Fortunately for Chad, his story gained the attention of the media and

was covered by the local ABC affiliate. For the moment, the media

spotlight seems to have cowed the New Mexico state bureaucrats, and he

is keeping Daniel off Ritalin. He says he will continue to do so even

if they try to make good on their threat, Chad is ready to resist. He

says defiantly:

 

" Yeah, I'll go to jail for it. I'll go as long as I have to. "

 

A FIVE YEAR NIGHTMARE

 

For New York State resident Cindy Gallaher, there was never any

question as to the source of her son Daniel Rosecrans problem, and it

was not ADHD!

 

When Daniel was three, he experienced a severe exposure to carbon

monoxide caused by a leaky furnace and suffered brain damage that

affected his behavior. On entering kindergarten Daniel experienced

difficulty learning as a result of his brain injury. Even though the

cause was physical, school bureaucrats insisted that the cause was

ADHD and demanded that he be medicated. When Cindy resisted their

demand, they took her to court and forced her to medicate Daniel.

 

The next two years were a nightmare.

 

First they put Daniel on Ritalin, and then, when it didn't work (which

it wouldn't because the cause was a physical injury) they kept

changing medications, ultimately trying five over the next two years.

 

Meanwhile, Daniel was becoming suicidal and psychotic under the

influence of the powerful psychotropic drugs he was getting. Desperate

to save her child, Cindy tried to solve the problem by moving from New

York to another state, only to have officials there also obtain a

court order forcing her to drug her child.

 

The result?

 

Daniel was hospitalized three times due to psychosis!

 

Four new medications later - none of which were approved for use in

children - Cindy moved a third time to escape the court-ordered

medication of her child. But the long arm of New York State reached

out and persuaded officials in the third state Cindy had moved to in

search of a safe haven for Daniel to again order her child be

medicated. New York had convinced local officials that Daniel not only

suffered from ADHD but was bipolar as well.

 

The result this time?

 

Daniel was hospitalized three times and became extremely suicidal and

psychotic.

 

Desperate for a resolution and fearing for her son's life, Cindy moved

back to New York State in a bid to force her ex-husband's insurance

company to pay for a brain scan for Daniel. She hoped that this would

produce evidence of brain damage from the carbon monoxide poisoning

she could use to convince New York officials that his problem was

physical, not mental.

 

Still, her nightmare did not end.

 

New York's Child Protective Services immediately obtained an order

forcing Cindy to medicate Daniel and as before, a series of

hospitalizations followed. During one of the hospitalizations he was

given the powerful psychotropic drug Thorazine a medication normally

used for such serious mental illnesses as schizophrenia. After four

hospitalizations and five different drug regimes, Daniel was forced to

enter a residential treatment center. There his nightmare was further

compounded by physical assault and sexual abuse.

 

What is perhaps hardest to believe, but nonetheless true, is that even

after Cindy produced the brain scan proving Daniel's brain injury and

that he did not have ADHD, the state of New York STILL insisted that

she medicate him.

 

Eventually, Cindy was able to move to Virginia with Daniel, but is

still subject to the New York court order that says she must medicate

Daniel if it is needed. Fortunately, she was able to get neurologists

in Virginia to acknowledge that the child does, indeed have a brain

injury, and does not " need " medication.

 

Finally drug free, Daniel is beginning to make progress in developing

self-control without the use of the powerful psychotropic drugs that

once were his only reality. Unfortunately, the five years of forced

medication Daniel underwent as a result of the New York court order

have left him with a severely damaged neurological system as well as

deep psychological scars. He suffers from low self-esteem and an

inability to trust - small wonder considering what he went through.

 

He, at least, is alive. The same cannot be said for Shaina Dunkle.

LITTLE GIRL LOST

 

Vicki Dunkle remembers her daughter Shaina as an effervescent child.

Active in dance classes, Girl Scouts, piano lessons, softball and all

of the other things a healthy young girl would be involved in, she was

naturally enthusiastic.

 

But this proved her undoing.

 

In 1999 when Shaina was in the second grade, her teachers complained

that she was " too active " and " talked too much. " Responding to teacher

complaints, the school called in a psychiatrist who didn't even bother

to perform any diagnostic tests of physical examination before

diagnosing Shaina as suffering from ADHD.

 

His answer to her problem?

 

Drugs.

 

Two years later on a visit to her doctor, Shaina suffered a seizure

and died in her mother's arms within minutes. Since that time, Vicki

Dunkle has had to live with the image of looking at her daughter's

shocked expression and into her questioning eyes as the life quickly

drained from her young body. Her pain has not diminished with time.

 

" It's been two years and I relive those last few minutes every

day. Believe me, it is a nightmare no parent should ever have to live

with. "

 

An autopsy performed after Shaina's death told the tale: she died from

toxic levels of the psychiatric drug she had been prescribed.

 

Nor are these examples unique. A recent study of coerced drug use

identified 134 recent cases in just the five top states: California,

41, New York, 36, Georgia, 29, Florida, 26 and Maryland, 25!

THE FOSTER CARE OUTRAGE

 

As great as the danger of being forced to take psychotropic drugs may

be for children living with their parents, their risk pales in

comparison with that of children who are wards of the state. All

across the country, state welfare systems are routinely using

psychotropic drugs as a way of controlling their young charges.

 

For example, in Florida, nearly one in four foster children are taking

at least one mood altering drug and nearly one in ten is taking at

least three psychotropic drugs simultaneously. Nearly 1,900 are taking

antidepressants such as Paxil and Zoloft - drugs that are linked to a

significantly increased risk of suicide in children.

 

A consultant hired by the state to investigate the inappropriate use

of psychiatric drugs to control behavior problems identified 1,273

specific cases where they found " questions about the appropriateness "

of the use of these powerful medications.

 

In Massachusetts 12,722 of the 19,856 children in the care of the

Department of Social Services received either inpatient or outpatient

mental health counseling or treatment in 2003. This means that

two-thirds of the children cared for by the state were seen as having

some type of psychiatric problem! This compares with National

Institutes of Mental Health estimates that 2.5 percent of children and

up to 8.3 percent of adolescents suffer from depression and that 4.1

percent of children between the ages of 9 and 17 suffer from ADHD.

Even though these figures have been criticized as overestimates, they

do not begin to approach the percentages in the Massachusetts DSS system!

 

But the problem is not limited to one state.

 

A study by the University of Chicago found that 37 percent of the 17

year-old foster children cared for by the state had received mental

health counseling and fully one-quarter had been prescribed

psychiatric drugs.

 

In California, an investigation found that children under state care

were routinely given psychotropic drugs to control their behavior.

BRAVE NEW WORLD REDUX

 

If there were clear evidence that the drugs were safe and of great

benefit to the children who take them, there might be an argument for

their use, but there is NO argument that could possibly forcing

parents to medicate their children against their wishes.

 

When the drugs in question carry the significant sorts of risks

associated with Ritalin, and Dextrostat such pressures are an

unspeakable outrage!

 

When questions exist as to whether the disease the drugs are

prescribed for even exists, that outrage is compounded.

 

When the real reason the medications are being prescribed is that

school officials are too lazy to accommodate the normal behavior of

children, the outrage is a pernicious cancer undermining the health of

our society.

 

Like the " controllers " in Aldous Huxley's " Brave New World " our

nation's education bureaucrats are attempting to create a generation

of docile, malleable automatons that conform to the norms they have

defined as determining acceptable behavior. To these education

autocrats, the fact that they may also be creating a generation of

people addicted to powerful psychotropic drugs, stifling individuality

and needlessly scarring the psyches of thousands is of little

consequence. All they care about is enforcing conformity, no matter

what the cost.

 

But they can only carry out their policy of using drugs to control our

children if we let them - if we accept their labeling and medicating

the young without question or opposition. So stand up and speak out.

Remember, one voice can be silenced, but many voices make a chorus

that cannot be ignored!