Children and Adults With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder:
In 2002, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave $750,000 to Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), a non-profit, 501(c)(3) group, to act as a national resource center on Attention- Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Meanwhile, the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have severely criticized CHADDs financial ties to the manufacturers of ADHD drugs heavily promoted by CHADD.
More than half of the drugs promoted and validated on the CHADD website are manufactured by companies that fund CHADD. CHADD also opposes any legislation that would prevent parents from being coerced into placing their child on such potentially dangerous drugs. Indeed, it attacks parents who grieve the death of their children by psychiatric drug treatmentor parents who have been terrorized with charges of medical neglect for choosing not to drug their child. CHADD makes a mockery of their pain, labeling them isolated cases whereas the truth is hundreds of parents have complained about such abuse.
Parents accuse CHADD of using taxpayers money to provide biased information, thereby denying parents access to truly informed consent from a government-funded resource center.
While CHADD accuses its critics of tossing around untruths and inaccuracies, misinformation and junk science, a close study of its website reveals CHADD to be guilty of these.
Consider the following:
In 1987, members of the American Psychiatric Association voted ADHD to be a mental disorder for inclusion in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The same year, CHADD was formed.
Within a year, 500,000 American children were said to suffer from this disorder. After a financial boost from pharmaceutical interests, the number of CHADD chapters exploded from 29 to 500.
In 1992, CHADD received $50,000 from pharmaceutical interests. By 1994, this had reached $400,000 and by 2001, $700,000.
Elliot S. Valenstein, Ph.D., author of Blaming the Brain, says such funding enables the groups to increase newspaper and magazine advertising and the information they distribute by other means. Typically, patient advocacy material has a pro-drug bias, encouraging people to seek medication often by exaggerating the effectiveness of drugs and the scientific foundation on which they rest.
In 1995, the INCB expressed concern about non-governmental organizations and parental associations in the U.S. actively lobbying for the medical use of Ritalin for children with ADHD. It said that financial transfers from a pharmaceutical company with the purpose to promote sales of an internationally controlled substance could be identified as hidden advertisement and in contradiction of the provisions of the 1971 Psychotropic Drugs Convention.
In 1995, the DEA issued a methylphenidate (Ritalin) background paper, stating: The DEA has concerns that the depth of the financial relationship with the manufacturer was not well known to the public, including CHADD members, that have relied upon CHADD for guidance as it pertains to the diagnosis and treatment of their children.
