DDS reports on Ritial and EO 13083
July 22, 1998
Folks - I just received two very welcome letters from a dental surgeon who is also a grandfather. Names have been omitted to respect privacy. Please share his letters with me.
Forest
Forest,
I just discovered your wonderful web site "uhuh" today. And while I haven't as yet explored it all, I wish to commend you for your fine efforts based solely on your alarm concerning Clinton's E.O. 13083 and your alarm over the widespread use of Ritalin, too.
Attached is a letter submitted to TIME a week ago in response to that magazine's recent focus on guns and youth violence: a letter that should reveal that this Georgia grandfather is already in your camp, my friend.
Whether TIME will see fit to publish my commentary is questionable, of course, but a fellow has to try nevertheless....
Best regards,
[xxxx], DDS
P.S. Some dentists, while perhaps not too many, take courses in economics during their undergraduate schooling (as I did in the 1960s: a semester of micro economics and another semester of macro economics). And in the business of operating a dental practice in the private sector, a dentist may learn a good bit about economics on a firsthand basis, too, I suggest.
Dear Editor:
Neither so-called "attention deficit disorder" nor its corresponding "cure," Ritalin, had been invented when I was a youngster a half century ago when disruptive school boys were spanked for misbehaving in the classroom and young uncontrollable hooligans were sent to reform school.
Today, about 1 in every 30 American school children is taking the amphetamine-like drug Ritalin on a prescription basis because these disruptive youngsters have been identified as having an abnormal, defective brain rather than being taught how to behave responsibly. If I had been told in my childhood that I had an abnormal, defective brain when I misbehaved, I suspect that I might have become extremely angry for having been born in the first place. And perhaps this feeling of anger was felt by Kip Kinkel -- was this lad not given Ritalin by his parents for an alleged brain disorder? -- and he then consequently turned that anger upon his parents for having brought him, with his defective brain, into this world to suffer the insults from other youngsters, some of whom he also shot in anger, too.
In short, I suspect that there may well be a correlation between all these youngsters being diagnosed today with abnormal, defective brains and the anger that our society is witnessing in these school-yard shootings.
Sincerely,
[ xxxx ], DDS
Forest,
Thank you for the reply.
Yes, people are indeed often reluctant to discard old beliefs, even those which are no more than groundless myths. I am sad to learn that [one close to you] will not listen to your pleas regarding [that person's] children's use of Ritalin, except to remind [that person] that:
"Labeling a child, 'mentally ill', is like hanging a sign around his or her neck saying, 'GARBAGE: take it away' ". Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry. (Quotation from Dennis H. Clarke's commentary "How Psychiatry Is Making Drug Addicts Out of America's School Children".)
I can only suggest that you buy [that person] copies of the following two books written by the same (now-retired) psychiatric expert and urge [that person] to read them both with care:
(If you deem my suggestion worthwhile, you might locate the books at http://laissezfaire.org or you may wish to contact this California bookseller at 800-326-0996 -- I assure you that I have NO financial interest in the firm whatsoever.)
You might also tell [that person] that I have a 41-year-old son who won an award in high school for his knowledge of electronics, served six years in one of our nation's armed services as a skilled electronics technician -- earning an honorable discharge -- and who also worked in the private sector as a productive electronics technician as well for about five additional years, but today cannot work anymore since his own mother unwisely deemed him to be "mentally ill" and allowed drug- pushing shrinks to lobotomize her son with their brain-destroying chemicals. The lad now suffers from "tardive dyskinesia" -- an irreversible neurological condition -- which often results from long-term psychiatric drug use. And the net result is not really too much different from the damage to a person's brain when it is cut with a surgical knife or ice pick as was Joseph P. Kennedy's first-born daughter, Rosemary -- Sen. Ted Kennedy's institutionalized sister -- so crippled in 1941. (Rosemary Kennedy's surgical lobotomy is described in Ronald Kessler's 1996 biography of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sins of the Father, pp. 238-255, and clearly seems to be a documented fact in spite of the Kennedy family's wish to obsure the matter.)
In short, while I cannot provide you with more specific information about Ritalin itself than what you apparently already possess, I can state that I have seen, on a firsthand basis, how other so-called "therapeutic" drugs which are widely prescribed by many psychiatrists in our society essentially do little more than destroy the lives of the hapless victims who are labelled as "mentally ill" and thereby forced to take these neuron-damaging substances.
And if [that person] pays federal taxes, you might also inform [that person] that [that person] now helps to support my once-productive 41-year-old son because he has been forced to live largely on federal SSI payments over the past eleven years since his psychiatric-drug-induced neurological damage prevents him from using his hands -- his hands shake with uncontrollable tremor -- and also since his once-admirable math skills, for the most part, have been destroyed, too. But warning people about Ritalin and other crippling psychiatric drugs is a difficult task; I was unable to convince my son's mother that the steps she took with his life in 1987 would likely destroy her grown son and his future as a productive, contributing member of our society. I suspect, however, that she largely agrees with me today about that issue although, of course, the damage cannot be rectified.
One last point:
SSI expenditures constitute a rapidly-growing segment of our Social Security funding problems today, and much of the exploding SSI growth is fueled from so-called "mental illness" as drug-pushing shrinks drive to the bank in their Cadillacs and BMWs....
[ xxxx ], DDS
** uhuh ** The President said he is reducing taxes.
uhuh.
Congress says they are balancing the budget.
uhuh. Sez who?
and Force Congress to
Kick the Debt & Taxes Habit with
$$ Money System Honesty for Us People. $$
We demand the whole truth with an honest viewpoint.
Don't send money. Call Jo(e) Congress and send letters.
Forest Glen Durland, CEO. 14675 1/2 Big Basin Way, Saratoga, CA 95070-6081
(408) 867-4410; forest@uhuh.com
Web Home Page: www.uhuh.com