If you've heard Hillary Clinton's recent remarks on Ritalin and other drug use on children, you'll find the usual nauseating demagoguery. She appears to be urging Ritalin caution; but, if you listen carefully, she's calling it a miracle drug: "A Godsend for emotional and behavioral problems, for both children and their parents." She insists her efforts are not an attack on the medical treatment of children's emotional well-being because the drugs are very, very "useful."
Peter BregginIn part I'm just mystified. Here's a woman, Hillary [Clinton], who wrote a book about it takes a "village" to raise children. It wasn't about a book about "it takes a pill." There's a "double think" that the modern person often has. Anything that's called "science" is accepted as an absolute and sweeps reason away.
Peter BregginThe N.I.M.H. spent multi-millions of dollars on [Ritalin studies], and they're going to do the same thing now with little kids. And despite the millions spent, the N.I.M.H. study wasn't even conducted according to accepted scientific procedures and is basically worthless.
Peter BregginIt's going to get even worse if Hillary [Clinton] follows her plan that I describe in Reclaiming Our Children. But even now in many, many schools the nurses are giving out more drugs than were given out in children's mental hospitals when I was in training. You can go into a school today and find that ten or twenty percent of the boys are on drugs given by the school nurse. I just recently visited a school where over half of the children were being given drugs.
Peter BregginParents must refuse to cooperate with any psychological evaluation of their children in school.
Peter BregginI think the first thing parents need to start doing is absolutely refuse to cooperate with any psychological evaluation of children in school. Schools should not be mental hospitals. Parents should say that the only tests they want their children to have are those respecting their academic subjects and nothing else.
Peter Breggin