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 BregginI think that's a major reason. Instead of turning in their own lives to philosophy, religion, love, family life, or nature, they think of psychiatry; and today that means the "pill" as an ultimate answer. Also, if you have a desire for social control, "benevolent" control and "benevolent" authority, then again biological psychiatry offers a tremendous opportunity.
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[Hillary Clinton] is giving money to N.I.M.H. [National Institute for Mental Health] ultimately to conduct more experiments on two- to four-year-olds. What they're going to do is conduct a lot of clinical studies which actually drug two- to four-year-olds.
Peter BregginHillary [Clinton] even said that, whether or not teenagers want treatment, they have to get it. So it's involuntary treatment.
Peter Breggin