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ADHD Subject: Time sensitive submission re drug treatments for
ADHD diagnosed children Dear friend, This is a critical and
urgent issue, do you know of any studies…can you assist! I am writing to alert you to an issue of vital
importance to families and their children. In response to Federal Government and public
concerns about the number of children labelled with
ADHD and prescribed Schedule 8 drugs (such as Ritalin and dexamphetamine,
which are in the same category as cocaine, opium and morphine in Australia),
the new Federal Draft ADHD guidelines have been released for public comment
by the Royal Australian College of Physicians. These guidelines will be used by teachers within our
schools, doctors, the justice system and carers of
our children and they will only increase the problem of increasing numbers of
children being drugged. These guidelines recommend drugs as a first line
treatment for school children. Additional key points: • The recommendations state that
parents need to be told that elimination or restrictive diets such as
eliminating food additives and preservatives, eliminating sugar or
potentially allergenic products, may be of little or no benefit. • Further they state that the use of
dietary supplements such as essential fatty acids and homeopathy may also
have little or no benefit. • As far as chiropractic is concerned,
they say they found little evidence to assess its effectiveness and when it
comes to sport and exercise, the Guidelines state the role of these
activities has yet to be determined. • The Guidelines used an “analysis” of
studies which found that sugar does not affect a child’s behaviour
or cognitive performance! • To say that there “may be little or
no benefit to complimentary and alternative
treatments” is frankly outrageous and prevents the informed consent of
parents as there are methods that work that are not stimulant or amphetamine
based and parents need to know the alternatives to be able to give fully
informed consent. These recommendations are a degeneration of proven, tried
and workable methods. • There is no evidence in the
guidelines that they have adequately investigated other alternative
treatments including naturopathy, educational techniques, etc. • The Guidelines themselves state that there
are no tests to diagnose a child with ADHD. There are also no studies that
prove ADHD is a real medical condition. In summary, it can not therefore be scientifically proven that ADHD
exists. The guidelines go on to state that scientific evidence to support the
use of alternatives and complimentary treatments is lacking, while at the
same time admitting that there is no science to ADHD at all. In spite of
these declarations, the Guidelines still promote drugs as a first line
treatment for a condition that cannot be scientifically proven to exist. The
latter is definitely more dangerous. • The Guidelines say that 6.8% of our
children have ADHD. In a population of 4.1 million children, this is a
staggering 278, 000 children. Currently there are
40,174 children on these drugs subsidized by the Pharmaceutical Benefits
Scheme. The instance of child drugging could escalate by well over 600% as a
result of these Guidelines being issued. We ask that you apprise the Royal and Australian
College of Physicians of any studies that you have access to, that show
efficacy of alternative treatments. We also request that you ask them to
actually meet the criteria in their recommendations of informed consent as
parents must be told of all the alternatives. Information on how to submit
studies and do a submission is below. Submissions close on the 28th of July
2008. Please also write to the Federal Health Minister and
your state Health Minister. Contact the media to alert them to these alarming
recommendations and inform as many people as possible so that they too can
take action to ensure that parents and families are properly informed on this
key issue concerning the well-being of our children. (Excerpt from RACP website) "The RACP invite you to make a submission on
the draft Guidelines on ADHD." "The closing date for submissions is 5pm AEST
Monday 28 July." http://www.racp.edu.au/index.cfm?objectid=6EBAB63E-FFF9-2CED-52102DC3369183AB Please do not hesitate to contact CCHR for further
information. Become
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