Posted on 08/08/2002 1:36:17 PM PDT by NYer
MILLBROOK, N.Y. (AP) _ A mother says her son's behavioral problems got worse after school officials gave her an ultimatum: Put the first-grader on Ritalin or he'll be placed in special education classes.
Patricia Weathers has filed notice that she will sue the Millbrook Central School District on behalf of her son, Michael Mozer, for the mental and physical pain she says he suffered for two years starting in 1997. Michael, she said, had trouble focusing and was easily distracted. Officials in the Dutchess County school referred her son to a pediatrician who prescribed Ritalin, Weathers said. By the third grade, Michael was suffering from insomnia, he lost his appetite and was so anxious he chewed his shirt sleeves, collars and pencils, Weathers said.
School officials suggested more medication, she said. Michael began taking another version of Ritalin plus Paxil, an anti-anxiety drug. ``He was having side effects that were making him literally psychotic at one point,'' she said Thursday. Michael's behavior improved on weekends and over breaks, when she would not give him the drugs, she said. She finally stopped medicating her son in December 1999 after he told her voices in his head were telling him to do bad things, she said.
Michael, now 12, was prohibited from entering the school, Weathers said. She now home-schools him and another son. In February 2000, school officials filed a complaint against Weathers with the state Department of Children and Family Services, she said. An investigation cleared her of wrongdoing after independent psychiatric evaluations found her son's sickness was related to the drugs, she said. An employee in Millbrook Superintendent W. Michael Mahoney's office said the district would not comment. The Department of Children and Family Services declined comment citing confidentiality, a spokesman said.
Weathers said she also believes Michael's heart murmur, heard during an examination six months after he was taken off medication, was caused by Ritalin. An exam last year found the murmur was within normal limits. She also claims the drug stunted his growth. Treating Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder with stimulants including Ritalin ``has been associated with small decreases in body weight and height, which do not appear to be clinically significant,'' said Gina Moran, a spokeswoman for Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp, the company that makes Ritalin. Weathers' lawyer, Alan Milstein, declined to discuss particulars of the case but told the New York Post in Thursday's editions he would file the suit in about two weeks. Weathers has started a group called Parents for Label and Drug-Free Education, and said she is in touch with more than 100 parents across the country. Lawsuits similar to Weathers' have been filed against other school districts but were dismissed, Moran said.
A class-action lawsuit accusing Novartis, the American Psychiatric Association and others of encouraging overdiagnosis of children's behavioral disorders to boost sales of Ritalin was dismissed in March.
As far as the teacher claiming that only SHE can diagnose ADHD and not a doctor--I am not doubting that she told you that, however, I am appalled at the arrogance behind that statement.
As far as teachers making a diagnosis and recommendation for medication, the school district that you mention is operating out of the IDEA guidelines and is vulnerable for any number of lawsuits.
Look up IDEA and read what the government says schools may and may not do. I will guarantee you that prescribing medication is NOT listed.
Dr. Paul Wender is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Univ. of Utah.
He claims practically anyone can diagnose ADHD and he INVENTED the diagnosis while at NIMH in the '70s.
The schools can pressure parents in any number of ways to drug their kids, whether it be directly or indirectly. They did it to my wife and me, and they do it to parents every day. Get serious.
We finally figured out that she was bored and not challenged enough. So we worked with the school on that. Today she is in 7th grade, a straight A+ student. The teachers let her do a lot of extra credit assignments.
We were lucky. She goes to parochial school. I'm sure if she had gone to the local public school, they would have pushed much harder for medicating her.
Worse, I fear that since Ritalin use is so high in public schools that the normal kids will all be diagnosed as "hyperactive" when they're sitting in a classroom where 75% of the kids are doped up. The doped up kids will become the "norm" everyone is compared against. It starts a chain reaction--call it the "drugging down" of the classroom.
Probably a typo. I just noticed the zero is right above the O key on the keyboard.
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