Spirit of Ma'at
Volume 1 Oct 2000

Legal Team Alleges Ritalin Conspiracy

Was ADHD invented to make money
for doctors and the drug companies?
''The lawyers who brought you suits over tobacco, guns and health-maintenance organizations have a new target: Ritalin.'' Thus begins a recent article in the New York Times by Wall Street Journal staff reporter Richard B. Schmitt. The remainder of this report summarizes the original Times article, which was not available for reprint.


A group of lawyers, reveals the Times article, are filing multibillion-dollar lawsuits against Novartis, manufacturer of Ritalin, and the American Psychiatric Association, among others, for allegedly conspiring to invent the ADHD disease descriptions relied upon by current medical practice -- all in order to create a market for the drug. The lawsuit was filed toward the end of this September. The Times opines that these cases, which were filed in both California and New Jersey, will give rise to similar lawsuits in other states.

Another named defendant in these lawsuits is CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), a nonprofit support group which ''has received financial backing from Novartis, according to the suit'' [Times].

The legal team is being spearheaded by Richard Scruggs, Esq., who was instrumental in negotiating the groundbreaking punitive settlements with the tobacco industry in 1998. He is claiming that the Ritalin defendants ''manufactured a disease,'' that the drug has been ''grossly over-prescribed,'' and that Ritalin constitutes a ''huge risk'' to children.

Scruggs is seeking to have the lawsuits receive class-action status. The lawsuits contend that ''Novartis and Ciba-Geigy, the original developers of Ritalin, along with the psychiatric association, conspired to create a broad-based definition of hyperactivity disorders in the standard medical text used by doctors,'' the Times alleges, and goes on to say that this conspiracy, according to the complaints, ''has had the effect of boosting sales and profits. Subsequently, Novartis and Ciba-Geigy employed false and misleading advertising, which played down the drugs' side-effects, and oversold the benefits.''

Hope for Persecuted Physician

The Times article implies that this lawsuit may eventually serve to vindicate Robert Sinaiko, M.D., a California doctor who is currently being persecuted by the Medical Board of California (MBC), apparently because he balks at the kneejerk prescription of Ritalin for small children before the causes of their behavior have even been studied. Sinaiko formed ''Progress in Medicine Foundation Medical Defense Fund,'' which has raised nearly $300,000 to help defend his courageous stance. (You may find out how to help by visiting the Defense Fund website.)

Sinaiko supporters include the ''health freedom movement,'' the California Medical Association (CMA), The Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL), and many highly regarded expert witnesses nationwide, all of whom have been labeled ''not credible'' by the MBC. In denigrating Sinaiko's witnesses, the MBC ludicrously includes in the ''not credible'' category such eminent individuals as Dr. Phil Lee -- currently the chief health adviser for Gray Davis, and formerly President Clinton's Assistant Secretary of Health.

The MBC's actions are being seen as an extension of what has been called the ''Quackbuster Conspiracy'' -- notorious attempts by the Federation of States Medical Boards and others to label as ''fraud'' the entire field of alternative medicine!

Recent Research Implicate Diet
in 85 Percent of Cases Studied

Contradicting this amazing view of alternative health care is the Feingold Association, which the Times terms ''a non-profit group which helps parents check their children's diets to determine if something in their eating habits may be causing childhood problems.'' And, ''Feingold proponents challenge so-called 'conventional' wisdom that diet doesn't account for more than 5% of hyperactivity problems. Health activists say that the so-called 'conventional' wisdom people are using only studies completed before 1982 -- and ignoring more recent studies which indicate that 85 percent of children can be helped by a change in diet.''

You will find information about this and other approaches to helping hyperkinetic children throughout our magazine. Stay tuned for developments about this lawsuit.

 

 

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