Ritalin Side Effects can Include Sudden Death

November 20, 2009

Examiner

By Etta Brown

After years of speculation and rare case reports, a recent FDA-funded study by The National Institute of Mental Health claims that drugs such as Ritalin – widely used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder in children – increase the risk of sudden death by five hundred percent among children and teens.

“Drugs are not the answer,” said Etta Brown, a licensed educational psychologist, veteran social worker and author of Learning Disabilities, Understanding the Problem and Managing the Challenges from Langdon Street Press. “Doctors and pharmaceutical companies are quick to tell parents there is a pill that will fix their kids, but it’s a false bill of goods. In many cases, these drugs – like Ritalin – will serve only to dull their kids’ senses and create health risks the parents could never have imagined.”

The irony of Ritalin, Brown added, is that it actually damages the neural connections needed for learning. While it may calm a hyper-active child, so that he is less of a problem in the classroom, it does not create the ability to learn.

“Another well-documented side effect of Ritalin is that it may cause a permanent tic of the face, head and neck,” Brown said. “There is a long fifty-year history of false advertising by drug companies that sell drugs with known side effects that are more damaging to the developing nervous system of children than the condition they are designed to treat.”

Between two to18 percent of American children are thought to be affected by ADHD, and Ritalin remains one of the most prescribed drugs for the behavioral disorder. This suggests that the medical approach to poorly nourished children who aren’t getting enough exercise is to dose them with a drug that is known to interfere with the development of their brains, cause permanent tics of the face, head and neck, and increase the likelihood of sudden death by 500 percent. And the FDA is not looking.

Click here for the full report