400,000 children are given 'good behaviour' drug

[Guest guest]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS & grid= & xml=/health/2006\

/09/25/nkids23.xml

400,000 children are given 'good behaviour' drug

(Filed: 25/09/2006)

a.. Your view: Daily Telegraph campaign to halt 'death of childhood'

Zac Goldsmith, one of Cameron's key policy advisers, yesterday

backed the Hold on to Childhood coverage in The Daily Telegraph and said he was

worried at the ease with which doctors prescribed pills to tackle children's

emotional upsets.

The multi-millionaire environmental campaigner said that a proper

investigation would " almost certainly " reveal a link between pollutants in

children's food and the surge in childhood depression and behavioural problems.

Mr Goldsmith, who is deputy chairman of the Conservatives' quality of life

policy group and editor of the Ecologist, said it was up to the medical

profession to find out why there had been a huge increase in the diagnosis of

psychological disorders in children in recent years, and not just to " patch it

up with drugs " .

On Monday his magazine will publish a detailed report into the crisis of

British childhood, echoing many of the themes of Hold on to Childhood, which was

itself sparked by a letter from 110 children's experts, authors and doctors.

The Ecologist article, written by Ragg, a former Leeds University

lecturer and mother of two, points out that almost 400,000 children were last

year prescribed Ritalin, a drug almost unknown in Britain in the early 1990s.

It argues that this is symptomatic of a sudden and dangerous crisis facing

our next generation. Mrs Ragg said: " Childhood is no longer childhood for the

vast majority of children and I think this Government has been absolutely

appalling to children.

" They have provided financial incentives to parents to go back to work,

and pressurised them to send children to nurseries by implying that their

children will be economically, academically and culturally disadvantaged if they

aren't in a nursery by the age of two. In fact, all evidence suggests this is

the reverse of the truth.

" It may very well be that ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder]

stems from a culture in which young children are stuck in nurseries listening to

lectures about diversity when they should be out splashing in puddles and

climbing trees. "

Mr Goldsmith said yesterday: " The Telegraph's campaign to reclaim

childhood for the next generation is one I wholly support.

" We've arrived at a point where childhood, and all things that go with it,

are inconvenient, with the natural impulses of children increasingly diagnosed

as inappropriate once they enter a nursery or school environment. "

He added that he thought the NHS should stop relying on the diagnosis of

conditions such as ADHD, which usually led to the prescription of drugs such as

Ritalin.

" It's worrying that the medical establishment's default response to

behavioural difficulties is to reach for pills. Something is obviously

triggering an increase in their use and the first role of the health service

should be to identify what that is.

" If a real investigation took place we'd almost certainly discover

problems with the food children are eating. But we'd also have to confront the

fact that despite unprecedented material wealth, children aren't thriving. "

bfenton@...

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made

available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights,

democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This

constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in

Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is

distributed without profit.