Sharon A. Collins, MD, pediatrician
"I am a mother first and a doctor second... The principles in this book help us as parents to empower our children to be successful in life."

Ronald David, M.D., Pediatrician and Medical Director, D.C. Health and Hospitals Public Benefits Corporation
"As medical director of D.C. General Hospital, I intend to make this book required reading for all child care providers on my staff."

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Ph.D, former projects director of the Freud Archives and author of Dogs Never Lie about Love and When Elephants Weep
"Every child needs a hero - a champion who will speak truth to power. That hero is Peter Breggin. When he writes on behalf of children and caring parents, the world should stand up and take notice. This book is packed with information needed by anyone who is considering prescribing psychiatric drugs to children."

Book Description
Ritalin, Dexedrine, Adderall, Desoxyn, Gradumet, Cylert.... Have you ever wondered whether your child's behavior might be helped by these drugs? Has a teacher or doctor suggested this to you? If so, you need the facts - facts that most doctors can't tell you because even doctors haven't been told the truth about the drugs that they prescribe.

In this compassionate and compelling book. Dr. Breggin shows why our children need education, not medication. TALKING BACK TO RITALIN empowers parents to transform distracted, disenchanted and energetic children into powerful, confident and brilliant members of the family and society.

If you like facts, here's one: children who were prescribed Ritalin in childhood are three times more likely to use cocaine later in life. Don't try to tell me that this is because their "biochemically defective brains" cause them to make bad choices and use drugs. I don't buy it. And I also don't buy that many don't seem to think that ADHD children are our "best and our brightest", as Peter Breggin believes. I have actually found data that says that ADHD tends to disappear once the child is past school age, and that many of these children tend to do well as artisans or at other jobs where they work "on their feet" when they grow up. Albert Einstein is thought to have had ADHD, and a teacher once wrote on his report card, "You'll never amount to anything." What if Einstein had taken Ritalin? Would he have reached his full potential with his brilliant mind altered by speed? I doubt it.

Here's another fact: the U.S. makes and consumes 90% of the world's Ritalin. If it were true that "untreated" ADHD led to kids committing crimes, then we'd see a rash of crimes in other countries that don't use Ritalin. Obviously, the pill solution isn't working, because plenty of kids in this country are shooting their classmates and planting bombs in schools. You don't see this in other countries. In two of the school shootings in recent years, the shooter was taking a mind-altering drug. Who's to say that the drug didn't contribute to or even cause the teens' behavior and make them violence-prone?

See online biography and comments by Peter Breggin.

PETER R. BREGGIN, M. D., is a leading critic of psychiatric drugs and the psycho-pharmaceutical complex. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Case Western Reserve Medical School, and was formerly a teaching fellow at Harvard Medical School and a full-time consultant with the National Institute of Mental Health. He is the director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry and has been in the full-time practice of psychiatry in Bethesda, Maryland, since 1968. Dr. Breggin is the author, with Ginger Ross Breggin, of Talking Back to Prozac and The War Against Children.

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