 |
The Link Between Milk and Juvenile Diabetes My Little Shop of Horrors Website | |
A WORD FROM PETER SKLAR REGARDING ADD/ADHD
Thirty years of intensive work with thousands of young people, including conferences with physicians, teachers, nutritionists, psychologists and various child-care specialists, along with years of carefully reviewing clinical and published research, has convinced me that those diagnosed and categorized with the above labels (and similar labels: "Hyperactivity", "Conduct Disorder", etc.) are usually bright, sensitive, energetic, expressive, creative young people who may have problems in areas such as self-discipline, or much more likely, are suffering from a chronic over-consumption of refined carbohydrates and stimulants such as sugar and caffeine, or food or environmental allergies and/or over-exposure to chemical toxins. Please consider carefully the simple fact that until one has eliminated stimulants and neurotoxins such as sugar, caffeine, and food and chemical allergens from a child’s brain, there is absolutely no way whatsoever to make a valid, objective assessment of a child’s cognitive functioning condition, much less to accurately diagnose a so-called “disorder”. I hope this makes sense to you. Further, there is absolutely no research whatsoever to support the existence of such a disorder. Let me say that again. There exists absolutely NO known science or study that shows any difference whatsoever —biological, anatomical, neurological or chemical—between the physical brain composition of non-medicated children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD and so-called “normal” children. None. This is a fact. And it renders every single diagnosis of ADD or ADHD, no matter by whom, merely an unsubstantiated opinion. (Incidentally, this is despite millions and millions of pharmaceutical research dollars that have been devoted in an effort to prove otherwise.) Additionally, most of these children are too often forced to spend far too many of their formative waking hours trying to survive an uninspiring educational environment.
I have in fact repeatedly found that the principal difference between “normal” students and those prescribed narcotics such as Ritalin, is the latter students’ inability to tolerate a combination of boredom and, more likely, a poor diet. I am further concerned by the well-documented side-effects and long-term effects of chronic stimulant usage, including significant incidence rates of stunted growth, heart disease, anxiety, mood swings, depression, violence, memory loss, apathy, insomnia and other serious problems which often occur during usage and/or upon termination of the drugs, not to mention a rampant, ever-growing number of illicit sales and abuse of such drugs by young people. There is also the stigma a child suffers being labeled with such a cognitive “disorder”. At the Beginnings Workshop, we have never experienced “deficits” in the attention and focus of our students. Not once since 1984. Perhaps this is because we place significant emphasis on health and nutrition, and because our instructors are all accomplished and inspired trade professionals who happen to love teaching. To conclude, I believe the practice of putting children on a powerful, cocaine-class of narcotics, such as Ritalin, every day, for months or years, to mask the symptoms of being over-stimulated and thereby improve their concentration, while ignoring their diet and other behavioral-related factors, and ignoring the side effects of such an invasive protocol on a developing nervous system, is reckless and simple-minded. At the Beginnings Workshop, I simply won’t allow it. I hope after reading the above, you agree.
THINK THE ABOVE IS JUST MY “OPINION”?
Students, parents, teachers or physicians who would like a staggering bibliography of solid clinical research compiled by numerous physicians, nutritionists and scientists, who are not on any pharmaceutical company payroll and who are solidly opposed to the pseudo-diagnosis of “ADD” or “ADHD”, are welcome to contact my office (petersklar@aol.com). I believe in following the science- not merely a psychiatric/pharmaceutical well-financed and well-publicized consensus of opinion.
-Peter Sklar
This page is directly from the student agreement for the Beginnings Workshop.