ON 28 FEBRUARY last year I planned a meeting in London with Steve Baldwin, professor of psychology at the University of Teesside. I am head of the Overload Network, a charity based in Edinburgh that researches the trend towards medicating children who show emotional or behavioural disturbances. We weren鈥檛 exactly going for a night on the town鈥攋ust an evening debate at the Institute of Psychiatry.
Steve, a social psychologist, had strayed into this field simply because he was interested in the politics of organisational dissent鈥攁nd then became interested in the subject matter of our dissent. He found that a US National Institutes of Health study concluded in November 1998 that no valid test for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) existed, and that there was 鈥渘o data to indicate that ADHD was due to a brain malfunction鈥�. He concluded that the diagnosis was an insidious form of social control and a label for what was once the exuberance of youth.
The drug commonly prescribed for ADHD is methylphenidate (Ritalin), an amphetamine-like substance that mimics the biochemical properties of cocaine. Department of Health figures showed 600 prescriptions for children and teenagers in Britain in 1994. Steve was appalled to learn that there were 114,000 in the first nine months of 1999鈥攏ot counting prescriptions in young offenders鈥� centres or the private sector.
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So in the summer of 2000, Steve and I opened the only clinic in Britain for children withdrawing from psychiatric drugs, at the University of Teesside. Within two days of our first newspaper article we鈥檇 had 350 enquiries from parents.
Many of their children were on a cocktail of psychiatric drugs. Some were even on risperidone, an antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia in over-14s. We found it used on kids as young as 8. And there was an 18-month-old on methylphenidate.
We started a study of 100 parents and their children. This quickly revealed that none of the parents knew the pharmacology of the drugs. All the children were suffering effects that included psychosis, hallucinations, anorexia, severe aggression and serious self-harm.
Now we felt that we had enough to take on the Institute of Psychiatry. We each set off to offer our side of the debate as strongly as we could. I went by plane, Steve by train. When he failed to arrive at his hotel, I feared something must be up. I was right. The 05.15 from Darlington had struck a Land Rover that crashed onto the track near Selby. It derailed, killing 10 people. Steve was one.
The debate went ahead and I attended, but was unable to contribute coherently. After Steve鈥檚 death we did manage to complete our study, and it was finally published in the The International Journal of Risk and Safety of Medicine (vol 13, p 203).
But there was no one else to take over Steve鈥檚 responsibilities at the clinic. And his work teaching students about alternatives to medication for children with problems was only at its earliest stages. The centre closed.
Now we have funding for a year. We are seeking to use our charitable status and university home to raise more formal funding for the future. And when we open our doors in a week or two we expect the parents and children to flood back. Steve鈥檚 legacy is that they have somewhere to come.