Bad Science Of Drugging Boys

Bad Parenting Is To Blame.
Scientists claim to have found a genetic cause for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), which supposedly affects one in 50 UK children.
If further research provides conclusive proof of these findings, I will believe it is a brain disorder rather than a behavioural problem.
Until then, I will continue to believe that bad parenting is to blame.
Too many parents want to blame their lazy upbringing of children on this or that syndrome.
There always has to be a complex medical reason for kids behaving badly, not just a failure of their own responsibility.
Child psychiatrists totally refute the theory of genetic causation.
Clinical psychologist Oliver James makes a compelling case that high levels of cortisone, a function of parental care, are to blame.
( Paul Routledge, 01.10.2010 )

The Fanatics Who Want To Drug Normal Children.
The latest propaganda for the non-existent complaint ‘ADHD’ was torn to shreds on Radio 4’s Today programme by Oliver James, despite highly unhelpful interruptions by the presenter Justin Webb.
‘Evidence’ of a genetic link is nothing of the sort.
Even if it were, the fanatics who want to drug normal children and excuse our society’s selfish, horrible treatment of them, have to solve this problem.
How can you have a ‘genetic link’ to a complaint for which there is no objective diagnoses?
What is it linked to?
( Peter Hitchens, 03.10.2010 )

Bad Science Of Drugging Boys.
A shocking £31million is spent each year on prescriptions for powerful mind-altering drugs given to children with the fictional complaint called ADHD.
This should stop immediately, as should the large payments of disability living allowance to many of the families involved.
There is no objective diagnosis for ‘ADHD’, a complaint invented by psychiatrists and drug companies.
Its alleged ‘symptoms’ are felt not by supposed patients but by exasperated adults trying to cope with boys (it’s mainly boys) who get too little exercise, sleep and authority, watch too much TV, play too many computer games, eat and drink junk food and are then forced to endure school lessons of crushing boredom conducted by women who don’t understand small boys.
I continue to be amazed all the ‘bad science’ gurus have not turned their searchlights on this fantasy.
( Peter Hitchens, 16.05.2010 )

Babies Dumped In South Africa.
Outside the Berea Baptist Mission Church, in one of the most crime-ridden streets in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, there’s a ‘baby bin’.
A bit like a clothing recycling bin on a UK high street, it consists of a hatch in the church wall, covered by a metal flap labelled ‘Door of Hope’, where desperate mothers can come, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to leave tiny children they haven’t the money, health or support to care for.
Sixteen babies are routinely dumped in the box behind the flap every month (about the same number that are abandoned in the UK in a whole year).
The baby bin was installed in 1999 by the church’s pastor Cheryl Allen, after she realised that newborns were being left by their mothers to die in toilets, rubbish bins, in fields and out in the bush.
It is estimated that 50 children are dumped each month in Johannesburg alone, and there are even cases of babies in refuse bags being tossed on to highways, to be run over by cars.
The Johannesburg baby bin was created as a way for women to at least abandon their children as safely as possible.
Three babies are dumped every 48 hours in KwaZulu-Natal province, where Durban is the largest city.
Shepherd’s Keep Orphanage does not have a baby bin, but its staff work closely with the Durban police, who bring them abandoned babies found in the area.
Lots of babies, found in toilets and in plastic bags, are botched abortions.
Despicable people are advertising abortions for women who are as much as seven months pregnant.
A mother takes a pill to induce early labour and thinks that she has aborted her foetus, but she hasn’t – she has given birth to a living, breathing baby, tied it up in a plastic bag and left it for dead.
Others are clearly left in the hope that someone will find and care for them – near a church or hospital, with their belongings neatly packed.
South Africa is home to the highest number of people living with HIV in the world, and half the population is below the poverty line.
The combination of these two factors makes the abandonment of newborns by their mothers a horrifying common occurrence.

Teacher Sent Home.
The only proper Conservative speech at the Tory Conference came from teacher Katherine Birbalsingh, who was sent home from her London school for speaking the truth.
I suspect that these words were the ones that caused the trouble: “I don’t think ordinary parents have any idea about what goes on in their schools. But it is totally and utterly chaotic. Teachers spend most of their time telling children to sit down or stop disrupting the class rather than teaching”.
She added that there was ‘a conspiracy of silence’ in staff rooms because teachers were too afraid of being branded as failures if they admitted how bad the true picture was.
Which I think is proved by what happened to her.
( Peter Hitchens )

Children With Asthma.
Over half of all children with asthma suffer from persistent rhinitis – a reaction to allergens from the droppings of house dust mites living in beds and soft furnishings.
Up to two million of the microscopic mites can live in the average double bed and the ordinary pillow will increase significantly in weight over six months because of their faeces.

Children Get Fat Because They Eat Junk Food.
Obesity leads to a sofa-bound lifestyle, not the other way round, an Early Bird diabetes study found.
Study director Professor Terence Wilkin, of the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, said: “It is well known less active children are fatter, but that does not mean as most people assume – inactivity leads to fatness”.

Regular Sleep Improves Their Intelligence.
Children who go to bed at the same time every night are said to improve their intelligence.
Research says youngsters who have regular bedtimes are better at languages, reading and maths than those who do not.
Those who go to bed earlier than most are also more likely to pick things up quicker.
Pre-school children who have less than the recommended eleven hours of sleep a night run the risk of falling behind.

Sex Offences Against Children.
Almost half of all sex offences in the UK are committed against children, despite them making up just 21% of the population.
The 19,250 offences made 47% of the total in 2008 / 2009.

Children Don’t Eat Enough Fish.
Millions of children in the UK may face serious health problems because their diets are too low in fish.
Fewer than one in 10 eats enough to meet guidelines.
And 90% never have Omega 3-rich oily fish, such as mackerel, sardines or herring.
Experts urge parents to change the pattern as Omega 3 acids are hugely important in developing the brain, eyes and immunity.

Allergy To Peanuts.
The number of children with a dangerous allergy to peanuts has tripled in the past decade.
Scientists found 1.4% of children in 2008 had peanut allergies, up from 0.4% in 1997.
Experts think clean houses, less children playing outside and medicines that quickly treat infections could be to blame for the rise.
They believe these factors could leave children’s immune systems more vulnerable to attacks from normally harmless food proteins.

Sleeping Parents Can Kill Their Baby.
At least 25 babies have died sleeping with an adult on a sofa in the past two years in the UK.
Previous studies showed sofa-sharing increased an infant’s risk of dying suddenly by 50-fold.
But parents still doze off on them with tots.
Cot death charity, The Foundation For The Study Of Infant Deaths, who collated the data, said it showed adults were ignoring warnings.
Infants still sleep in risky environments.

Why Do We Have To Sleep?
Sleep remains the great unsolved puzzle, the big black hole in the scientific universe.
That’s a bit of an exaggeration but it’s true that sleep is weird.
What’s it for?
And why does it come to some more easily than others?
If you don’t sleep you hallucinate and, eventually die.
Sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture.
The Americans now spend £15.6billion a year on goods and services related to sleep, and America’s National Sleep Foundation claims that 70 million Americans – that’s more than the population of France – suffer from some sort of sleeping disorder.
There are more than 80 recognised sleep disorders.
In 1975, there were only three accredited sleep laboratories in the United States.
Today there are 1,782.

Chickenpox Vaccine Not Available On NHS.
There are 700,000 cases of chickenpox in the UK every year and, while most are mild, more than 2,000 people are hospitalised because of complications.
About ten die.
“The most common complication is bacterial infection of skin lesions. These may provide a portal of entry for invasive diseases including necrotising fasciitis and sepsis. Chickenpox can also cause pneumonia and central nervous system manifestations including encephalitis, meningitis and vaculitis or strokes”, says Dr Vas Novelli, a consultant in paediatric infectious diseases at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Adults are most at risk, along with children under one and immuno-compromised patients, such as those with cancer or HIV and pregnant women.
The varicella, or chickenpox, vaccine is not available on the NHS but you can pay to have it done privately.
It is safe for children over 12 months old, if given during childhood, only one dose is required.
For adults a second, booster, injection is given four to eight weeks after the first.
The varicella vaccine has been a part of the routine immunisation programme in America since 1995, and is also universally given to children in Germany, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
But in the UK only healthcare workers and family members of at-risk patients receive it.

Then There’s Ritalin.
Then there’s Ritalin, a medication to control attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children.
There have been discrepancies in prescriptions across the country, suggesting possible over-prescription in some areas.
The drug is controversial, having been dubbed a “chemical cosh” by some, and it’s certainly not to be taken lightly as side-effects include depression, anxiety, agitation and sleeplessness.
The condition varies greatly between individuals and should be the absolute last resort after behavioural treatments, in my opinion.
( Dr Miriam Stoppard, Daily Mirror, 30.03.2010 )