[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 100 (Tuesday, July 9, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1229-E1231]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      H.R. 3675 STAFF RECOGNITION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 9, 1996

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize and thank those staff 
members who supported the Members of this House in the preparation and 
passage of the fiscal year 1997 Transportation and related agencies 
appropriations bill, H.R. 3675: The Transportation Appropriations 
Subcommittee staff: John Blazey, Rich Efford, Stephanie Gupta, and 
Linda Muir. The Appropriations Committee staff: John Mikel, Dennis 
Kedzior, Elizabeth Morra, and Ken Marx of the majority staff; and 
Cheryl Smith of the minority staff. The associate staff to the 
committee: Lori-Beth Feld Hua of my office, Monica Vegas Kladakis of 
Majority Whip DeLay's office, Connie Veillette of Mr. Regula's office, 
Kevin Fromer of Mr. Rogers' office, Bill Deere of Mr. Lightfoot's 
office, Ray Mock and Eric Mondero of Mr. Packard's office, Todd Rich 
and Sean Murphy of Mr. Callahan's office, Steve Carey of Mr. Dickey's 
office, Paul Cambon of Chairman Livingston's office, Kristen Hoeschler 
of Mr. Sabo's office, Jim Jepsen of Mr. Durbin's office, Christy 
Cockburn of Mr. Coleman's office, Barbara Zylinski-Mizrahi of Mr. 
Foglietta's office, and Paul Carver of Mr. Obey's office.

[[Page E1230]]



                   A PROBLEM IN OUR NATION'S SCHOOLS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES M. TALENT

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 9, 1996

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my colleagues a 
thoughtful letter on a problem in our Nation's schools written by David 
Wagemann, a constituent of mine from St. Louis, MO:

       Dear Congressman Talent: You visited my home in the summer 
     of 1992, as you were running for your first term in office. I 
     was very impressed with your positions at that time and still 
     am. Your reputation for strong principles, integrity and 
     honesty have inspired me to write this, my first letter, to a 
     congressman.
       My concern is not a new one, but I wonder if it has been 
     brought to your attention. The press is flirting with it and 
     it has the potential to become a national scandal. On 
     December 12, 1995, 60 Minutes showed a segment on the 
     problem. I am enclosing newspaper articles from our own Post 
     Dispatch which begins to expose the problem which is that our 
     school districts are becoming drug pushers.
       My oldest son Christopher attends the Parkway Northeast 
     Middle School. We moved into the district in 1991, when my 
     son began the third grade at Parkway's McKelvey School. 
     Before that he attended the Woodland Elementary School of the 
     Jennings District.
       At Woodland, we discovered that my son was easily 
     distracted, was disruptive in class and had poor social 
     skills with members of his own peer group. I know that my son 
     was a handful, but he was generally not a problem in the 
     home. He is kind and loving. He is very good with animals and 
     children younger than himself. He is very artistic and has 
     even had his work displayed in the Capitol at Jefferson City. 
     I wanted to work with the school to improve his behavior and 
     so became involved with a team consisting of his teachers, 
     administrators, counselors and myself. Chris seemed to 
     flourish at Woodland. Through my association with ``our 
     team'' I became a Cub Scout Leader, Treasurer and later 
     President of the PTO. Never once during the four years we 
     spent at Woodland did any of the teachers, administrators, or 
     counselors suggest that I medicate my son. Even so, I was 
     raised in the Parkway District and felt that I could improve 
     my children's prospects for the future by moving there.
       Within a month, my son's third grade teacher informed me 
     that my son had Attention Deficit Disorder and needed to see 
     his pediatrician for Ritalin.
       The pediatrician, who had attended my son since birth, gave 
     me a set of written questions to be answered by myself and 
     another set for this teacher. This is called a Conners Test. 
     My son did not score high enough to be diagnosed with ADD, 
     but the doctor gave me a prescription for Ritalin anyway and 
     instructed me that if it had a positive effect on my son's 
     behavior, he most likely did have ADD.
       The drug was to be administered in the morning and at lunch 
     on school days only. I was instructed not to give it to him 
     on weeknights, nor on weekends, nor during the summer break. 
     The supposed purpose of these instructions was to determine 
     when my son would outgrow the need for Ritalin.
       The drug did indeed have a profound effect on my son. 
     Within minutes of taking the drug my son would enter a 
     zombie-like state (this descriptive term is borrowed from any 
     number of professional articles.) His disruptive tendencies 
     were gone and he would appear to stare, glassy eyed, into the 
     distance. The teacher reported that the changes she had 
     expected had occurred and that she was pleased with my son's 
     behavior while he was under the influence.
       An equally immediate problem manifested itself in our home 
     exhibited by personality disorders while he was not under the 
     influence of the drug. My passive, loving, artistic child 
     became hostile, aggressive and abusive to everyone around 
     him. I have since learned that the medical profession 
     recognizes this behavior as ``rebound effect.'' I recognized 
     it more simply put in the vernacular of my youth as crashing 
     off the drug. I reduced the dosage to half a 5mg tablet, but 
     the effect was the same. We tolerated this medical and 
     educational experiment for a duration of two weeks, after 
     which I permanently discontinued the drug and devoted the 
     whole of my energies to learn all I could about ADD and 
     Ritalin.
       If, as I understand, one of the reasons our government 
     exists is to protect its citizens, then what I have been able 
     to discover through simple laymen's research, demands 
     investigation and regulation by our government. In fact, the 
     democratic controlled congress in the 1970's did investigate 
     the use of Ritalin in our schools. They saw the drug induced 
     behavior patterns, but made no discoveries of the improved 
     academics or side effects. Perhaps enough time has passed and 
     a congress with more traditional family values would consider 
     the abusive tactics being used today to medicate our children 
     for behavior modification.
       Ritalin is a stimulant medication, or again to use the 
     vernacular of my youth, it is ``speed.'' The historical 
     abuses of speed for recreational and medical purposes is well 
     known to most of my generation. We all know from the highway 
     billboards of the 1980's that ``Speed Kills.'' The federal 
     government recognizes the dangers of Ritalin in particular. 
     It is a felony to possess Ritalin without a prescription. The 
     federal government limits the number of prescriptions a 
     doctor can write for Ritalin, each prescription must be 
     personally issued from a doctor to his patient or 
     guardian. No telephone or mail order prescriptions are 
     allowed. Pharmacists are limited by the amount of Ritalin 
     prescriptions they can fill. Only a licensed pharmacist 
     can dispense Ritalin. Pharmacists must keep Ritalin under 
     lock and key.
       The known side effects of stimulant medications are 
     appetite loss, insomnia, headaches, stomachaches, fatigues, 
     staring, irritability, crying, motortics, Tourette's 
     Syndrome, vocaltics, constipation, nervousness, depression, 
     withdrawal, and liver damage.
       In my experience, most teachers are not aware of the side 
     effects of Ritalin and when made aware, can display a degree 
     of concern regarding the worth of the benefits. Still, there 
     are those teachers, administrators, counselors and social 
     workers who are unscrupulous in the efforts to force a parent 
     to medicate the child. Recently my son's special services 
     teacher iterated and reiterated three times in a single 
     conversation that my son's social interaction problems would 
     undoubtedly result in his death before completion of the 
     eighth grade. When asked to elaborate she stated that my son 
     waves his hands in front of other students faces. This same 
     teacher in another conversation threatened to suspend my son 
     for making excuses for keeping a sloppy notebook. Threats of 
     this nature have been common in my past five years at 
     Parkway. I have attended a lecture by Parkway's then 
     Superintendent who is now the Superintendent of the Clayton 
     District, when he highly exposed the use of Ritalin. 
     Administrators have gone behind my back to my son's non-
     custodial mother in a nearly successful attempt to have him 
     medicated.
       There are only two reasons that educators would have for 
     wanting our children to be medicated; (1) that they be 
     afforded the best possible education and (2) that disruptive 
     tendencies be eliminated. The verdict is still out concerning 
     the improved academics of a medicated child. My non-medicated 
     son is typically a B-C student. The verdict concerning 
     behavior enhancement is not in doubt. It has been observed 
     that even non-ADD pre-adolescent behavior is improved with 
     stimulant medications. Could this be the real reason that 
     schools want our children medicated? Didn't we used to 
     medicate institutionalized mental patients for the same 
     reasons? Is a teacher's comfort worth risking the health of 
     our children?
       I have employed the services of several clinicians to 
     evaluate my son. Some were even suggested by the schools. 
     Their first choice is always Ritalin despite my concerns. 
     Some even chose to condescend from their lofty pinnacles of 
     knowledge. I wanted to know just what they knew. What I 
     discovered is a scandal of its own. They can describe the 
     symptoms of ADD and ADHD, but have no idea what it is. Since 
     the use of Ritalin is so prevalent you might expect that 
     there is a chemical imbalance in the brain. That's one 
     possibility. Another is an unidentifiable deformity. They 
     have no idea what Ritalin does in the body so they are 
     treating the symptoms of ADD with a symptomatic drug. They 
     can't even determine whether ADD is physiological or 
     psychological. They speculate about its cause. It could be 
     congenital, but then again, it could be caused by head 
     trauma. Consider how it is diagnosed. Different 
     specialists diagnose in different ways, but a prominent 
     method is to prescribe Ritalin and observe behavior 
     changes. There is no MRI, no CAT, and no blood test. Some 
     doctors offer motor tests, psychological evaluations or 
     written self diagnosis. Less is know about ADD and ADHD 
     that AIDS even though they have recognized ADD by one name 
     or another for over 40 years. Recently the theory that ADD 
     is outgrown in adulthood has been abandoned so that 
     several generations can take advantage of stimulant 
     medications.
       It is generally accepted that 3-5% of the population had 
     ADD or ADHD. Enclosed you will find a January 10, 1995 
     article from the Post Dispatch which states that ``there are 
     first grade classes in St. Louis County where 30% of the boys 
     are reportedly being treated with Ritalin for attention 
     deficit disorders.'' Any layman knows that boys are generally 
     more disruptive than girls. If pharmaceutical companies and 
     medical professionals are profiting by wholesale drug induced 
     behavior modification of our children for the comfort of our 
     educators, it is a scandal the like this country has never 
     known. How would the Congress of the 1970's react to such a 
     finding? Perhaps they would impose several restrictions on 
     the dispensation of Ritalin. How would the Congress of today 
     report such a finding? Parents today are not making informed 
     decisions concerning this affair. Who will give us the 
     information we deserve and who will protect us and our 
     children from persecution in the schools we choose not to 
     medicate our children?
       Disoveries that need to be made:
       School by school, what percentage of our children are being 
     medicated for ADD and ADHD?
       Are these percentage growing?
       Comparisons need to be made between rural and urban 
     districts, between neighboring urban districts, between 
     public and private schools. What could be causing 
     disparities? Do the schools have policies concerning

[[Page E1231]]

     counseling parents toward the use of stimulant medications? 
     If individual schools exceed the recognized percentages by 
     multiples of 5 or 10 or more; what action should be taken?
       What information do parents of ADD and ADHD children have 
     to base decisions regarding treatment? How did they first 
     become aware of ADD and ADHD? What counseling have they 
     received and where did it come from? What kind of cooperation 
     exist between schools and clinicians?
       What benefits of Stimulant medications do teachers really 
     see? Improved Academics? Improved behavior? Which is most 
     important to the teacher?
       Do parents who choose not to medicate their children feel 
     harassed for their decision?
       Ritalin has been commercially available since the fifties. 
     Why can't we establish the long and short term side effects 
     of the drug?
       Congressman Talent, your prompt response to this matter is 
     greatly appreciated.

                          ____________________