European government bodies and courts, spurred by CCHR’s education campaigns and reform efforts across the continent, have paid heed and are taking resolute action.

In July 2002, CCHR filed complaints against the Netherlands’ Brain Foundation for an advertising campaign that falsely promoted ADHD as a valid neurobiological or genetic disorder, apparently to bolster sagging drug prescriptions. The Dutch Advertisement Code Commission investigated and ordered the Foundation to cease their bogus claims, stating: “The information that the (Brain Foundation) presented gives no grounds for the definitive statement that ADHD is an inborn brain dysfunction. ... Under the circumstances, the defendant has not been careful enough and the advertisement is misleading.”

The Dutch Family Doctors Association followed suit, forming guidelines in July 2003 that prohibit family physicians from diagnosing ADHD in children.

CCHR’s ongoing educational actions provide parents, teachers and officials with the full information on child drugging and psychiatric fraud, as well as non-drug alternatives for educational or behavioural problems. They promote the solutions of numerous nutritional experts, such as Dr L.M.J. Pelsser of the Research Centre for Hyperactivity and ADHD in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, whose study found that 62% of children diagnosed with “ADHD” showed significant improvements in behaviour as a result of a simple change in their diet over a period of three weeks.

British nutrition expert Patrick Holford stresses that children who respond to methylphenidate “are usually adrenally exhausted—burnt out on sugar, stress and stimulants such as caffeine, which is added to most children’s drinks. If you take them off all sugar and additives and give them essential fats and vitamins, they feel, learn and behave better. This is more effective than drugs and much safer.”

With these and other studies to hand, the EU Parliamentary Assembly drafted a report on the diagnosis and treatment of hyperactivity that supported CCHR’s recommendation that “more research should be conducted ...into alternative forms of treatment such as diet.”