Medi-Cal Investigator,  Monica Wellenstein              1/11/02

State of California
Department of Health Services
Audits and Investigations (Medi-Cal Fraud)
10370 Commerce Center Drive #100
Rancho Cucamonga, CA  91730



Dear Ms. Wallenstein,

This letter verifies our conversation of this morning, 1/11/02.  I spoke to
you of the two letters I recently wrote to the Medical Board of California,
and of the Board’s failure, so far, to reply to either.  I spoke to you (1)
of recent claims of the California Psychiatric Association (to the
California Senate) that they diagnose and treat actual diseases, (2) of
fraudulent representations within the Preschool ADHD Treatment Study—PATS
(that conducts  research on normal 3-5 year-olds) that ADHD is an actual
disease, (3) of the claim that Vincent Booth, a minor child, removed from
his mother’s custody by California judge, Leonard Edwards, on the premise
that ADHD is a ‘disease,’ requiring Ritalin, a Schedule II, Controlled
substance (which his mother did not believe and would not allow), and (4) of
the fraudulent claims that psychiatric diagnoses represent diseases, in a
7-page, “special advertising supplement,” in the 11/20/01, Family Circle
magazine.

I need not say more as I pledged to enclosed (attach) copies of my letters
of 11/3/01 and 1/4/02 to the Medical Board of California (of the Department
of Consumer Affairs), as well as my letters concerning the illegal,
unethical, PATS research (at UC Irvine and UCLA), dated 5/29/01, to the
District Attorneys of Orange and Los Angeles Counties.  Nor did I get
answers to either of these.

The thrust of these letters, also the lynch-pin of the fraud of which I
speak is that ADHD and all psychiatric diagnoses/disorders, are brazenly
claimed to be brain diseases due to chemical imbalances of the brain
needing—in every case—chemical balancers—pills.  None of them are, and the
perpetrators, from the highest echelons of academic and research psychiatry
know it—know that the children they drug, and the adolescents, and the
infants and preschoolers, and elders, too—are all physically, medically,
neurologically NORMAL--at least at the time of diagnosis.  However, as I
wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), April 28,
1999, p.1490:

Once children are labeled with ADHD (FB: or any other psychiatric
diagnosis/label), they are no longer treated as normal.  Once
methylphenidate hydrochloride or any psychotropic drug courses through their
brain and body, they are, for the first time, physically, neurologically,
and biologically abnormal.

This fraud and victimization has gone on in California and the United
States, entirely to long.  I call for an immediate investigation.  Parents
the width and breadth of California and the country are thus lied to
coerced, forced, and court-ordered to accept such fraudulent disease labels
and then the Schedule II, addictive, dangerous, deadly, psychostimulants and
other psychotropic drugs—all dangerous.  This continues in violation of the
most fundamental tenets of our democratic way of life and right to
self-determination, and cannot be allowed to continue.   A California court
has separated Vincent Booth from his only parent—his mother, to assure the
treatment of a disease that does not exist.

There can be no doubt that tens to hundreds of thousands of children and
adults in the Medi-Cal program have been thus-labeled “diseased”/“medical
patients” for monetary reasons only,  depleting already-insufficient funds.

I would appreciate it if you would send me a copy of the notes derived from
our phone conversation for my review and validation.


Sincerely,

Fred A. Baughman Jr. MD