Snippets from a longer story in the Daily Mail
Eight months ago, Daniel, now 14, was put on Risperdal - an antipsychotic drug usually given to schizophrenics.
"It was as if my son had been replaced by a doped-up zombie,' says Hayley, 35, who took him off it a month later.
"I could hardly wake him in the morning. It was as if all his personality was disappearing, like a patient in a mental institution."
Last week, it emerged that around 8,000 British youngsters are being treated with this powerful tranquilliser and another, similar drug called Zyprexa - despite the fact that their dangerous side-effects range from diabetes to brain tumours.
Hundreds of thousands of others are still being prescribed Ritalin, an amphetamine-like stimulant which has the same effect as "speed" and cocaine, and which, according to new evidence from the U.S., doesn't even work in the long-term.
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Recent findings also suggest that Ritalin can stunt growth as well as causing heart problems, insomnia and weight problems.
In the U.S., there have been 51 deaths among children and adults taking Ritalin since 1999.
According to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, 11 British children on Ritalin have died.
The cause of two deaths was heart-related: one had a heart attack, the other an enlarged heart.
One was recorded as a "sudden death". One died of a brain haemorrhage; another of a swelling in the brain.
Two committed suicide, and the last died of neo-natal respiratory distress syndrome.
Not surprisingly, experts fear that inappropriate drugs are not only being used to control children's behaviour, but are being massively over-prescribed to some children who are simply naughty.
ADHD, they say, is nothing more than a symptom of Britain's time-poor society, where children of parents working long hours are cracking under the strain of family life.
There are criticisms, too, that some doctors dole out pills when therapy would be a safer option.
In the U.S., where one in ten children takes Ritalin and where doctors write two million prescriptions a month, the situation is even worse.
A growing body of experts is even questioning whether ADHD exists at all.
"As a society, we are quick to reach for a pill," says David Healy, one of the world's leading psycho-pharmacology experts, and Professor of Psychiatry at Cardiff University.
"There's much less willingness on the part of the medical profession to say to parents: 'You have an awkward child. You must discipline them.'
"So we prescribe pills instead.
"The drugs used to treat ADHD are the same as speed and cocaine.
"We react with horror to the idea that our kids would use such drugs, but don't react about drugs such as Ritalin being given to them.
"There's a risk that your child won't grow as well.
"There are high risks that children will go on to use street drugs, too, because they will have grown used to their effects."
Professor Healy says anti-psychotic drugs such as Risperdal were used in the Soviet Union to extract information from political prisoners.
"People who took them would tell anything to anyone," he says.
"When you think about giving these drugs to kids, it's a whole new ball game."
Dr Tim Kendall of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who is heading a team drawing up new NHS guidelines for ADHD, insists there is a place for drugs in treatment, but admits: "We have a situation where GPs prescribe anti-psychotics inappropriately.
"There is no real excuse for prescribing drugs which are associated with such severe side-effects."
But even where Ritalin is used, Dr Kendall says guidelines do not make it clear when doctors should diagnose ADHD and when they should prescribe drugs.
"If you diagnose people loosely, you could end up with 16 per cent of the child population with ADHD.
"Under tight criteria, only 1.6 per cent would be diagnosed," he says.
"A generous understanding would be to say that doctors have reached a point where they don't know what else to offer, and they haven't got the right support to help parents."
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