'The change in him was amazing'

Tony Bilbow was angry yesterday when he heard parents on the radio warning that Ritalin was unsafe. The drug transformed the life of his son, Joe, 14, who took it for seven years until a few months ago.

Tony Bilbow was angry yesterday when he heard parents on the radio warning that Ritalin was unsafe. The drug transformed the life of his son, Joe, 14, who took it for seven years until a few months ago.

"Ritalin is one of those drugs that has been tested for yonks. All these horror stories about it stunting growth and so on are absolute nonsense. It is not a new drug, it is very safe."

Like many affected families, the Bilbows were in despair when Joe kept getting into trouble for misbehaving and interrupting at school.

"The teachers told us we ought to discipline him. Thank God we didn't, at least not physically. We thought we were doing everything wrong."

One day, his mother, Andrea, was listening to a programme on attention deficit disorder and realised that the description matched her son. It was the moment of truth. Joe was diagnosed and prescribed Ritalin.

"The change was amazing. It allowed him to concentrate and to do all the things he had been unable to do. It is not a cure but it meant we could then apply all the other behavioural techniques that he needed," Mr Bilbow said.

Joe is now doing well at school but has since been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism. His mother has set up the Attention Deficit Disorder Information Service (Addis).