When I'd listen to Dennis Clarke's CCHR radio show in Clearwater, he'd spit out the most unbelievable statistics. I found an article where apparently some reporter checked some of Clarke's statements...

'R' Is for Ritalin

AP 4.4.1988 By FRED BAYLES and SCOTT McCARTNEY, Associated Press Writers

[quote]

_ Clarke often says 4 million American children are taking Ritalin, four times as many as estimated by the most liberal researchers. When asked for his source, Clarke cited a specific newspaper story. When it was pointed out that the article makes no mention of 4 million children, Clarke replied, "I don't know how many. I just know it's too many."

_ Clarke frequently asserts that 80 percent of the students in a Maryland school system are taking Ritalin. Asked to identify the system, he amended his assertion to just one school and said the information came from an attorney who handles Ritalin suits. Asked about the attorney's sources, Clarke cited an unidentified parent told by an unidentified neurologist.

Clarke said he repeats the 80 percent figure because he believes it's true. "There's enough of it there (in Maryland) to have them all on it," he said.

_ Clarke says Ritalin may have caused a 600-percent increase in child suicide over five years. He cites medical manual warnings that suicide is a complication of withdrawal from drugs such as Ritalin. But doctors say the danger is minimal when the drug is used properly.

"I have children who go off of it every weekend," said Dr. Ralph S. Smith Jr., a Charleston, W.Va., child psychiatrist. "I have children who go off every summer because they only need it during school." Nevertheless, Smith said, three of his ADD patients stopped taking Ritalin after their parents read an article highlighting CCHR claims.

_ CCHR refers to a California study which, Clarke asserts, shows children treated with Ritalin commit more felonies later in life. The study's author, Dr. James Satterfield, says that is a complete misreading.

Satterfield, a psychiatrist and director of the National Center for Hyperactive Children in Encino, Calif., and his wife, psychologist Breena Satterfield, studied 130 hyperactive boys, all of whom received Ritalin and 50 of whom also received therapy and behavioral advice.

In general, hyperactive children exhibit higher than normal rates of misbehavior and delinquency, but the boys who received therapy as well as Ritalin had lower levels of delinquency.

"While it is true that Ritalin by itself has not been found to prevent delinquency," Satterfield said, "it most certainly has never been found to cause delinquency."

* * * * * For f**k sake if Scientology can be rated a religion then Pythology ought to qualify under any decent tax system. [Eric Idle]

From: Tilman Hausherr <tilman@berlin.snafu.de>
Subject: Re: CCHR factual errors?
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 11:58:14 +0100
Organization: Old Europe
Message-ID: <9320vv0a6gm5776f6796f0cjfmadre6nba@4ax.com>

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 02:12:07 -0000, "Jeff Jacobsen" <cultxpt@ev1.net> wrote in <vuv3bnalacckd7@corp.supernews.com>:

>When I'd listen to Dennis Clarke's CCHR radio show in Clearwater, he'd spit
>out the most unbelievable statistics. I found an article where apparently
>some reporter checked some of Clarke's statements...

There is another article that shows how they make up statistics:

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p961110.html

Psychiatric Profession Current Target of Citizens Commission on Human Rights by Stephen Barlas and Psychiatric Times staff Psychiatric Times November 1996 Vol. XIII Issue 11

...

Investigation of some of the statistics and sources cited in the booklet revealed inaccuracies. For example, on page 10, the booklet alludes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which was passed in 1965: "The ESEA allocated massive federal funds and opened the school doors to a flood of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers and psychiatric programs and psychological testing that continues to this day." In fact, it was not the ESEA, but the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), passed in 1975, which required schools to provide treatment to children with disabilities, including mental illness.

The booklet also states: "The number of education psychologists in the U.S. increased from 455 in 1969 to 16,146 in 1992. As of 1994, child psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and special educators in and around the U.S. public schools nearly outnumbered teachers."

To substantiate the number of educational psychologists in the United States in 1969, the booklet references a presentation made by Tom Fagan, Ph.D., to the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) in 1993. In a telephone interview, Fagan, a professor of psychology at the University of Memphis, said that presentation cited "455" as the number of members of the NASP, which was established in 1969. The number of school psychologists that year was close to 5,000, he said. "They misrepresented my paper," he complained.

According to the Department of Education's 18th Annual Report to Congress on the implementation of the IDEA, there were 1.87 million elementary and secondary classroom teachers in the United States in 1994. Special education teachers numbered 335,000. There were 20,000 school psychologists and 7,500 counselors. There was no category for psychiatrists in the IDEA report. But the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists said it has 6,000 members. So the CCHR's statement about psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and special educators "nearly outnumbering" teachers is inaccurate.

Equally erroneous is the statement by Fred Baughman Jr., M.D., a pediatric neurologist, quoted with approval on page 27, that "ADHD was invented, in committee, at the American Psychiatric Association in 1980...There is nothing a physician can see to confirm or refute it..."

Actually, it was DSM-III-R, published in 1987, which first used the term attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The term attention-deficit disorder, with and without hyperactivity, appeared in the DSM-III in 1980. But the first time the APA turned its attention to the disease was 1968, in DSM-II, when it was listed as hyperkinetic reaction to childhood.

...

--
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