Jewish World Review March 5, 2002 / 21 Adar, 5762

Lewis A. Fein
(For additional information about this important study readers are encouraged to consult www.fumento.com/adhdinto.html)

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Consumer Reports


Rather biased


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- CBS newsman Dan Rather is apparently a latter-day media alchemist, an individual convinced of both the public's ignorance and his own infallibility on health and science issues. By combining two forms of journalistic malpractice, printing his own partisan beliefs and suppressing serious corporate conflicts, he offers television viewers a false brand of media "gold" - so-called "experts" and "victims," trademarked by the CBS logo and broadcast by Rather's mellifluous baritone.

Specifically, Rather's bias originates with a 48 Hours expose about ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder). The show is nothing more than an assault against the drug Ritalin, where - because the drug's efficacy against ADHD is a medically established conclusion - Rather wages war against science and his own industry's oath of objectivity. The show misleads viewers about Ritalin's critics, while ignoring popular medical opinion about ADHD's legitimacy.

The show interviews a "doctor" with a potentially hidden bias against Ritalin. In fact, this critic (Dr. Mary Ann Block) is not a psychiatrist or a pediatrician - the best source for a journalist concerned about ADHD. She is an osteopath whose listed specialty is "manipulative therapy."

Yet, the show does not disclose Dr. Block's medical credentials (or lack thereof), allowing her instead to enmesh herself within medicine's wardrobe: white coat, with surname stitched in blue cursive; patients assembled before her Texas clinic; and the pointed genuflection that presumably confirms the good doctor's point - that Ritalin is bad. Never mind contradictory evidence from mainstream medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Surgeon General, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Medical Association, concluding that ADHD is a brain disorder that can be effectively treated with medication and behavior therapy.

Even worse, Rather has his own bias against the treatment of ADHD. Writing in the Houston Chronicle, he draws an erroneous connection between Ritalin and illicit drug abuse - labeling this phenomenon as "parenting with pills." Rather also attributes the prevalence of ADHD as nothing more than a reflection of "middle-class achievement anxiety."

In essence, Rather attacks parents for their diligence: furthering the Left's war against middle-class values, while decrying the very ingredients of familial success and individual achievement as simplistic traits - acceptable for mass consumption (at Rather's direction and his network advertisers' suggestion), but customarily wrong. He seems to question parental guidance, no doubt certified by pediatric care and legal protection, as wholly misguided.

Also, Rather's logic about illicit drugs and Ritalin - that the former is an acknowledged problem, while the latter is a potentially hidden epidemic - is completely wrong. In fact, children left untreated with ADHD are, according to the National Library of Medicine, at considerably higher risk for substance abuse, depression and criminal behavior.

And yes, some parents - even some doctors - may lack sufficient expertise about the treatment of ADHD. But parental freedom, the ability to raise a child according to familial values and morally respected laws, is something all citizens should cherish. The notion that government (or a professionally suspect "doctor" in furtherance of the same) is more legitimate than a mother or father - people morally vested with the rights of parenthood - is fundamentally wrong.

No parent is infallible, although every parent has a right to help their child succeed - with proper medical treatment, if necessary. Indeed, the very attributes 48 Hours and Dan Rather attack are the same principles every parent endears: truth, objectivity and success. These are the missing ingredients for moral journalism.

(For additional information about this study consult www.fumento.com/adhdinto.html)



JWR contributor Lewis A. Fein is a writer and Internet entrepreneur in Los Angeles.Comment by clicking here.

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© 2001, Lewis A. Fein