[Jul 23, 97 - 20:26] Steven Godbe of 1:106/1393 wrote to MARK PROBERT:
SG> Elsewhere on the web, I read that Dr. Peter Jensen of the National
SG> Institute of Mental Health outright admitted that "it  is
SG> being innappropriately prescribed ".  I read that a
SG> New Jersey court *ORDERED* a child be treated with Ritalin or not be
SG> allowed to participate in a state-funded education in New Hampshire.
SG> That doesn't sound particularly American or prudent either one.
Those same statements appear in our local newspapers (undated, and often 
unattributed) every couple of years.  Regardless of whose byline these 
articles appear under, the wording is always similar and the anecdotes always 
the same.  The same is true of various web sites.  It is difficult to escape 
the suspicion that some of this stuff, no matter how it ultimately began, has 
taken on the nature of urban legends or is being disseminated by people who, 
for whatever reasons, are anxious to discredit the use of medication.
The most recent article was particularly infuriating, because it somehow 
managed to present both sides of the issue at their most extreme without 
becoming a balanced whole.  It was a pile of snippets like the ones you 
tossed in above, but it went on in that vein (pro and con) for a good 24 
column-inches.
SG> That is simply not true, Mark.  If you've researched as much as you
SG> claim, you know damn well this is a gross over-simplification of the
SG> specific concerns listed in even the Physician's Desktop Reference.
SG> Would you like me to type the entry in for you?
The information in the PDR is furnished by the manufacturers based upon the 
testing done for FDA approval and such.  It is necessarily conservative.  If 
you read the entries for common things, like aspirin, you'll get a sense of 
perspective (using "you" in the generic sense, you personally may already 
know this).
SG> In other places, physicians are reporting results of studies which
SG> show:
SG>         after five years of use, children who received drugs did not
SG>         differ significantly from those who did not.
SG>         weight was not predictive of proper dose of Ritalin.
SG>         MPH generic medical preparations may be from 10%-30% less
SG>         effective than brand-name Ritalin in use.
The latter two have been widely discussed and accepted here.  (By the way, 
many of us have had good luck with the generics so long as we adjusted the 
dose to match the brand and stuck to one brand.)  The first is hard to 
interpret, out of context: differ in academic achievement? social 
development?  What ages were they, what educational environments were they 
in, how were they selected, what was the control group?
Jerry Schwartz
--- Msged/386 4.00
---------------