Pubdate: Sat, 22 Oct 2005
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Peter McKnight
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/women.htm (Women)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

CASA BUILT ON FALSEHOOD, NOT FACT

Family Dinner Vs. Drug Use Just The Latest Howler From Joe Califano's 
Fanciful 'U.S. Research Centre'

You might have seen the former U.S. first lady's anti-drug 
commercials on American television recently. But it wasn't Nancy 
Reagan telling kids to "Just say no," it was Barbara Bush encouraging 
families to just say yes -- to family dinners, that is.

The commercials accompanied the release of a survey by the U.S. 
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia 
University (CASA) titled The Importance of Family Dinners II. The 
survey, widely reported in newspapers across North America, including 
The Vancouver Sun, found that the frequency of family dinners is a 
"powerful indicator" of whether children will use drugs:

Compared to kids who eat five or more family dinners a week, children 
who dine with their parents twice or less a week are three times 
likelier to try marijuana, two and half times likelier to smoke 
cigarettes and more than one and a half times likelier to drink alcohol.

These results led CASA chairman and president Joseph A. Califano Jr. 
to conclude: "If I could wave a magic wand to make a dent in the 
substance abuse problem, I would make sure that every child in 
America had dinner with his or her parents at least five times a week."

Alas, there is no magic wand, but Califano's comments certainly 
resemble magic. Black magic.

To begin with, one needn't have studied research design or 
statistical inference to see that the conclusions Califano draws are 
invalid. It might well be the case that kids who eat with their 
families are less likely to use drugs, but that is evidence of 
correlation, not causation.

CASA's report, which is a survey and not a study (as some media have 
erroneously labeled it), can't tell us anything about causation: We 
don't know if eating family dinner actually causes children to just 
say no to drugs, or whether there is a third variable, such as the 
overall level of family functioning, that influences both the odds of 
the family dining together and the odds of the children using drugs.

If this third variable explanation is true -- and it is likely -- 
then sitting a dysfunctional family together at that table won't do 
anything except perhaps produce a Jerry Springer-style food fight.

Those who are schooled in research design have discovered that the 
CASA survey suffers from other serious methodological shortcomings. 
The Wall Street Journal's Carl Bialik, one of the few journalists who 
decided not to suspend his critical faculties when reviewing the 
survey, notes that the report had a low response rate: While the 
researchers began with a pool of 37,000 potential subjects, they only 
managed to complete 1,000 interviews, and thus their sample is 
unlikely to be representative of the U.S. population.

Further, and more damning, Bialik cautions that the survey doesn't 
control for age: Not surprisingly, older kids are much less likely to 
eat with their parents and much more likely to have tried drugs. Thus 
age is another confounding variable that influences both eating 
habits and drug use.

But CASA doesn't see it this way; instead, the researchers conclude 
that the higher level of drug use among older teens makes it even 
more important that they eat with their families!

CASA has therefore assumed what needs to proven -- that family 
dinners, rather than other factors such as age, influence the 
likelihood of drug use. If Califano really wants to stop kids from 
using drugs, he should instruct parents not to let their children get 
any older. Magic wand, anyone?

If you're surprised to learn that a "national centre" on drug abuse 
- -- and one that's "affiliated" with a prestigious Ivy League 
university like Columbia -- would produce such claptrap, then you 
obviously don't know much about CASA or Joe Califano.

Califano, a stalwart of the U.S. Democratic party, was Jimmy Carter's 
secretary of health, education and welfare until he was fired in 
1979. In 1992, he founded CASA on the urging of officials at the U.S. 
Office of National Drug Control Policy, otherwise known as the drug czar.

Califano proved a master at fundraising, garnering major grants from 
the drug czar and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a latter-day 
temperance organization. But he received not a cent from Columbia, 
the institution whose name remains in the title of Califano's group.

According to David Hansen, a world-renowned expert on the sociology 
of alcohol use and a former alcohol consultant to the Canadian 
government, Califano took Columbia's snub in stride: By not having 
any formal academic affiliation, Califano was delighted that CASA 
could focus on activism rather than academic work.

And despite the fact that many journalists still think CASA is 
affiliated with Columbia -- this newspaper's report referred to 
CASA's survey as a "study from Columbia University" -- CASA has 
clearly eschewed science in favour of activism.

CASA rarely submits its surveys to academic journals, thereby 
avoiding peer review, which would almost certainly result in the 
rejection of its work. Instead, CASA "publishes" its surveys on its 
website and then sends breathless news releases to media outlets, 
which all too often gobble them up.

Hansen, who has acted as a one-man wrecking crew, discrediting CASA 
research almost as soon as it's released, provides a few examples of 
the organization's disastrously bad "science:"

In 2002, CASA reported to much fanfare that underage drinkers account 
for 25 per cent of alcohol consumed in the U.S despite comprising 
only 13 per cent of the U.S. population. The U.S. Substance Abuse and 
Mental Health Services Administration, whose research CASA used to 
arrive at the 25 per cent figure, hastily confirmed that CASA had 
more than doubled the true figure, which was 11.4 per cent.

CASA stood by its report, saying that it believed the number must be 
much higher than 11.4 per cent -- once again assuming what needs to 
be proven -- and Califano, evidently aware that the best defence is a 
good offence, issued a news release stating that the proper figure is 
actually closer to 30 per cent!

In an attack on welfare moms, CASA reported that 27 per cent of women 
on social assistance are substance abusers. The U.S. Department of 
Health and Human Services almost immediately chastised CASA for its 
"seriously flawed" work, and noted that only 4.5 per cent of women on 
welfare abuse drugs or alcohol.

Once again, CASA was unrepentant, and refused to retract the slur it 
made against these women.

Perhaps having seen too many Girls Gone Wild videos, CASA reported 
that 60 per cent of college women who contracted STDs were under the 
influence of alcohol during sex, and that alcohol is involved in 90 
per cent of all campus rapes.

Hansen notes that investigative reporter Kathy McNamara-Meis searched 
in vain for evidence to substantiate these numbers, and she 
eventually concluded that they were "pulled from thin air."

Now that's magic. And need I say it? CASA remained un-contrite and 
never corrected its "research."

There are many other examples of CASA's shoddy work, but it would 
take a book-length column to document them. Suffice it to say that 
just because a group calls itself a "national centre," and just 
because it appears to have an affiliation with a prestigious 
university, doesn't mean its work is worth reading or reporting. 
Indeed, most of CASA's work isn't worth the website it's posted on.

That's a good thing, of course, since it means the sky isn't falling 
as CASA has so often declared. It also means that your kids probably 
won't become drug dealers or boozehounds just because everyone 
doesn't make it home for dinner five times a week.

As for me, I think that having dinner at Califano's CASA five times a 
week would drive me to drink.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman