Biased politics masquerading as science: Complicity of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry

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Overview and summary

  • A Canadian Journal of Psychiatry article on the prevalence of psychological morbidity in West Bank Palestinian Children had serious scientific errors and appeared to inappropriately use science in an attempt to further a specific political viewpoint. A letter that outlined some of the scientific issues present was rejected twice by the editor-in-chief, who defended the article as a “carefully conducted” example of “good science.” Furthermore, the editor stated that the letter and criticisms of the article represented a “polarized” point of view.
  • A subsequent comprehensive review of the study found a series of additional serious scientific flaws that call the integrity and credibility of the research conducted into doubt. The study employed an instrument, no longer used by other Palestinian researchers, that was not standardized as claimed and that may have been inappropriate for the population studied. References cited did not address or support the contentions in the study, leading to questions of academic honesty, integrity, fabrication and misrepresentation.
  • A hypothesis of “settlement encroachment” was made to explain the results without empirically defining, measuring, documenting or testing the concept. The authors ignored, and the editor refused to consider, data that showed Palestinian incitement and a culture of violence as being relevant.
  • The study used sloppy and poor research to promote a specific political agenda. None of the authors appeared to have any training or experience in mental health, social science or psychiatric research. The public and active political backgrounds of the authors show them to be associated with movements that have promoted anti-Israel propaganda.

The background and exchanges with the editor

Earlier this year, the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry published an article entitled: “The prevalence of psychological morbidity in West Bank Palestinian Children”[1]The authors, Tanya L Zakrison, Amira Shahen, Shaban Mortaja and Paul A Hamel, were careless in dealing with critical issues related to research design and data analysis and improperly documented some of references they cited. In discussing their conclusions, they appeared to take a significant and highly speculative inductive leap by attributing mental health problems among Palestinian children to what they termed “Israeli settlement expansion”.

When I noticed that subsequent issues of the journal had not published any responses to the piece, I wrote a brief letter to the editor outlining some of the issues that I thought were present in this article, which appeared to have a political message imbedded in a supposed scientific presentation. Here is the letter I submitted to Q. Rae-Grant, MD, editor-in-chief of the journal:

Q. Rae-Grant, MD
Editor-in-chief
Canadian Journal of Psychiatry
May 30, 2004

Dear Editor:

In “The prevalence of psychological morbidity in West Bank Palestinian Children”, [2] serious omissions presenting the data were present. Moreover, clearly biased and undocumented statements attributing causality on the basis of political, rather than scientific considerations were made.

Notwithstanding the rate of emotional and behavioral problems reported, the researchers failed to note that the Palestinian Authority, under whose sole responsibility the educational system has operated since 1994, has indoctrinated schoolchildren in violent, anti-peace messages encouraging acts of violence and terror.

At the time of and prior to this study, Palestinian children were routinely exposed to messages promoting “martyrdom”. Witness this description of one television program discussed by human rights lawyer Justus Weiner:

“Television broadcasts frequently include what in many Western countries would be deemed “hate speech.” On July 2, 1998, in derogation of its commitments to combat incitement under the interim peace agreements (discussed below), a Palestinian television children’s show called “The Children’s Club,” similar in its basic structure to “Sesame Street,” aired an episode in which young boys with raised arms chanted “We are ready with our guns; revolution until victory; revolution until victory.” On the same show, an 8-year-old boy announced to the audience (a group of children), “I come here to say that we will throw them to the quiet sea. Occupiers, your day is near, then we will settle our account. We will settle our claims with stones and bullets.” Also on the Children’s Club program, on February 8, 1998, a girl who could not have been more than ten years old declared that she wanted to “turn into a suicide warrior” in Jerusalem.”[3]

Other studies document premeditated, intentional indoctrination of children in Palestinian schools. Itamar Marcus, in an extensive discussion of this phenomenon, writes:

“Instead of seizing the opportunity to educate the future generations to live with Israel in peace, the PA has done everything in its power to teach hatred to young minds.”[4]

Along with unsubstantiated “anecdotal evidence” and “personal observation”, the authors can only cite a well-known anti-American and anti-Israel psycholinguist (Chomsky) to support the notion that the presence of and “encroachment” of Jewish settlements is responsible for the results. Stating that Palestinian children feared these communities, they fail to cite a single documented case where Jewish residents near these Bethlehem-area villages were involved in violence against children. This despite the experience of hundreds of Israelis being stoned by children from a Palestinian school on a frequently traveled road in the same area. The authors note a “significant military presence” and expansion of “infrastructure” but ignore the documented history of violence by these Palestinian children against Israelis, as noted in this UPI report:

“A high fence that once protected Israeli motorists from Arab stoning there is gone. The Israelis built a new road, farther to the west. Shops have opened alongside the old road. [5]

Mixing politics with science is a risky proposition, especially without solid evidence to support the conclusions reached. With the whole story, however, one can hopefully better understand the results presented.

Irwin J. Mansdorf PhD
Raanana ISRAEL
Jerusalem Project for Democracy in the Middle East
www.JPDME.org
3 Nachshon Street
Raanana ISRAEL 43259

imansdorf@compuserve.com

Following my receipt of what appears to have been a form rejection letter; I followed up with the following letter, which read as follows:

I recently submitted a 500-word letter to you in response to a Brief Communication that was published in the Journal earlier this year.

In your letter of July 5, 2004to me, you stated that the letter was not accepted for publication, and did not provide any explanation for this rejection.

As I noted to you in the letter, the article to which I was responding (http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/2004/January/zakrison.asp ) contained highly problematic assertions, including references to political facts that are in dispute or without substance. The Journal published this piece apparently without any attempt to substantiate any of these disputed issues. For example, the use of the term “settlement encroachment” was made although no evidence was submitted to support that such encroachment even exists. It seems that the reviewers and the Board of the Journal chose to accept some of these facts on face value, something that should never be done, much less in a scientific journal.

As a result, the piece has the potential to be used as a political tool that can inappropriately point to clinical data as supportive of one position in a highly contentious geopolitical dispute. Such use of a scientific publication undermines the integrity of the Journal.

I felt that there needed to be some balance in this presentation, and certainly your readership has a right to be made aware of the politicization of this research and the lack of factual support for some of the assumptions made by the authors. Whether it is my letter or some other correspondence that provides this is irrelevant, but to date, no correspondence pointing out the problem in the authors’ language and assertions has been published by the Journal.

I would again ask you to reconsider my original letter, and, if you maintain your decision not to publish it, to kindly provide me with a brief explanation as to why.

My thanks to you for your kind attention to this matter.

On September 22, 2004, about two months following my letter, I received this response from Dr. Rae-Grant:

Dr. Rae-Grants’ insistence that the piece was a “carefully conducted” study and his dogged perseverance in refusing to publish legitimate questions concerning the conduct of the scientific research was both puzzling and disconcerting. Moreover, his allegation that my letter represented “…a polarized view promoted by your organization” (without substantiating the claim) was disquieting, as it seemed to be without basis.

When I went back and re-read the article, I decided to take a closer look at both the scientific methods used in the study as well as the background of the authors.

What I found was troubling.

Sloppy research, biased politics

The problems with this article are twofold. First, the scientific integrity of the article is questionable, especially in some of the assertions that are presented without a sound experimental basis. Several statements made in the piece are simply false and a check of some of the references quoted shows them not to be supportive of the contentions (framed as “hypotheses”) made. Hypotheses were not empirically defined and related data were not documented. The blatant omission and ignoring of other data that could provide alternative explanations that could explain some of the results found in the study is particularly problematic. Furthermore, the clinical measure used to report the data was not standardized as claimed by the authors.

Neither the editor nor the reviewers recognized or addressed these scientific problems with the study. This poorly conducted study may have been an attempt to use science to further a political agenda, here, the attribution of psychological problems among Palestinian children solely to Israel actions.

First, let’s look at the science in this article.

The scientific problems

In the present study, morbidity (“caseness”) was defined as a cutoff score of 13 on the Rutter A2 (parent) scale. The issue of validity of the data for this population, and how to interpret any results obtained, is a critical one that was not discussed by the authors. In a previous Canadian study conducted on Palestinian children[6], the problems associated with cross-cultural validity of mental health categories and the difficulties in choosing appropriate instruments and interview methods was discussed and, according to the authors “never fully reconciled”.

In their report, Zakrison and colleagues did not consider this problem at all and did not address any of the issues related to cultural norms or validity of the instrument used. There are also questions that need to be asked about the applicability of the items in this scale to the situation in the West Bank (e.g., do any of the items reflect behavior that might be expected in situations of social disorganization, where they may not indicate psychopathology as they would in more organized social systems?). This represents a threat to the validity of the data.

The authors state that they used “…the standardized Arabic version” of the Rutter A2 scale, citing as reference a study by Thabet and Vostanis [7]. A careful reading of that reference, however, shows that the study did not standardize and did not even use the Rutter A2 scale. While Thabet and Vostanis state that they “translated and piloted in Arabic” the Rutter Teacher Scale (not the Rutter A2 scale), there is no mention of standardization, which would involve determining population norms. Another cited Thabet and Vostanis [8] study did in fact use the Rutter A2 scale, but here too there is no mention of standardization.

Had the authors communicated with the researchers involved in the Gaza study, they would have also learned, as I did, that the Rutter scales “…are no longer used [9]” with Palestinian children in Gaza. The researchers now use the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires [10], a scale that has been standardized with norms available in a number of populations (although still not for the populations in question). It is not clear whether they plan on standardizing this instrument on the local population, but what is clear is that there never was standardization for the Rutter scale as claimed in the Zakrison study. One of the Gaza researchers confirmed for me that those scales were “translated, backtranslated and piloted” but that no norms for the population at large were ever obtained.[11]

At best, the authors’ lack of mental health training and experience was reflected in this sloppy research and documentation and their use of a scale no longer used by more experienced researchers on the mental health of Palestinian children. At worst, they intentionally misrepresented the nature of the instrument used and presented readers with misleading information. In any case, the journal reviewers did not address the issues related to the use of the Rutter scale, which calls into question the integrity of the data collected.

There are other instances of references cited that do not substantiate the claims of the authors. The article itself begins with a statement that has strong political overtones:

“Since 1948, the Palestinian people have been subjected to displacement and military occupation, causing significant violent and social psychological pressures”

In stating that “displacement and military occupation” has caused “violent and psychological pressures”, the authors cite, as reference, an article by Baker, published in 1990.[12] A look at the actual Baker study, however, shows that it did not purport to examine the effects of “displacement and military occupation” since 1948, but rather only reflected a snapshot of the mental health of Palestinian children in 1989 alone, with reference to the effects of what has been called the first “Intifada” (Palestinian uprising) only. The authors’ claim that there is a cause-and-effect relationship that leads to “significant violent social and psychological pressures” is also overstated. Baker, in fact, found that:

“…active participation in the conflict may enhance self-esteem and shield children from development of psychological symptoms.”[13]

While common psychological and conduct problems were found to be present, Baker specifically wrote, regarding the findings, that:

“…no serious pathological conditions were detected on a scale beyond that expected in the general population”.[14]

Moreover, Baker noted that no assessment was undertaken before the Intifada broke out, and wrote that no comparison could be made between pre- and post-Intifada conditions. Thus, the use of the cited reference to implicate conditions dating back to 1948 is misleading. Furthermore, although the authors claimed that “displacement or military occupation” has been present “since 1948”, they failed to note that neither displacement nor military occupation was present at all between 1948- and 1967, and little violence was present insofar as the Palestinian occupants of the West Bank and Gaza were concerned.

While the authors noted that in all but one case it was the mother who was the respondent on the questionnaire used, they fail to address or discuss the possible effects of having only the mother provide information. They also failed to discuss the social effects on respondents of having a village council first approve the collection of information. Insofar as the respondents (the mothers) were aware of the political uses to which such findings might be put (exemplified by this paper); they had an obvious incentive to exaggerate symptoms. While they stated that they did not believe that “socioeconomic adversity significantly affected the rates of caseness”, they did not account for the possible effects of having women, in an area where socially defined gender roles are significant, as the sole respondents in this study. Critically, in the areas under study, women’s rate of education is only.96% of the male rate.[15] In the current study, none of the women worked. The authors provided no information on the age of the women, the average number of children per household or the objective education or literacy levels of the mothers questioned. Palestinian organizations [16] have noted “long-standing neglect of women’s human rights in Palestinian society”, and how “Traditional leaders and groups resist the promotion of women’s human rights by stressing local cultural specificity.” A report by a Palestinian researcher speaks of “social subjugation through cultural attitudes and local customs and policies defining women’s status, women exploitation, denial of rights and freedom and loss of worth in society”[17] These vital factors, ignored by the researchers (and apparently also overlooked by the reviewers) certainly could have influenced the data gathered as well as provide an explanation for some of the results.

In their conclusions regarding the meaning of the data collected, the authors note that the frequency of morbidity was higher in these West Bank villages than in Gaza and attributed the cause to “Israeli settlement encroachment” even though no such causality was investigated in this study. The authors state that they “…undertook a descriptive study…to determine psychological morbidity.” The authors, however, went beyond simply reporting the results in an objective statistical form and exceeded the limits of a descriptive study by venturing into deductions that were not based on the data collected. Since no empirical definition was provided of the term “encroachment”, the authors failed to even provide an objective measure that could possibly be quantified and studied. Without definition and measurability, the variable in question could not possibly be scientifically examined. The only attempted substantiation of the authors’ personal observations and undefined and unmeasured reference to “encroachment” was a political treatise by Noam Chomsky and not any properly conducted scientific study. More critically, there was no experimental manipulation of any variable related to “encroachment”, meaning that no causal relationship between any of the variables studied could possibly be deduced. In the absence of an empirically based definition of “settlement encroachment”, readers must rely on their personal, popular and unscientific interpretations of the term. Such interpretations would likely vary widely among the readership and thus would lack any predictive scientific value or meaning.

In their discussion of the hypothesized and unsubstantiated “Israeli settlement encroachment”, the authors note that these children were living in a “period of relative calm” and still showed high rates of morbidity. They then cite a study[18] to support the contention that “…in the absence of direct traumatic events, poor psychological status may arise from anticipating such events”. One is led to believe, thus, that the cited study supports the notion that “settlement encroachment”, even though it is not a “direct traumatic event”, leads to negative psychological effects because of an anticipatory effect. A reading and re-reading of this study conducted in Gaza, however, failed to show that any such evidence exists.

Although the Gaza study did find that “anticipatory anxiety and cognitive expressions of distress” were present in the control group, this group was described as being exposed to “other types of traumatic events related to political violence”. These were not children who lived “in the absence of direct traumatic events” and thus were not comparable to the Bethlehem area group who were described as living through what Zakrison and colleagues described as a “period of relative calm”. Once again, the reference cited as evidence was misleading and incorrect.

While the authors note that some of the children in the study “feared violence” when travelling near Israeli settlements, they failed to address the wealth of data[19] showing an ongoing, concerted program that included televised incitement and demonization of Jews and Israelis at the time of the study, which coincided with the collapse of the Camp David talks in July 2000. There is every reason to believe that viewing the type of calls to violence that Palestinian children were exposed to would have a significant impact on behavior, including their attitudes toward violence. The American Academy on Child Psychiatry, in discussing “Children and TV Violence”[20] speaks of the “hundreds” of studies on the effects of TV violence on children and said that even a “single violent program can increase aggressiveness”. One researcher found that Palestinian incitement “…has induced profound effects on the psychology of Palestinian children and will persist even if the violence stops.”[21] The authors further failed to cite any documented cases of violence directed at Palestinian children in the area by residents of nearby settlements. They also ignored the documented cases of Palestinian children stoning cars in the area the study took place[22]. The failure to address these clear influences on psychological status, and the refusal of Dr. Rae-Grant to publish this evidence is baffling.

The authors failed to reconcile the results of Palestinian polls taken at about the same time of their studies that do not support the notion of a psychology of fear among the citizenry. One poll found 68% of the population feeling “optimistic” versus only about 31% feeling “pessimistic” or “very pessimistic”[23]. These findings were reflected in a similar poll conducted right before the outbreak of violence that found the majority of respondents (59.1%) saying that they were “very optimistic” or “optimistic” in regards to their future as opposed to 17.8% who were pessimistic, and 23.1% who “were in somewhere in-between optimism and pessimism.”[24]

No attempt was made to investigate or even consider other, more commonly studied reasons for the purported high incidence of mental health problems, such as internal cultural factors, economic or social factors, education, family size or dynamics, living conditions, influence of television, etc.

Thus, the study suffers from repeated assertions not supported by the authors’ own references, a lack of attention to available data that can explain the results, a failure to properly define terms used, and conclusions reached on the basis of unsubstantiated conjecture. The authors also seem to have used a non­standardized scale, despite claiming the opposite, whose appropriateness for the population in question is questionable. None of the authors have mental health backgrounds, and the recurring use of references that do not support their statements calls into question their credibility. In short, a sloppy and poor example of scientific research.

The scientific problems with this article can possibly be related to either a lack of editorial oversight, a failure on the part of the reviewers to fully review the contentions and references in the article or a very poor standard of science on the part of the journal. However, when taking a further look at the background and political agenda of the authors of this piece, another, far more seriously disturbing perspective comes out.

The political issues present

As noted earlier, the political leanings or ideology of any researcher is irrelevant to good science, so long as the research and scientific methods used are valid and credible. Researching a link between mental health problems among Palestinian youth and Israeli actions is as legitimate as any other topic of study, so long as the research is credible, open, transparent and replicable. Here, however, poor, sloppy and possibly misleading research was conducted in an area that is laden with political nuance.

Although the study in question involved research on the mental health of children, none of the authors seem to have any background or training in psychiatry, psychology or mental health. The lead author, Tanya L. Zakrison, is a junior surgery resident at the University of Toronto. The corresponding author is a microbiologist at the same university. The two junior authors from the Palestinian Al-Quds University are listed as research associates in public health and do not appear to have any previously published scientific papers. There is no mention of any expert in psychology, psychiatry, social work or mental health who was consulted with on this study. Both Tanya Zakrison and Paul Hamel are politically active, often working together, and are associated with movements that are typically hostile to Israel.

As a student, Zakrison spent a year studying biology in Cuba. In a piece that appeared in a publication called “The Militant”, Zakrison is quoted as saying that “…Cuba is a good example for other counties.”[25]

The “Marxist-Leninist Daily” carries a story on a conference co-sponsored by both Zakrison and Dr. Hamel entitled “Cuba’s international relations, globalization and human rights”. [26] The conference featured officials of Castro’s government and a speaker from the Cuban Union of Young Communists.

A month earlier, Zakrison and Hamel organized another event reported on in a publication of a pro-Castro organization. The article, which appeared right before a notice announcing a trip by the Canadian Che Guevera Brigade, congratulated Zakrison and Hamel for the event, which featured another Cuban speaker.[27]

Both Zakrison and Hamel have published views that are harshly critical of American policies. As a student, Zakrison signed a letter[28] in 1997 that protested the awarding of an honorary degree to the then former President George Bush. The letter said pointed out “…his responsibility for warfare, bloodshed, international terrorism and attacks on basic human dignity.”

Some insight into the thinking of Tanya Zakrison may be gathered from a “Happy Birthday” note she sent to Noam Chomsky, whose views on politically related topics, including the topic in question here, are well known and documented.

In her note[29], Zakrison thanks Chomsky for “saving my life”, refers to his “outstanding political insight and clarity of thought”, criticizes how society carries out a “genocide of the peasantry” and states how she hopes Chomsky will continue “…providing me with the truth about past events, the tools to decipher the present and the inspiration to alter the future.”

Hamel has written about the “global war effort” of the United States, accusing the administration exploiting the events of 9-11 to” …promote a war without borders and without limits in time.”

In an article entitled “Aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity”, Hamel insinuates that the US was involved and is responsible for war crimes in Iraq during Saddam’s reign. He states that for “with all the help from western nation who where (sic) profiting from all these crimes, one wonders who should stand trial for these crimes against humanity.[30]”

Zakrison and Hamel’s collaboration on the Canadian Journal article does not appear to be a coincidence. In fact, they do not appear to have published any other “scientific” articles, although Hamel, who is President of a group called “Science for Peace” and has worked with Zakrison on several politically related projects, has described Zakrison as “his partner.[31]”

Hamel’s political views and agenda are hardly secret. He regularly distributes e­mails on the Internet, often ending his generally politically oriented correspondence with the following quote:

“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest
of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work
for the benefit of us all.” — Economist John Maynard Keynes[32]

In one such correspondence, Hamel forwards an article written by Professor John McMurtry. He urges readers to “…feel free to pass this essay along unaltered”. In part, the article states the following:

“…continuing war crimes and crimes against humanity by Israeli
administrations are still perpetrated with impunity in the illegally
occupied territories of Palestine – for example, by land and property
seizures and continuous enlargement of the illegal occupation,
collective punishments of the population, increasing assassinations,
and destruction of civilian infrastructure and homes. Twelve to eighteen UN
resolutions prior to the inspections were said to have been violated by
Iraq during its years of living with militarily enforced destruction of
its society. Israel before, and since, has violated 64 UN resolutions
with impunity. No double standard of international law has been so
long-term, blatant and systematic, except by the U.S. itself.”[33]

Another example of Hamel’s apparent thinking regarding Israel is seen in another article that he again forwarded on to others. The article was a talk given by Michael Mandel of York University at a University of Toronto “teach-in” sponsored by the group the Dr. Hamel is president of, on December 9, 2001.[34]

Here is some of what this article forwarded by Dr. Hamel had to say:

“Now think of Israel. It’s no surprise that Israel would be using the same
Alice-in-Wonderland, pot-calling-the-kettle-black rhetoric as the US, what
Yoel Marcus called in Haaretz: “a cheap local imitation of a coinage by U.S.
President George W. Bush.” Because the violence you see there is the direct
effect of an illegal and brutal military occupation that has lasted 34
years. Israel calls the Palestinians terrorists and the Palestinian
Authority a “terrorist-supporting entity”. But who has killed more
civilians, Israel or the Palestinians? Just stick to the 1000 dead in the
past year (the odds get worse the further back you go). In fact it’s running
about three or four to one for Israel. In November the Israeli army
booby-trapped a bomb and killed five Palestinian children. If a terrorist is
somebody who kills civilians, then in my books the bigger terrorist is the
one who kills more civilians.

If Canada is going to ban fund-raising for Hamas, they should ban the United
Jewish Appeal. If we’re going to deport all terrorists, we should close the
Israeli Embassy. And the American one, too, because Israel could do nothing
without the US. If the US gave the Palestinians tanks and jets you can bet
they wouldn’t be blowing themselves up in pizzerias and night-clubs and on
buses and in pedestrian malls. I say this as a Jew who loves Israel and
cannot believe how the Israelis have turned it into a nightmare for Jews
and Palestinians alike.”

Dr. Hamel forwarded this on to others, posting it on a politically oriented listerserv.[35]

Conclusion: Poor science, blatant politics, clear bias

On scientific grounds alone, the piece published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry by Zakrison, et.al. presents many problems that should have been addressed by the editorial board of the journal. What is especially disturbing are repeated refusals of the editor to consider a letter that raised only some of the scientific problems noted here and his dismissive and possibly biased response. No topic, including the area that these authors selected for study, should be considered “off-limits” for scientific research, so long as the study is conducted within the bounds of accepted scientific design and methods. Here, Dr. Rae-Grant’s persistent refusal to publish legitimate criticism of the study and his suggestion that such criticism is “not appropriate for science” raises questions as to what he was defending and why, especially in light of the open political biases of the authors and their glaring lack of any background in the subject area studied. Readers were presented with a seriously flawed article that has a clear political agenda rather than scientific purpose.

*****

Notes:

[1] http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/2004/January/zakrison.asp

[2] Zakrison, TL, Shahen, A, Mortaja, M, Hamel, PA. The prevalence of psychological morbidity in west bank Palestinian children. Can J Psychiatry, 2004, 49: 60-63

[3] Weiner, JR. The use of Palestinian children in the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Jerusalem Viewpoints, 2000, vol 441

[5] http://www.eufunding.org/Textbooks/Marcus.html

[5] Visitors get a feel of life in the West Bank. UPI, April 4, 2004.

[6] http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/peace-health/casegaza.pdf, referenced in the article as reference #4

[7] Thabet AA, Vostanis P. Social adversities and anxiety disorders in the Gaza Strip. Arch Dis Childhood 1998;78:439-42.

[8] Thabet AA, Vostanis P. Post-traumatic stress disorder reactions in children of war: a longitudinal study. Child Abuse Negl 2000;24:291-8., see: http://www.gcmhp.net/research/Post_traumatic.html

[9] Personal communication with Prof. P.Vostanis, October 4, 200410 Goodman R (1997) The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A Research Note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 581-586. 11 Op. Cit. 9

[10] Goodman R (1997) The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A Research Note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 581-586.

[11] Op. Cit. 9

[15] http://www.austcare.org.au/B7PalestinianTerr.htm

[16] http://www.wclac.org/aboutnew1.html

[17] http://www.skk.uit.no/WW99/papers/Aghabekian_Varsen.pdf

[18] Thabet AA, Abed Y,Vostanis P. Emotional problems in Palestinian children living in a war zone: a cross-sectional study. Lancet 2002; 359:1801-4.

[19] http://www.pmw.org.il/LiblesF.htm

[20] http://www.aacap.org/publications/factsfam/violence.htm

[21] Burdman, D. Education, indoctrination, and incitement: Palestinian children on their way to martyrdom, Terrorism and Political Violence, March 2003, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 96-123(28)

[22] http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040404-080626-6470r

[23] http://www.jmcc.org/publicpoll/results/2000/no37.htm#sample

[24] http://home.birzeit.edu/dsp/DSPNEW/polls/poll_1/

[25] http://www.themilitant.com/1995/5938/5938_17.html

[26] http://www.cpcml.ca/tmld/TMLD049.htm#9

[27] http://www.web.net/~ccfatoronto/english/amistad/Ami0103.pdf

[28] http://www.utoronto.ca/acc/bush/bush03.htm

[29] http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/birthday/Display.cfm?ID=1648

[30] http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/Bulletin_Files/Bulletin200401/sfpbulletin2004-01.pdf

[31] http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:e_zZ1aaJpv4J:www.parl.gc.ca/infocom/PubDocument.asp%3FDocumentID%3D1040179%26Language%3DE+%22tanya+zakrison%22&hl=en

[32] http://www.peace.ca/finalfrontier.htm

[33] http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-ottawa/2003q1/001371.html

[34] http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/Special_Activities/Mandel_Dec9-01.pdf

[35] http://stream.paranode.com/imc/hashes/45/45872d249211483912339dde686d324f

Submitted to SPME task force: October 6, 2004

Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
c/o Susquehanna Institute 624 Sandra Avenue
Harrisburg, PA 17109-5816
717.576-5038.
www. spme.org

Initial list of endorsers (list in formation)

Mark S. Kiselica, Ph.D., HSPP, NCC, LPC
Fellow and Former President, Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity:
Division 51, American Psychological Association
Professor and Chairperson
Department of Counselor Education
332 Forcina Hall
The College of New Jersey

Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D.
Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies
City University of New York

William J. Weikel, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Founding, Editor, Journal of Mental Health Counseling
Morehead State University, Morehead, Kentucky

Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D.
Departments of Psychiatry, Medical Ethics, and Sociology
and Center for Bioethics
University of Pennsylvania

Steven M. Albert, Ph.D., M.Sc.
Associate Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Science
(in Sociomedical Science, Neurology, and the Sergievsky Center)
Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center
Columbia University, New York

John R. Cohn, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Medicine
Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA

Laurie Zoloth, Ph.D
Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics and of Religion
Chair of Bioethics, Center for Genetic Medicine
Northwestern University
Feinberg School of Medicine

Judith S. Jacobson, DrPH, MBA
Department of Epidemiology
Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University, New York

Gustav J. Beck M.D. FACP, FCCP, FACAAI
Clinical Professor of Medicine, (ret.)
New York University College of Medicine

Philip Carl Salzman, Ph.D.
Professor of Anthropology
McGill University
Montreal

Georges Gachnochi M.D.
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris
Chief of Department
Barthélémy-Durand Hospital
91150 Etampes France

Mitchell Kaplan, MD
Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
New York

Mag. rer. nat. Dr. Phil. Ruth Contreras
Director Emeritus
Department of Entomology
Natural History Museum
Vienna, Austria

Daniel Weiler-Ravell, MD
Director, Chest Unit,
Carmel Medical Center, Haifa

Charles David Isbell, Ph.D.
Professor
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg
Dept. Political Studies and BESA Center for Strategic Studies
Director, Program on Conflict Resolution
Head of Research on Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, BESA Center for Strategic Studies
Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Institutional affiliations for identification purposes only

Biased politics masquerading as science: Complicity of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry

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AUTHOR

Irwin J. Mansdorf


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