For more information about Patrick McGorry’s global agenda, click here: https://www.cchrint.org/2010/06/16/australian-psychiatrist-patrick-mcgorry-wants-his-pre-drugging-agenda-to-go-global/

The Sydney Morning Herald
By Julia Medew
August 9, 2010

LEADING mental health reform figures, including Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry, are misleading the public with dodgy statistics that suit their causes, a prominent psychiatrist says.

Adelaide University Associate Professor Jon Jureidini claimed yesterday that Professor McGorry and National Advisory Council on Mental Health former chairman John Mendoza had exaggerated or misrepresented mental healthcare statistics during the reform debate.

But Professor McGorry and associate professor Mendoza have denied misleading anyone.

Associate Professor Jureidini said Professor McGorry – a world-renowned psychiatrist whose youth-targeted services recently won bipartisan support – had falsely claimed that 750,000 young Australians were ”locked out” of care they ”desperately” needed.

”He’s taken the biggest possible figure you can come up with for people who might have any level of distress or unhappiness, which of course needs to be taken seriously and responded to, but he’s assuming they all require … a mental health intervention,” said Associate Professor Jureidini, who specialises in child psychiatry.

”It’s the way politicians operate. You look at figures and put a spin on it that suits your point of view. I don’t think that has a place in scientific conversations about the need for health interventions.”

Associate Professor Jureidini said although surveys showed about 750,000 young people experienced an untreated mental disorder at some stage every year, many would have mild and transient disorders that did not need treatment.

He also accused Associate Professor Mendoza of incorrectly asserting that more than a third of suicides in Australia involved people inappropriately discharged from hospitals.

He said a more accurate figure was about 1 per cent.

”Nobody would argue with people bringing forward data to support their arguments, but it needs to be done responsibly and accurately, not in a way that exaggerates it,” he said.

Read entire article here:  http://www.smh.com.au/national/mcgorry-misleading-the-public-20100808-11qes.html