£2,000 or prison for your child

Dore Despair

“Do your realise that most people who go to prison suffer from ADHD-Dyslexia?” That’s the question that Dore salesmen are trained to ask parents of children with Dyslexia. It is part of their blackmailing technique to “put the parents into a state of despair”. Either cough up £2,000 for your child or you will be the cause of child ending up in prison.

Not surprisingly, many parents fell for the Dore ‘miracle cure for Dyslexia'. One embittered mother told ‘You and Yours’ radio programme today that she had  been asked to pay a further £120 for an assessment of her child on top of the £2,000 she has already been paid. The Radio Four programme may be reacting to this EDM, which I put down in March:

That this House is appalled at the gullible uncritical promotion by the media of Dore, a claimed miracle cure for dyslexia, in the absence of scientific proof of its value; notes that there were five resignations from the editorial board of the journal Dyslexia in protest at false claims published in that journal on the efficacy of Dore; welcomes Ofcom’s finding that Dore’s television advertisement was in breach of its rules on evidence,; calls on the Jeremy Vine Show, Channel Five News, Radio Five Live, BBC London, ITV Central, ITV Yorkshire, the Daily Mail, the Daily Record, Scotland on Sunday, Tonight with Trevor McDonald and You and Yours to correct the false impressions they broadcast on an unproven treatment; and congratulates the bloggers and journalist Ben Goldacre for exposing this bad science and other exploitative snake oil salespeople.

Subsequently I have written to all the media outlets mentioned. Try the link below and hear the brilliant destruction of the Dore Myth by Radio Four. ‘You and Yours’ gave generous time to the supporters of Dore, which they effectively used to hang themselves. The main academic, that Dore quotes, stumbled to a denial of the claims that have been made about his study.

By a process of what was called ‘statistical voodoo’ a minor improvement under the Dore treatment was translated on the Dore website to a transformation. Claims of 1700% improvement in reading and other skills were made where no significant change was noted. Parents were promised that their children would no longer be on the 'special needs' register after 12 months. Local authorities that piloted the Dore techniques are quoted on the firm’s websites as being enthusiastically supportive. None are.

Bedfordshire said there was no secure link with Dore and improvements in ability. Warwick dismissed Dore’s claims as a ‘commercial interpretation', and Gwynedd said the results were disappointing. Dore also claims that their cure worked on astronauts who sufferer symptoms similar to Dyslexia after their trip to space. NASA has emphatically denied this absurdity.

Dore expanded worldwide and their Australian company is in liquidation. Staff have not been paid and parents who paid £2,000 or $5,000 will not get the treatment or their money back.

‘You and Yours’ did a splendid, rational and balanced destruction job. It made amends for their previous uncritical item. I look forward to all the other media doing the same.

Sadly, it's not over. The Dore firm is being revived in a rollover so the threat remains. More parents may be exposed to these disreputable sales pressures.

Congratulations, 'You and Yours'. All is forgiven.

Hear the full programme here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00cx8wc

Comments

[John]

Hi Paul, Although not relevant to this blog entry I thought I would post here as more likely to get your notice.
Did you see the article from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7559000/7559395.stm

its about Police meeting targets and falling morale I quote
"I am aware that officers in a town just north of where I live have been told to go out on patrol deliberately to try and search for cannabis just so they can do a street warning for cannabis which is a sanctioned detection. They are literally told to go out and search a few people and try and find some cannabis so they can give a street warning and get a detection out of it."
A similair thing happened in my home town one Saturday night the Police trawled through a small student/young area Pubs restaurants cafes etc only about a mile long with dogs looking for drugs. They stopped 1 in 4 on suspicion mainly young adults not causing any trouble but attracting the attention of the dogs.
In my opinion this is an outrageous waste of Police rsources that could be better used. But they obvioulsy feel that in order to meet targets they have to resort to this.
I own a shop (a wholefood shop) in that area that is frequented by students young intelligent adults most of them not been in trouble with the Police before mainly middle class kids. The feeling coming from those young adults towards the Police was shocking. By such action the Police are disenfranchising and alienating this generation. There was no "Oh I wont do that again" but a determination to do the opposite I think of Jacqui Smith et al who were once young and intelligent like these kids.Were would they be now if they had a caution/criminal record. And this will get far worse when Cannabis is upgraded.
As the Polcie themselves say targets are meaning they are going for the low hanging fruit and real crime that affects us more deeply is going undetected.

[patrick]

John
Good post above.
The sensationalist tabloid hype surrounding cannabis is crazy. I listened to a Radio phone in the other day and the host was treating cannabis as a deadly drug meanwhile alcohol and tobacco are cool.

If we are seriously going to treat DRUGS on order of danger/class then the police will need to raid every smokers house and go in to every bar and arrest every drinker.

[paulflynn]

Thoroughly agree with every word of that John.

Targets have been a measure of failure not of success and an end in themselves. If it had not been for a 'revolt' by Labour MPs we would have been in the middle of reorganisation of the police now.

The example you give of this police action is a powerful one. Jacqui Smith should know about it. Do you have a sensible local MP who can take it up?

There is no support for the cannabis re-classification from anyone who understands the situation. It continues the futility of 'tough' policies and comforts politicians that they are doing something- even if it's counter productive.

It's frustrating being in recess when these instances cannot be raised in the House. But we can still write to Ministers. The best approach is from the local MP. An alternative is a friendly journalist to get the facts into the public domain.

Thanks again for letting me know. My local police have adopted a far more sensible attitude in recent years.

The effect of this cascading stupidity from parliament to the bobby on he beat on young people's alienation
is truly alarming.