la also emphasized that children of single parents are twice as likely to be harmed. However, evidence shows that rates of child abuse had not increased as severely as Donna Shalala had pointed out. Statistics from the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse showed that the number of fatalities resulting from child abuse had increased by only two hundred during the seven-year period. The number of deaths in 1986 as a result from child abuse was 1,014 and in 1993 there were 1,216 deaths. If the number of children who had been abused supposedly quadruped then the deaths should have also increased by a significantly large number as well. Shalalas study also states that there was a skyrocketing increase in child abuse when in reality it is only mere expectations of abuse. Fear mongers have knocked the optimism out of us by stuffing us full of negative presumptions about our fellow citizens and social institutions. We waste billions of dollars on mythical hazards like road rage and on technology to make airline travel-which is already safer than other means of transportation-still safer. We as a society must work together and not be so easily persuaded by media....
