April 20, 00 --Therapists are taking issue with a medical examiner who says long-term use of ritalin may have caused the death of a 14-year-old boy in Michigan. Matthew Smith collapsed and died while playing with a skateboard. Science Specialist Ed Yeates reports the boy had been taking the prescribed drug for ten years.

The coroner's report said changes had occured in the small blood vessels which supply Matthew's heart. His parents said their son had sometimes complained of pressure in the chest.

Children use a variety of therapies to help them deal with Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorders. Some kids play special computer games designed to buffer the effects of hyperactivity.

But as for medications, Ritalin is still the drug of choice, and the most effective in helping children and even some adults deal with ADHD.

Psychiatrists like Dr. Michael Stevens are taking issue with Michigan's medical examiner. They're among a large group who've been doing their own review of the case.

Michael Stevens, M.D. / Medical Director, Valley Mental Health: "I reviewed pharmacology textbooks and am unable to find any report anywhere in medical literature going back to the 1930's."

Dr. Stevens has treated patients with ADHD for a long time. He says some adults have had cardiovascular complications while taking Ritalin, but those rare events occurred in patients who already had heart disease to begin with, and they took massive overdoses of the drug.

Stevens and his colleagues suspect young Matthew Smith may have had underlying heart disease and/or something else that was overlooked. Pathologists, they say, need to take a closer look at his cause of death.

Psychiatrists say Michigan's M.E. only speculated on Ritalin's connection with Matthew's death. Pushing the panic button, they say, was unwarranted.