Child Sexual Abuse Study

Re “Uproar Over Sexual Abuse Study Muddies the Waters,” Commentary, July 19: Carol Tavris’ comments (about a research article on the impact of child sexual abuse by Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman) involved so much spin-doctoring that I am still dizzy. Her characterization of this research is deeply mistaken. It is in fact a seriously methodologically flawed analysis.

News that children may not suffer from being sexually abused would be good news, indeed. But data that do not lead to this conclusion are twisted and pulled by the Rind study. This distortion is a story Tavris is very determined to ignore. Why?

GRANT FAIR MSW, CSW

Ontario, Canada

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Thanks for publishing the thoughtful commentary by Tavris on the current uproar over the Psychological Bulletin article on the long-term effects of child sexual abuse. The McCarthyesque witch hunt engaged in by religious/moralistic zealots against the authors of that article and the American Psychological Assn. indeed represents a dangerous assault on the process of scientific research in general.

The attempt to censor the publication of empirical research findings because they seem to offend some group’s religious/moral beliefs (did any of these people even bother to read the last paragraph of the Rind et al. article?) and to abridge scientists’ 1st Amendment rights in general is, in my opinion, infinitely more dangerous than some imagined effect of the Rind et al. article on the imagined defense of a handful of pedophiles. (As Tavris points out, pedophilia is still illegal.)

STANLEY WOLL PhD

Professor of Psychology

Cal State Fullerton