Mount Cashel abuse victim calls for public inquiry  - Richard Foot,
Canwest News Service 5/24/09 A survivor of Canada's worst child abuse
scandal is calling for a public inquiry into the horrors inflicted on
boys at the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland, as well as other
Christian Brothers institutions across the country....The St. John's
survivor, who lived at the now-defunct Mount Cashel orphanage during
the 1950s, is a well-known Newfoundland professional and community
volunteer who managed against all odds to build a life for himself,
despite being savagely beaten and sexually abused as a boy. He is now
one of 50 Mount Cashel survivors with civil suits still before the
courts....Doe says the conditions and suffering described by the
report out of Ireland read like a "mirror image" of his time in Mount
Cashel....From 1989-1990, a Newfoundland royal commission, led by
retired Ontario judge Samuel Hughes, did investigate the Mount Cashel
scandal; however, its work was focused only on a police coverup of the
abuses and on a select group of victims housed in the orphanage in the
1970s and 80s....Between 1996 and 2004, $27 million was paid by the
Newfoundland government and the Christian Brothers in compensation to
roughly 100 Mount Cashel victims. Another $8.5 million was paid over
the same
 period, by the Catholic order and the government of Ontario, to
survivors of Christian Brothers schools in Ontario.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1626064


This project began as a letter to PBS which objected to false
statements made by Ms. Ofra Bikel, producer of the program "Divided
Memories." That letter described how an undergraduate Research
Assistant at Brown University found half a dozen corroborated cases of
recovered memory in just a few hours of electronic database searching,
disproving Ms. Bikel's claim to the contrary (Cheit, 1995). PBS did
not defend Ms. Bikel's claim that "she could not find any"
corroborated cases of recovered memory in her allegedly extensive
search. http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/purpose.html


Psychological Impact Of Child Abuse ScienceDaily 5/24/09 - According
to a new Mayo Clinic study, a history of child abuse significantly
impacts the wide range of challenges facing depressed inpatients.
Included are an increase in suicide attempts, prevalence of substance
use disorder, and a higher incidence rate of personality disorder.
Additionally, these victims also had an earlier onset of mental
illness and an increase in psychiatric hospitalizations for
psychiatric issues. The study was presented at the American
Psychiatric Association 2009 Annual Meeting in San
Francisco....Although the findings of the Mayo study do not confirm
causality, the information stresses the importance of more aggressive
approaches from the public health perspective to prevent child abuse.
"A history of child abuse makes most psychiatric illnesses worse,"
according to Magdalena Romanowicz, M.D., lead author of the study. "We
found that it significantly impacts the wide range of characteristics
of depressed inpatients including increased risk of suicide attempt,
substance abuse, as well as earlier onset of mental illness and more
psychiatric hospitalizations. This new information serves as a
reminder of the importance of child abuse prevention from a public
health perspective." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090521112831.htm


Childhood Abuse, Avatar Choices, and Other Risk Factors Associated
With Internet-Initiated Victimization of Adolescent Girls - Jennie G.
Noll, PhD, Chad E. Shenk, PhD, Jaclyn E. Barnes, MA and Frank W.
Putnam, MD RESULTS. Forty percent of the sample reported experiencing
online sexual advances, and 26% reported meeting someone offline who
they first met online. Abused girls were significantly more likely to
have experienced online sexual advances and to have met someone
offline. Having been abused and choosing a provocative avatar were
significantly and independently associated with online sexual
advances, which were, in turn, associated with offline encounters.
CONCLUSIONS.A history of childhood abuse may increase Internet-
initiated victimization vulnerability. Parents should be aware of the
ways in which their adolescents are presenting themselves online.
Making adolescent girls and their parents aware that provocative
online self-presentations may have implications for sexual
solicitation might help to ward off sexual advances and might help
prevent Internet-initiated victimizations. Practitioners should
consider standard inquiry into Internet and media usage an aspect of
comprehensive care.  PEDIATRICS Vol. 123 No. 6 June 2009, pp. e1078-
e1083 (doi:10.1542/peds.2008-2983)
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/123/6/e1078