REBUTTAL

                                   to

               MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT HOMOSEXUALS DO

INTRODUCTION:  On September 8, 1993, CompuServe member, Jim
(ID#76170,3610)uploaded a 23K article by Paul Cameron, Ph.D., in
the section 17 library.  I have read and reviewed Cameron's work
which he calls the "Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do"
(MCWHD)and have found it scholastically suspect.  In fact, I
believe it is a pseudo-scientific piece of swill which misuses,
misinterprets, and misquotes various respected medical journals
while also relying on false and irrelevant secondary sources to
support its blatantly homophobic position.

QUALIFICATIONS: Dr. Paul Cameron received his Ph.D. in psychology
from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1966 (not in 1964
in social psychology, as his organization, Family Research
Institute, Inc. (FRI)informed me when I called them at (703) 690-
8536). Fifteen years later, on May 1, 1981, he received his
license in psychology in Nebraska and it is good until January 1,
1995 until either revoked or extended.  (Source:  Nebraska Board
of Examining Psychologists in Lincoln, Nebraska at (402) 471-
2115)

Dr. Cameron is not a member of the American Psychological
Association.  There are published reports that he was expelled
from that organization in the early '80s due to missuse of his
sources in a publication of his, but the APA can neither confirm
nor deny those reports because it is privileged information.
However,the APA referred me to the Nebraska Board of Examining
Psychologists and gave me its telephone number.

In speaking with the Nebraska Board, they have requested I send
them both a copy of Cameron's MCWHD as well at this critique for
review by its ethics committee.

I am a doctor of jurisprudence and received my degree from an ABA
accredited university in 1983.  Presently I am a licensed
attorney in California.  My undergraduate degrees are in social
science and sociology with considerable coursework in statistical
analysis and research methodology.  For more than a decade I have
been active in the peace and justice movement with an emplasis on
human rights.  I have appeared on television and radio and
lectured throughout the U.S. at universities and colleges as well
as before various religious and civic groups.

Jim, the contributor of Cameron's work, has not shared with us
his credentials.  However, without being given his last name, he
was instantly known to FRI.  Jim has attempted to defend
Cameron's article and, in this piece, I will so identify him when
I use quotes from his public messages.

OVERVIEW OF DOCUMENT: In his preface to MCWHD, Jim "encouraged"
readers "to seek out the source documents and read the full text
for themselves."  Where the source documents could be located,
that's exactly waht I have done.  Unfortunately, I have found so
many errors in Cameron's citation form, improper statistical
analysis and methodology, misquotes of original sources and
misinterpretation of the data that I believe Cameron's work
borders on professional negligence.  Also, the document as placed
in the library is filled with errors...both of the "typo" nature
and incorrect citation form.  So, in my analysis, I have relied
on a copy, in pamphlet form, sent to me by FRI.  I numbered each
page in the pamphlet and each line per page for reasons which
will be obvious to those reading this rebuttal.

In the original pamphlet, there are 34 references cited.  Within
the body of the text, references are cited 60 times.  Seven of
the 60 times, the reader is referred to the author's own work. In
other words, Dr. Cameron quotes himself 11% of the time.  The
original pamphlet is 6 pages long and contains 255 lines of text
and 1 chart and 1 table.  Of the 255 lines of text, 126 lines
either have no references (and must be attributed to the
author)or are referenced directly to the author's other works.
Therefore, fully 49% of the text (not counting the author's own
chart and table), is the direct work of the author.

Three of the references are to newspapers which are not a
recognized source of primary research material (References 15, 29
& 33).  Three other references (numbers 1, 2 & 3)are to dated
historical references dealing with the societal underpinnings of
discrimination against homosexuals. (And while it is interesting
from a historical perspective that Thomas Jefferson,(the man who
penned the stirring words "all men are created equal" while at
the same time owning slaves--said that male homosexuals should be
castrated and female homosexuals should have a one half inch hole
cut through the cartilage of her nose) none of those three
references add to the readers' understanding of the medical
consequences of homosexual activity.

At least one document (reference 8) is not carried in the San
Francisco public library because, as the librarian told me "We
just can't carry everything written by the counter culture and
only carry the most widely read."

Two references are to Psychological Reports (references 6 & 31),
both which publish articles by Cameron.  The librarian at the
medical school library at UCSF (University of California at San
Francisco) told me this is not among its 2000+ journals because
it is not a peer-reviewed publication.  In other words, anyone
who wants to see their work in print can pay Psychology Reports
for the privilege.

Reference 11 is incorrectly cited in both the library version and
the original pamphlet.  The correct cite is to MMWR 1992: 41: 9:
155-64.  Worse, the information contained in the original
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report--and for which it is cited
by Cameron--is improperly quoted in Cameron's MCWHD.

SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF FRAUDULENT SCHOLARSHIP:  The following is
meant to be an illustrative, not exhaustive, review of some of
Dr. Cameron's more egregious errors.

1.  Reference 10 is to an editorial (not a peer-reviewed study)
found in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) by Dr. Selma
Dritz.  Cameron changed the entire meaning of the quote by
stating that "The San Francisco Department of Public Health saw
75,000 patients per year, of whom 70 to 80 per cent are
homosexual men", when in fact, Dr. Dritz reported that these men
were seen in the Veneral Disease Clinic of the Public Health
Department.  By reading Cameron's "version" one could get the
idea that San Francico's Department of Health sees primarily
homosexual men.  This is untrue.  The San Francisco Department of
Public Health sees and treats hundreds and thousands of citizens
annually in its many clinics.

Cameron additionally (and conveniently) failed to point out that
in her editorial, Dr. Dritz courageously (way back in 1980!  pre-
AIDS) called on the medical profession to put aside their own
social and religious prejudices to treat homosexual males.

2.  Reference 9 is also from the NEJM and also by Dr. Dritz and
her colleague, Dr. Braff.  This is a 1977 letter to the editor
(not a peer-reviewed study), reporting 2 cases of transmission of
typhoid fever between homosexual men through "sexual activity
involving direct ingestion of enteric pathogens from fecally
contaminated skin...".  It's a "real stretch" for this letter to
the editor to be used as Cameron has done in his text.

3. Reference 19 is to a 1983 study in the NEJM for which Cameron
uses to support that "The proportion [of gays reporting]
intestinal parasites (worms, flukes, ameba) [was] 39%."  In fact,
the NEJM study at this point, was discussing "anorectal or
enteric pathogens...in homosexual men presenting to the clinic
without intestinal symptoms."  (Anorectal or enteric pathogens
does not equal intestinal parasites--except perhaps in Cameron's
mind.)

4. Reference 5 is used by Cameron to support the figure of 110
rectal contacts per year of the gay men studied.  Yet, the text
of the study clearly says "the mean frequency per month of oral-
anal exposure (2.5), the mean per cent of partners (29 per cent),
and the mean number of partners (2.3) with whom oral-anal
exposure occurred..."

[When I pointed out the "discrepancy" between Cameron's 110
figure and the 2.5 figure to Jim, he proceded to accuse me of not
being able to read the study properly.  He then proceeded to do
the "3rd grade math" and came out with an even *higher figure
than Cameron and said Cameron "probably" adjusted downward for
other statistical reasons or maybe his figure was a typo!]

5. Reference 4. This is to an amicus brief in the Bowers v
Hardwick case.  Amicus briefs are *not part of the official
record in Supreme Court cases.  Accordingly, it should not be
used as a reference.

THE CHART AND TABLE:  The table is in the library copy but, due
to formatting problems, is unreadable.  The chart is only found
in the original pamphlet.  Both are fantasyland compilations of
"statistics" culled from various surces and put togethr in a
pseudo-scientific manner and from which comparisons are
incorrectly drawn.

This method of charts and tables violates the recognized
principles of social science research and methodology.  In lay
terms, it is an example of comparing apples and oranges; it's
just not done.

CONCLUSION: As I said earlier, the above examples are
illustrative only.  They are not meant to be nor are they an
exhaustive list of all the errors found in the Cameron piece.  I
trust the reader of this rebuttal  will note how I have stayed
away from any discussion or rebuttal of Dr. Cameron's substantive
thesis.  I have tried to simply point out that he has improperly
used references--some as prestigious as the New England Journal
of Medicine and others as scientifically suspect as USA Today--to
put a veneer of respectability and scholarship on MCWHD.  I've
only scratched the surface and found so many errors in his
references, analyses, incompresible selection from sources and
total lack of peer-review that I find Cameron's article totally
worthless from a social science, medical or sociological
perspective.  Simply put: scholarship this ain't!

Finally, I think Cameron is a hate-monger.  How else can a person
be described who writes the following swill?:

"Homosexuals rode into the dawn of sexual freedom and returned
with a plague that gives indication of destroying most of them."

AIDS is not a homosexual disease.  It is a virus.  It is also an
equal opportunity killer.  I urge everyone to fight the virus and
not the men, women and children in our society who have
contracted it.

Olivia.  Compuserve ID# 76620,144