Health committee  Briefly, what I would say is that we have seen the incidence of child sexual abuse declining in our country. However, we have seen the incidence of child sexual abuse images, which are the most objective measures of child sexual abuse logarithmically, exponentially increasing.

Health committee  I would have to agree with Dr. Dines. It's too accessible to children. It just is. If we don't eradicate this accessibility, then we will not be able to justify all of the actions that we're seeing that are negative about our children because of the unknown sexual messages that a

Health committee  Yes. That's right.

Health committee  That's right. That's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and if you kill a sex worker, you get a special prize.

Health committee  You get a special prize by killing a sex worker and killing a police officer.

Health committee  Yes. There is a great deal of research, in fact. What we know is that the media to which our children and adults are exposed profoundly affect attitudes over time. The American Psychological Association has published an excellent task force report on the sexualization of girls. Y

Health committee  What we know about sex offenders, especially child sex offenders, is that they frequently have a cognitive distortion that their desire is the victim's desire. They often will say that the reason they did this is because she wanted it. This cognitive distortion is a very common t

Health committee  That's a really good question. One of the things we have found, from the perspective of health in general, is that sexuality has to be brought into the conversation in infancy. When we are seeing our patients as they go to preschool and toddler groups, we should be talking about

Health committee  Pornography, period. That's correct.

Health committee  Yes. I'll just say something briefly on that. That's a really good question. A lot of it has to do with the fact that many people don't recognize the addictive nature of this kind of content. I really do like a campaign that is growing in the United States called “Fight the New

Health committee  I think that the ability to opt out and opt in is extremely important. Most of the parents and parent organizations that I dialogue with talk about this sense of frustration over the fact that they are paying their own money for their children to ultimately be sometimes betrayed

Health committee  It's very interesting, because brain research now helps us to understand that the brain is not completely mature until you're almost 25 years of age. The prefrontal cortex, the part where you make good decisions and have cognitive understanding of the consequences, is the last pa

Health committee  That's a very good question. First of all, in conjunction with what Lianna McDonald just said, when we talk about the youth of children and their extreme access to technology, one of the things that needs to be provided is guidance to parents with respect to time and media. Most

Health committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a privilege for me to be able to speak with you today. I am a pediatrician who works specifically in child development, especially the healthy development of children and children who are at risk for developmental disorders. I am also a f