The Department of Health is about to cancel a controversial report into satanic child abuse. Written by psychiatrist Valery Sinason and Dr Rob Hale of the Portman Institute in London, the study was originally commissioned in 1996 but the two authors have consistently failed to deliver any credible account of their findings.Delivery was originally scheduled within three months, so the promised report is now nearly four years late. Three drafts have already been rejected and the latest rewrite has been sent out by the Department of Health (DoH) for peer review. But sources close to the Department are saying it has already concluded that the report is not worth publishing. The DoH dare not admit publicly to wasting taxpayers money on a wild goose chase but The Independent confirmed rejection of Sinason's report:
...........Once again, however, allegations of ritual abuse have turned out to rest on very little. A year ago, Valerie Sinason appeared on Radio 4's Today programme claiming she had "clinical evidence" of babies who had not been registered at birth being involved in ritual abuse. The implication was that the babies had been conceived and raised secretly for use in rituals that sometimes ended in their sacrifice.Most experts poured scorn on these claims and pointed out they could do serious harm by their very outlandishness - by making the whole of child abuse seem less likely and easier to dismiss. But they gained a measure of credence because Ms Sinason had been commissioned by the Department of Health, together with a colleague Dr Robert Hale, to write a report detailing her findings, which was submitted to the department last July.
I contacted the health department to ask what had happened to Ms Sinason's report and ask for a comment. What I received, by e-mail, was one of the longest and most carefully worded statements I can remember receiving.
The health department said, in summary, that they had received the report by Dr Hale and Ms Sinason, submitted it to peer review and returned it to the authors with reviewers' comments. They had no plans to publish it. They also cited separate research that they had commissioned from Professor Joan La Fontaine of the London School of Economics, who found "no independent material evidence" to support allegations of "Satanic child abuse and devil worship".
The coup de grace came in the final paragraph:
"In the Government's view, the conclusion of the study they commissioned by Professor La Fontaine ... has not been rendered invalid by Dr Hale and Valerie Sinason's study."
In other words, the claims about Satanic abuse are a load of tosh. To my knowledge, this is the first official declaration by a government department to this effect. "
(The Independent Newspaper, 21st February 2001, by Jeremy Laurance, the Indy's Health Editor)
ONCE AGAIN, FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME IN 13 YEARS, THE AUTHORITIES WERE WRONG AND THE SAFF WAS RIGHT.
QUESTION: How much longer will the authorities continue to vacilate over the Satan Hunters in social work?
ANSWER: Forever, as long as you, the taxpayers, keep on footing the bill!
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