Category: sexual orientation

Only the gay die young? Part 5 – Morten Frisch responds to Kirk Cameron

Just after I posted my evaluation of Drs. Cameron’s gay life expectancy report, I received the following email from Morten Frisch which is a reply to Kirk Cameron’s letter in rebuttal to Dr. Frisch.

Dear Dr. Throckmorton,

As sadly anticipated, Drs. Paul and Kirk Cameron were not objective when writing their report ’Federal Distortion of Homosexual Footprint (Ignoring Early Gay Death?)’ (1). The mission statement of their professional affiliation, the Family Research Institute, concludes as follows: ”We welcome all who would join in the fight to restore a world…where homosexuality is not taught and accepted, but instead is discouraged and rejected at every level.” As a consequence, any report on human sexuality originating from this institution will by definition be devoid of objectivity and of questionable scientific value.

As a statistical researcher, Dr. Kirk Cameron must know well the inferential problems that prevail when comparing the average age at death in two study groups with vastly different age distributions. Elementary textbooks in epidemiology warn against such undue comparisons because they lead to apparently common-sense, but overtly wrong, conclusions (2). Assume for the purpose of illustration that Cameron and Cameron had restricted their study to all newly-married and all newly-partnered people in Denmark during the study window 1990-2002 (Norway 1997-2002) with the aim to make the studied groups of homosexuals and heterosexuals more comparable. In Danish men, the median age at first homosexual partnership was 4 years higher (32.6 years) than the median age at first heterosexual marriage (28.6 years) in the period 1989-2001 and, in women, the difference was about 6 years, being 32.6 years for first homosexual partnership vs. 26.5 years for first heterosexual marriage (3). Among those relatively few newly-married and newly-partnered people who actually died in the short observation period, the average age at death would likely be higher in the homosexually partnered group than in the heterosexually married group, simply because of the older age distribution of the homosexually partnered group. Using the Camerons’ flawed logic of inference such a modification of their study design would lead to the opposite conclusion; i.e., that heterosexual marriages shorten peoples’ life span. Obviously, this conclusion would be as unsubstantiated as the one reached by the authors.

Working to promote their anti-homosexual agenda, the Camerons presumably have plenty of time and resources to discuss these issues at length. As a researcher continuously fighting hard to obtain the required funding and time for my projects and those of my students I will have to stop here, leave the Camerons with their tragic parody of science, and focus on true scientific questions instead. I have previously published studies in peer-reviewed scientific journals that were warmly applauded by gay advocacy groups (4) as well as studies that made me a persona non grata in the same circles (3). I don’t have an agenda or a political mission for my scientific work, but I certainly have a different starting point than the one expressed in the mission statement of the Family Research Institute. Unlike what Dr. Kirk Cameron believes, I don’t object to the theoretical possibility that homosexual persons may have somewhat shorter life spans than heterosexuals or, for that matter, the other way around. We just don’t have meaningful prospective data available to inform us yet.

Although the Camerons’ report has no objective scientific value, the authors should be acknowledged for providing teachers with a humorous example of agenda-driven, pseudo-scientific gobbledygook that will make lessons in elementary study design and scientific inference much more amusing for future epidemiology students.

Morten Frisch, MD, PhD, DSc(Med)

Senior epidemiologist

Copenhagen, Denmark

References

1. Cameron, P. and Cameron, K. Federal Distortion Of Homosexual Footprint (Ignoring Early Gay Death?). 1-27. 2007. Family Research Institute.

2. Rothman KJ. Introduction to Epidemiologic Thinking. In: Rothman KJ (ed), Epidemiology – An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 1-7

3. Frisch M, Hviid A. Childhood family correlates of heterosexual and homosexual marriages: a national cohort study of two million Danes. Arch Sex Behav 2006;35:533-47

4. Frisch M, Smith E, Grulich A, Johansen C. Cancer in a population-based cohort of men and women in registered homosexual partnerships. Am J Epidemiol 2003;157:966-72

Only the gay die young? Part 4 – Brief evaluation of Cameron & Cameron (2007)

As promised, I am posting my letter of response to emails sent by Paul and Kirk Cameron. The Camerons objected to my blog comments and those of Dr. Morten Frisch about their recent poster session at the Eastern Psychological Association convention in March. Due to length (6 pages), I am posting a link to the Word document.

In general, I critique the multiple assumptions made by the Camerons in their recent study as well as the means of reporting it to the public. I am not sure what is next with this matter. I expect to get additional responses from the Camerons, and I may get another note from Dr. Frisch. If so, I will post them as Part Next.

Here are links to the previous posts in the series:

Only the gay die young? Examining claims of shorter life expectancy for homosexuals

Only the gay die young? Part 2 – Danish epidemiologist reviews the Cameron study

Only the gay die young? Part 3 – Kirk Cameron responds to Morten Frisch

Only the gay die young? Part 3 – Kirk Cameron responds to Morten Frisch

In an email received Friday, Paul Cameron’s son, Kirk, responded to the post here on this blog from Danish epidemiologist Morten Frisch. It is a 4 page response in a Word document which is why I will link to it instead of reproduce it in this post. Thanks to Dr. Cameron for permission to post.

Read the response here: Kirk Cameron’s letter of response.

I probably won’t have much to say about this until next week but I hope to comment in more depth then.

DIGG IT

Physician Assistants’ Association considers sexual reorientation therapy resolution

The American Academy of Physician Assistants’ House of Delegates will consider a resolution opposing therapeutic efforts to alter sexual orientation. Presumably this resolution will be voted on at their annual convention in Philadelphia in May, 2007.

I have yet to see the actual resolution but I am hopeful that language will be crafted that will allow a respect for religious diversity in this arena.

New York City study: Was the frequency of the down low overreported?

The September, 2006 Annals of Internal Medicine reported that nearly 10% of heterosexual men surveyed in New York City said they also had sex with men. This study was widely reported.

Now two reports in the April 3 issue of the Annals assert that the format of the survey may have caused a dramatic overreporting of homosexual sex among heterosexual men. Here is that letter:

TO THE EDITOR:

The article by Pathela and colleagues (1) underemphasized an apparent limitation in the data cited. Self-identified heterosexual male respondents were asked whether they had had sex with a man in the previous 12 months and then were read a definition of sex, including vaginal sex. Respondents who said “yes” were disproportionately foreign-born, had low education, and were married. They also overwhelmingly reported a single sex partner in the previous year and had a very low prevalence of risky sexual behavior. This profile suggests that many may have misunderstood the question and were reporting sex with their wives rather than “vaginal” sex with other men. Persuasive supporting evidence in the article’s Discussion section described a repeated study, as yet unpublished, 2 years later, in which asking men about sex with women before asking them about sex with men produced “a much lower self-reported prevalence of men who report sex with other men.” This marked difference in data, produced by a simple flipping of question order, deserved greater attention. Instead, the only limitation prominently reported was that random digit–dialed samples exclude households without residential telephone numbers—-a triviality in light of the effects of the question wording and question order that were much less prominently disclosed. The press release associated with the report made no mention of these effects, and subsequent press reports described the finding as far more conclusive than the relevant data suggest.

Another article in the April 3 edition provides additional caution about the earlier study. In contrast to the 9.4% reported in September, 2006, these authors estimate that just over 1% of straight-identified men have had sex with men in the past year.

The April 3 issue also allows the authors of the original study, Preeti Pathela et al, to respond to their colleagues.