Child sex abuse hysteria and the Ellis case
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	Gordon Waugh January 12 2005 ACC Services Letter sent to the Editor, NZ Herald (Unpublished) by Gordon Waugh, Auckland ACC proposes to reduce costs by cutting the number of helicopters it uses in rural areas. Those machines are vital in saving the lives of accident victims, and also provide emergency capacity when disaster strikes. But in the same breath, ACC literally chucks taxpayer funds away in other directions. With little or no justification, ACC spent $27 million last year on sex abuse claimants. Some claimants get $60,000 annually. It gave the HELP Foundation a cool $200,000, conveniently calling it funding for a "pilot study". ACC already has an apparently perfect method for diagnosing the believed-in mental effects of sexual abuse. Diagnosis does not require credible proof of the alleged abuse, but magically relies on "clinical medical evidence". It is, they claim, much like an X-ray might indicate internal damage to organs or bones! On this miraculous basis, ACC wastes increasingly more millions. Incredibly, they let a $600,000 contract to study the best way to diagnose mental injury resulting from sexual abuse. Wouldn't proof of the alleged abuse, provided by the claimant, be a good enough basis? A dash of common sense here would avoid cutting vital helicopter services.