Letters to the Editor

Advocating abstinence

Statistics are statistics, but the author of "Surveys indicate infrequent sex on campus" in your April 15 issue clearly took the position that the lack of sex here was a problem that the student body needs to eradicate. I would encourage my fellow students to stop and think about the short- and long-term consequences before even engaging in "safe sex" – not just medical, but, more importantly, emotional. Sex is not the only or best way to a deeper and more meaningful relationship. It has come time for us to publicly question the social norm of casual sex with which Hollywood has brainwashed us. Anastacia Rohrman '99

Afflicted students

The article concerning infrequent sex on campus offers a number of reasons for the phenomenon. One that is not mentioned is to be found in "The Anatomy of Melancholy," by Robert Burton (first edition, 1621), who writes as follows in Part I, Section 2, Member 3, Subsection 15: "[h]ard students are commonly troubled with gouts, catarrhes, rhumes, cacexia, bradiopepsia, bad eyes, stone and collick, crudities, oppilations, vertigo, windes, crampes, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by overmuch sitting; they are most part leane, dry, ill coloured, spend their fortunes, loose their wits, and many times their lives, and all through immoderate paines, and extraordinary studies."

George Eliot uses extracts from this quotation as an epigraph to part 1, chapter 5 of "Middlemarch." The whole subsection, titled "Love of Learning, or Overmuch Study. With a Digression of the Misery of Schollers, and why the Muses are Melancholy," is well worth reading. John L. Logan '66 Literature Bibliographer

Survey flaws

After reading the article on the sex survey, I started to wonder how you could have printed information from a survey which was so obviously seriously flawed. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the article was the comparison of the results here at Princeton to those at other universities. Those were surveys with different questions asked in a different order, at a different time. The margin of error of those surveys was also not reported, so it is entirely likely that any comparison between them is meaningless. Comparing surveys with different questions and sampling techniques is like comparing apples and oranges.

The 'Prince' needs to be more responsible when taking and reporting surveys. Merely writing a few questions, copying them and sending a few staffers to places where people eat does not make for a good survey. Without reporting sample size or margin of error, the reader is unable to make an accurate judgment on the accuracy of the survey. Comparing several different surveys in a bar chart is irresponsible, and gives the impression that there were equivalent surveys done at the different locations. In the future, I hope that the 'Prince' will do a better job of living up to its responsibilities to its readers. Ben Gawiser '98

Defense of Olestra

While the column in the April 16 'Prince' ("Opening up a bag of gastrointestinal adventures") about the author's friend's bouts of GI distress was certainly riveting, the attribution of his problem to consumption of olestra-containing chips perpetuates an unthinking acceptance of so-called common knowledge, i.e., if event A precedes event B, A caused B. There are some data that strongly suggest this is not true of olestra and GI problems.

For example, a placebo-controlled, double-blind study of people who had complained of GI distress after consuming olestra chips was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In this investigation, people who ate olestra chips reported the same amount and type of GI problems – no more, no less – as participants who ate full-fat chips.

Although the suggestion that excesses can cause problems is certainly valid, the olestra example you provide seems to contradict it. After all, the person who "ate almost two bags" had no problems, while poor Conrad who consumed only 10 chips suffered for two days! Of course, it's tempting to blame olestra, but in fact it has been shown that about 50 percent of people (not eating olestra) have some form of GI problem over the course of a few months.

Clearly, the attitude that we can escape the consequences of our actions (gustatory and otherwise) through the magic of technology is an oversimplification. Technology can, however, help achieve many goals and should not be dismissed lightly or on the basis of spurious logic. Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D. Director of Nutrition American Council on Science and Health