Sam Brownback: “I rise today to urge the adoption of this amendment to S. 1. I am delighted to be joined in this effort by my friend and…”

“I rise today to urge the adoption of this amendment to S. 1. I am delighted to be joined in this effort by my friend and colleague, Senator Kohl from Wisconsin. I would also like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions for his work in securing the passage of this amendment. I think this is a noncontroversial amendment so I am going to summarize the point. Over the past several years, we have had a number of hearings by this Congress about the impact of entertainment, particularly violent entertainment, on children, and the accessibility of such entertainment to children. This last summer we had the six major health organizations in the country--the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and others--sign a statement which said that exposing children to violent entertainment can actually cause increases in aggression and hostility and decreases in empathy. Since then, there have also been reports of studies focusing on how violent entertainment affects a child's brain activity. Less than a month ago, USA Today reported on one study conducted by Professor John Murray of Kansas State University. It showed the results of MRIs taken of children who were watching violent film clips. The reporter concluded: "The scans showed that violent film clips activate children's brains in a distinctive, potentially violence-producing pattern.”