Providentia

Psychologist Suicide Linked to Sex Offender Release

A Derbyshire coroner has ruled that psychologist Dr. Lisa Derriscott apparently took her own life due to her guilt over her role in the release of a Northumberland sex offender who reoffended against another child.    The body of the 33-year old Derriscott was found in a burned-out Vauxhall Corsa on August 3, 2011.   Although family members described her as  normally "bright and bubbly", she had become visibly despondent after learning that one of her patients  at the St. Andrews Healthcare Centre where she worked had been allowed to leave the secure unit without proper supervision in July of last year.    That same offender, 44-year old Shaun Tudor,   later pleaded guilty to attempting to drag a ten-year old boy into some bushes within minutes after his release.    He then went on the run for eight hours before being arrested.  Although she was only one member of the Northumberland mental health team that had released Tudor and the decision was upheld by the Ministry of Justice,  Dr. Derriscott had reportedly felt personally responsible.    Coworkers reported that the normally dedicated psychologist started behaving erratically and was often "quiet, distressed, and withdrawn". 

Lisa Derriscott's partner, Andrew Whittle, told the inquest that she was visibly upset and "unable to cope" despite the fact that she was not directly involved in the decision to allow Tudor out unsupervised.   He also reported  that she talked about "not being able to live with herself" and that she "wanted to go to sleep and not wake up".     In suicide notes that she left for Whittle and her mother, she stated that it was her fault that the convicted sex offender, who had spent twenty-three years in psychiatric institutions, had been allowed to attack another child.   Although she told her supervisor, Dr. Clive Long, that she was feeling suicidal, he dismissed this since she did not match the profile of people likely to kill themselves.  According to police reconstruction of the death scene, she had apparently parked her car and took an overdose of pain medication before setting her car on fire with her inside.  Despite the overdose, she died of smoke inhalation.   The suicide occurred the day before Shaun Tudor was to appear in court to plead guilty to the attack. 

After the coroner recorded a verdict of suicide, the father of the child attacked by Tudor described it as a "double tragedy".   He added that, "the doctor died, my son was attacked.  My son died that day.  He is a totally different child now". 

For more information.

The Fruit Machine Saga (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1

Bringing in the Scientists

Dr. F. Robert Wake of Carleton University was already a prominent figure in forensic circles with his work in juvenile delinquency and deviancy.  As the first chair of Carleton's Psychology Department as well as a researcher for the Royal Commission on the Criminal Law Relating to Criminal Sexual Psychopaths during the 1950s, he was well-known to security agencies and seemed ideal for developing a better way of finding hidden homosexuals.    Since prevailing psychological and psychiatric thinking at the time maintained that homosexuals were either mentally ill or psychologically abnormal, depending on mental health professionals to identify closeted homosexuals in the public service made good sense.  With funding from National Health and Welfare,  Dr. Wake traveled to the United States to research methods used there to find a more "scientific" means of identifying homosexuals.  Since RCMP investigations of suspected homosexuals were long and expensive,  a more direct procedure was needed.    In a 1962 "Report on Special Project", Dr. Wake restated his own opinion that homosexuals were intrinsically unsuited for employment in the public service due to their mental instability and general unreliability.   Although he was already aware of Evelyn Hooker and her research disputing prevailing opinions that homosexuals were maladjusted, Dr. Wake was very much a traditionalist.    In explaining what caused the difference types of homosexuality that he discussed in his report, Dr. Wake argued that homosexual tendencies were produced by “a combination of environmental circumstances during the years of childhood or early youth”. 

Since there was no way of curing homosexuals based on prevailing medical science, he argued that their sexual desires needed to be controlled through medication and aversion therapy.  While he focused on male homosexuality in his report, he also included information on lesbians as well and largely drew on the Kinsey results as an estimate on the actual number of homosexuals likely to exist in the Public Service.   The most far-reaching part of his report was included under the heading of "Methods for Identifying Homosexuals".   Arguing that there was more than one homosexual type, he ruled out the possible of a single test for identifying homosexuals.   Carefully outlining the various methods used in the United States, including psychiatric interviews, medical examinations, and projective tests, he then discussed the different physiological tests or measuring sexual arousal.  

After ruling out the polygraph as having too many problems to be useful, Dr. Wake also considered the finger plethysmograph (measuring blood volume in the finger using a pneumatic tube), palmar sweat index measures (perspiration), and pupillary response tests.    In his comprehensive report, F.R. Wake proposed the development of a formal test of homosexuality (or, as he termed it, “suitability for employment”) using physiological measures of arousal.   And, thus, the “fruit machine project” was launched.

The Rise and Fall of the “Fruit Machine”

According to John Sawatsky, author of Men in the Shadows, the term “fruit machine” was coined by RCMP agents who were leery of being recruited to act as the “normative sample” in testing the proposed device.    Although the “fruit machine” was never actually developed, the project spearheaded by Wake was financed by the National Defense and Health and Welfare departments for four years.    Along with Dr. Wake, the project would eventually bring in a large team of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other researchers, all dedicated to creating a machine for diagnosing homosexuality better than any of the existing methods.  

Although descriptions of the methodology proposed by Wake is fairly limited in the surviving documents related to his project,  the machine was apparently meant to measure changes in pupil dilation in conjunction with a word association test using a list of words with a hidden homosexual meaning.   The proposed word list would include words such as:  queen, circus, gay, bagpipe, bell, whole, blind, bull, camp, coo, cruise, drag, dike (dyke), fish, flute, fruit, mother, punk, queer, tea room, etc.  Since many of the words had a double meaning that men and women immersed in the homosexual subculture would presumably know, measuring their physiological responses would presumably expose their hidden sexual identity.    The pupillary measure that Dr. Wake recommended in his report had been developed at the University of Chicago by two researchers, Eckhard Hess and James Polt.   A graduate student, Alan Seltzer had  used the Hess-Polt procedure with slides comparing nearly-nude pictures of men taken from bodybuilding magazines with “neutral” slides (paintings) and claimed to be able to tell homosexual from heterosexual subjects based on pupil dilation data alone.  As Dr. Wake argued in his report, pupillary response measures were ideal in catching homosexuals since pupil dilation was completely involuntary and “cannot be controlled by the subject”.     He was especially impressed by the report of one homosexual subject who had admitted to trying to fool the machine only to find that he could not.  

In developing his own homosexuality-detection device, Dr. Wake proposed a new experiment combining the Hess-Polt apparatus “with a suitable visual stimuli; a measure of skin perspiration… with a modification to measure pulse rate.  Subjects:  fifteen normal males, fifteen normal females, fifteen homosexual males, fifteen homosexual females.   As the experiment progresses, additional normal and homosexual subjects in unspecified numbers.  All subjects to be supplied by the RCMP".     The experimental procedure in Wake's proposal was straightforward enough:  "the experimental stimuli will be pictures designed to elicit the subjects' interest in males and females...The first sixty subjects will be processed to determine the reaction patterns of normals and homosexuals.  Then using these patterns as criteria, the experimenter will attempt to distinguish homosexuals presented by the RCMP, where nothing of the subject is known to the research team.  Those methods proving successful will be retained for continuing research."  Ultimately, the focus of Wake's research was to identify homosexual men and women by detecting "involuntary"  sexual responses to the experimental stimuli (whether using pictures, presented words or audiotapes).

Ambitious as Wake's project was, it eventually bogged down over various technical snags.    That included the difficulty in finding a large enough sample of actual homosexuals and “normal” men and women to establish the actual effectiveness of the machine.   For obvious reasons, recruiting known homosexual men was hard enough (and the RCMP had no contacts at all in the female homosexual community as one rueful RCMP memo pointed out).  Even getting heterosexual men and women to participate was also a stumbling block (the reputation of the "fruit machine" project was enough to scare off any would-be volunteers in the RCMP community, none of whom wanted to be branded as "fruits" by their responses to the stimuli).    Since there were no female RCMP agents at the time, recruiting heterosexual women was deemed "inappropriate" (it was the early 1960s, after all).   Even attempting to recruit test subjects from other government departments failed to provide the needed numbers that Wake called for in his proposal.  There was also the operational problem of adapting the technology to adjust for height, eyeball size, and distance between eyeballs (all of which potentially distorted the machine's results).  

Despite some progress, Wake's research project remained stalled for years before being eventually scrapped in 1967.    For all the money spent and the years of effort, the great fruit machine project was a bust.

Continue to Part 3

Losing Hope

African American youths from single mother homes are more likely to live in neighborhoods characterized by greater risk and fewer resources than youth from two parent homes or European American youths; in turn, such adverse conditions are associated with increased adjustment problems. Despite this well-established vulnerability, relatively little is known about variables linking neighborhood context to youth adjustment. With the aim of identifying a potential youth-focused intervening variable amenable to intervention, a study published in a recent issue of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology examined the intervening role of hopelessness in the association between neighborhood context and adjustment problems in a sample of 171 African American youths (11–16 year olds) from single mother homes. Findings revealed direct associations between neighborhood context and youth adjustment, as well as indirect associations through youth hopelessness, although findings varied by the marker of neighborhood context (sense of community or perceived crime) and adjustment (internalizing or externalizing problems). Building on prior work noting that hopelessness is amenable to psychosocial intervention, the present findings suggest that hopelessness may afford a valuable target for prevention and intervention programming among African American youths from single mother homes in the context of adverse neighborhood conditions.

For the abstract.

Can Sleep Deprivation Cause Psychotic Behaviour?

It should have been a routine New York-Las Vegas flight last March 27.

The passengers of the Jet Blue flight (most of whom were traveling to the 2012 International Security Conference, ironically enough) were startled to see pilot Clayton Osbon running through the aisle screaming "say your prayers" as well as various threats relating to 9/11, al Qaeda, Iraq and Afghanistan.  After having been locked out of the cabin cockpit due to his attempting to interfere with the plane's controls,  the pilot was eventually wrestled to the ground and forcibly restrained by several of the passengers.   The plane then made an emergency landing in Amarillo,   Texas.  Although one flight attendant's ribs were bruised, no one on board the plane was seriously injured.

Following the incident, Jet Blue Airlines representatives were at a loss to explain the 49-year old pilot's behaviour.  Captain Osbon, a veteran pilot with no history of psychiatric problems was later charged with interference with a flight crew.    Following a recent hearing,  Clayton Osbon was declared not guilty by reason of insanity.     During the course of the hearing, the court heard from testimony provided by fellow crew members who said that the pilot showed up at the airport unusually late for the flight.  They also added that his bizarre behaviour did not begin until the plane was in midflight.   The first officer became alarmed when Captain Osbon began rambling about sins in Las Vegas and that the plane would not reach its destination.   The situation escalated after he was locked out of the cockpit and "aggressively" confronted crew members who attempted to restrain him.  The court also heard testimony from a psychologist, Robert E.H. Johson who determined that the defendant's actions on board the Jet Blue flight was due to a "brief psychotic disorder" resulting from sleep deprivation.    Dr. Johnson added in his report that the defendant;s psychotic behaviour lasted about a week following the March 27 incident.   The  U.S. Attorney's office did not dispute the psychological assessment report although a Jet Blue spokesperson argued that the pilot had sufficient off-time and that their scheduling did not cause the incident.  

Despite the not guilty verdict, Jet Blue is facing lawsuits from at least ten of the passengers on board the March 27 flight who maintain that the airline was "grossly negligent" in allowing the pilot to fly and that they feared for their lives due to his actions.   The Federal Aviation Authority is also reviewing the case to determine whether current guidelines concerning the amount of rest that a pilot should have between flights is enough to prevent problems.  While new guidelines are set to go into effect next years requiring a minimum 10-hour rest period for pilots (up from the current eight to nine hours required at present),  questions about what happened aboard that flight still remain.

But can sleep deprivation cause a psychotic breakdown?   Along with documented cases of extreme manic behaviour and delirious psychosis resulting from sleep loss,  research studies have shown a consistent link between sleep deprivation and impaired cognitive and emotional functioning.    A 2007 study by a team of Princeton researchers has indicated that lack of sleep can impact the limbic system of the brain and interfere with the body's ability to form new memories.    The researchers also found that sleep-deprived animals had higher levels of stress-related hormones and significantly fewer new brain cells in the hypothalamus.   Research has also found that the effects of sleep deprivation are typically cumulative, i.e., one night of lost sleep is harmless but two or more nights of lost sleep can have a dramatic impact on cognitive functioning and response inhibition.   While the effects of sleep deprivation are usually temporary, long-term sleep deprivation has been linked to chronic mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, mood disorders, and manic episodes.   Conidering the devastating impact that lack of sleep can have, it's probably not surprising that sleep deprivation is an effective interrogation method (with numerous court trials held to determine whether it can be considered a form of torture). 

As for Captain Clayton Osbon, he remains in a psychiatric hospital pending his final sentencing hearing in early August.   His fate, and the question of how similar incidents can be prevented in future,  is still very much up in the air.

 

 

The Fruit Machine Saga (Part 1)

Dealing with homosexuals in the public service was a familiar problem for Western governments during the 1950s and early 1960s.   A criminal offense in most countries, homosexuals were often punished with imprisonment and/or mandatory psychiatric treatment, that made closeted homosexuals especially vulnerable to blackmail or recruitment by hostile governments.  At least, that was the argument used to justify the security campaigns rooting out any homosexuals (real or suspected) in sensitive positions.    Although the anti-homosexual crusades in the United States and Great Britain are well-documented,  that the Canadian government did the same was largely shrouded in secrecy for decades.   It was only during the 1990s that the Canadian Press used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain many previously classified documents outlining how thoroughly Canadian security forces managed to destroy the lives of countless gay men and lesbians working in sensitive positions.  They also demonstrated some of the bizarre methods by which gay men and lesbians were identified. 

The Problem of Homosexuality

Beginning in 1959 with a Special Panel on "Security Cases involving Character Weaknesses with Special Reference to the Problem of Homosexuality", the question of what to do with homosexuals and lesbians in the public service became a critical issue for Canada's security forces.   According to one declassified memo:

Sexual abnormalities appear to be the favourite target of hostile intelligence agencies, and of these homosexuality is  most often used.  The nature of homosexuality appears to adapt itself to this kind of exploitation.  By exercising fairly simple precautions, homosexuals are usually able to keep their habits hidden from those who are not specifically seeking them out.  Further, homosexuals often appear to believe that the accepted ethical code which governs normal human relationships does not apply to them.  Their propensity is often accompanied by other specific weaknesses such as excessive drinking with its resultant instabilities, a defiant attitude towards the rest of society, and a concurrent urge to seek out the company of persons with similar characteristics, often in disreputable bars, night clubs, or restaurants....From the small amount of information we have been able to find out about homosexual behaviour generally, certain characteristics appear to stand out - instability, willing self-deceit, defiance towards society, a tendency to surround oneself with persons of similar propensities, regardless of other considerations - none of which inspire the confidence one would hope to have in persons required to fill positions of trust and responsibility.

Weeding out the Homosexuals

Although the anti-homosexual purge was inspired by the Cold War hysteria prevalent in most Western countries during the 1950s (spurred on by Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade in the United States),  the Canadian security agencies took a special zeal in weeding out homosexual men and women whereever they could be found.   Not only were homosexuals arrested and prosecuted throughout Canada but Canadian immigration laws were passed in 1952 banning known homosexuals from entering the country.   While never as public as the anti-homosexual purges in other countries (and lacking high-profile victims such as Alan Turing in the United Kingdom),  the continuing spy trials and sex scandals from other countries helped fuel the perception that homosexuals were inherently dangerous, both to themselves and to their country.     Lesbians were not initially pursued with the same ruthless intensity although criminal laws were revised in 1953 to make female homosexuality a crime in Canada.   After 1953, both men and women faced the risk of being labelled a "Criminal Sexual Psychopath" whenever evidence of homosexual activity (consensual or not) found its way into the courts.     For Canada's military, proven homosexual conduct was grounds for dishonourable discharge for both men and women.  While the focus was on male recruits, lesbianism was also seen as a threat to military discipline due to the "unfeminine" activities of lesbians in the service.   For cases of suspected homosexuals, military procedure called for a formal investigation (later enshrined under the 1967 Canadian Forces Administrative Order (CFAO) 19-20, Sexual Deviation - Investigation, Medical Investigation and Disposal for the "proper" handling and dismissal of serving men and women found guilty of homosexual conduct).  Throughout the 1950s and 1960s,  Canadian and American security agencies freely shared information on all perceived high-risk individuals (including possible homosexual activity of people in "sensitive" positions). 

With consultation of security agencies on both sides of the border, a more formal procedure went into place in 1963 with the drafting of a new Cabinet Directive on "Security in the Public Services of Canada".   While not referring to homosexuals specifically, the new directive referenced "illicit sexual behaviour" and called for an "attitude of much greater frankness whose reliability or loyalty is in doubt".   Any prospective employee who openly admitted to homosexual conduct would either not be hired or else transferred to a less "sensitive" position (usually with less importance).    For employees who were not forthcoming about their sexuality, the security agencies made little actual distinction between hidden homosexuals who were actually disloyal or who simply the potential of being disloyal.   Since the RCMP was in charge of all security investigations, their agents had the primary responsibility of investigating suspected homosexuals in virtually every branch of the Canadian government (except for the military which had its own intelligence division).  There was no independent review of the RCMP’s operation and accused homosexuals had no chance of defending themselves against accusations. 

Over time, the RCMP investigations eventually affected thousands of men and women, whether they were civil servants or not.   The total number of RCMP reports of suspected homosexuals rose from 1000 in 1960-1961 to 7500 in 1965-66.   Since few statistics were kept, the actual number of men and women whose lives were destroyed by relentless RCMP investigations and accusations of homosexuality can only be estimated.   For every high-profile case such as David Johnson, former Canadian ambassador to Moscow and his predecessor, John Watkins (who died of a heart attack following an RCMP interrogation), countless others were either fired, transferred or blacklisted based on suspected sexual improprieties. 

Despite only one-third of the RCMP investigations actually involving people in the civil service, right-wingers in the Canadian government denounced Canada’s external affairs department and embassies around the world as “a notorious cess-pool of homosexuals and perverts”.   The RCMP investigators in charge of locating homosexuals demanded and eventually got an expanded mandate and the list of suspects grew to include thousands of names.   Although the Canadian government placed some controls on the RCMP to prevent them from publicly exposing homosexuals unless they were considered to be security risks,  the RCMP often acted as judge and jury (since homosexuality was still a criminal offense at the time). 

Whatever the reality, the perception that thousands of hidden homosexuals were undermining Canadian security meant that a better way of identifying them was needed.   Fortunately, Canadian security agencies had their own expert on hand for that.   Dr. F. Robert Wake of Carleton University was already a well-known figure in forensic circles with his work juvenile delinquency and deviancy.  As the first chair of Carleton's Psychology Department as well as a researcher for the Royal Commission on the Criminal Law Relating to Criminal Sexual Psychopaths during the 1950s, he was well known to security agencies and seemed best suited for developing a better way of finding hidden homosexuals.

And he was definitely up for the challenge...

Continue to Part Two

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linking Obesity to Suicide

Approximately 10% of severely obese bariatric-surgery-seeking individuals report a lifetime history of suicide attempts, a higher rate than in the general community. Being overweight is associated with weight-related stigma, making an individual more vulnerable to social isolation, a potential risk factor for suicidal ideation and/or behavior. A recent issue of Crisis:  The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention presents a cross-sectional study of surgery-seeking adults with severe obesity examining whether weight-related stigma increases (1) the likelihood of suicidal ideation and/or behavior or (2) the degree of loneliness; and whether hypotheses (1) and (2) are supported (3) if loneliness mediates the effect of weight-related stigma on suicidal ideation and/or behavior. Online questionnaires were administered to 301 women and 95 men seeking bariatric surgery. Results showed that approximately 30.3% reported having at least a passing thought of suicide, and 5.55% a suicide attempt during their lifetime. The suicide attempt rate appears lower than other bariatric surgery samples, but possibly higher than community and other surgery sample rates. For severely obese surgery-seeking women, weight-related stigma was associated with suicidal ideation and/or behavior, though this was not mediated by loneliness. Conclusions: Future studies are needed to model and compare suicidal ideation and/or behavior in bariatric-surgery-seeking individuals and control groups.

For the abstract.

Was There a France Telecom Suicide Epidemic?

The French telecomunications giant, France Telecom, and its chief executives are now facing an investigation and possible charges for "moral harassment" over the role of  managment practices in the suicides of  30 France Telecom employees.  Beginning in 2008 and continuing for over two years, an epidemic of employee suicides has rocked the company, including one man who stabbed himself to death during a staff meeting and another woman who threw herself out an office window.    Five of the suicides occurred during one ten-day period and many of the suicide notes left behind blamed management pressure for the deaths.

The investigation began following a labour complaint laid by employee unions.  The complaint stated that the deaths and other psychological problems experienced by France Telecom employees were linked to  a ambitious restructuring plan designed to cut 22,000 jobs and put 10,000 employees in new positions.   Many  employees had protected status that made it difficult to fire them and they were often given meaningless tasks to force them to quit.   The complaint adds that France Telecom senior executives, including former CEO Didier Lombard (who stepped down in 2010) have been implicated in the deaths and have also been charged with endangering worker safety.   Denying that the employee suicides were any more prevalent than in the general population, a company representative said that "France Télécom again denies having put into place a deliberate strategy aimed at causing suffering at work to create conditions that would lead to the departure of employees.”   The same statement also acknowledges a possible link between the working environment and suicide and added that the company's actions "could have been interpreted badly". 

Since its autonomy from the French government in 1990 and eventual privatization in September 2004, France Telecom SA has expanded its operations to become the largest telecommunications company in Europe.   With more than 180,000 employees (half outside of France), the company is one of France's largest employers and the investigation into the suicides has led to a major political fight between business and labour representatives.  Along with the thirty deaths, the current investigation under Judge Pascal Gand is investigating an additional fifty cases involving employee suicide attempts and at least one nervous breakdown.   Part of the evidence to be presented in the case will be a report written by government labour inspectors that was released in February 2010.   The report accused France Telecom of ignoring warning from doctors about the mental health of some employees.   The report also specifically focused on the restructuring plan which it described as having a "pathological effect" on staff morale and undermined their "physical and mental health".

The company restructuring plan linked to the suicides was cancelled in 2009 and led to Didier Lombard's resignation as CEO in 2010.  His attorney described the charges against his client as "stunning" and added that his client is being accused of harassing people he never met.    In a recent article published in Le Monde, M. Lombard  defended his actions and denied that his restructing plans played any role in the "tragic deaths".  He added that "I realize that upheavals in the company could cause shocks or disturbances. But I strongly doubt that these essential plans for the survival of the company were the cause of these human tragedies.".   Under French law, a conviction for moral harassment can be punished with one year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros.   M. Lombard is currently free on a 100,000 euro bail bond. 

The estimated suicide rate for France Telecom's 102,000 domestic employees is 15.3 per year as opposed to the average 14.7 suicides per 100,000 people reported annually in France.

For more information.

 

Preventing Police Suicides

Given the disproportionately high rates of police suicides reported in Montreal as compared to suicide rates reported by other Quebec police (30.5/100,000 per year vs. 26.0/100,000),  Together for Life, a suicide prevention program was developed for the Montreal police. A research study published  in a recent issue of Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention examined the effectives of the program with all 4,178 members of the Montreal police participating. The program involved training for all officers, supervisors, and union representatives as well as establishing a volunteer helpline and a publicity campaign. Outcome measures included suicide rates, pre-post assessments of learning, focus groups, interviews, and follow-up of supervisors. Results showed that the suicide rate decreased by 79% (6.4/100,000) among Montreal police  in the 12 years since the program began.   Other Quebec police rates had a nonsignificant (11%) increase (29.0/100,000). Also, knowledge increased, supervisors engaged in effective interventions, and the activities were highly appreciated.  The decrease in suicides appears to be related to this program since suicide rates for comparable populations did not decrease and there were no major changes in functioning, training, or recruitment to explain the differences. Comprehensive suicide prevention programs tailored to the work environment may significantly impact suicide rates.

For the abstract.

Does Toxoplasma Gondii Increase Suicide Risk in Women?

First identified in 1908, the protozoan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii  (T. gondii) is currently estimated to affect up to one-third of the world's population.    Although T. gondii infections (also known as toxoplasmosis) can occur in all mammals, cats are the primary host for the parasites and acts as the chief vector for passing T. gondii on to other animals.   As a result, humans can become infected through contact with cat feces (such as through a cat's litter box).   Typically regarded as relatively minor in adults except in very extreme cases, pregnant women are particularly at risk for toxoplasmosis due to potentially serious complications in unborn children including miscarriages and birth defects.  

Along with the more well-known physical effects of toxoplasmosis, researchers have identified an unusual behavioural component in rodents affected with the parasite.    Once infected, rats and mice become attracted to the smell of cat urine which increases their likelihood of  being eaten by cats.  This in turn allows the parasites to infect cats and resume their normal life cycle.    More controversially, toxoplasmosis has been linked to human behavioural changes including increased reckless behaviour (one study reports a six-fold increase in automobile accidents in adult males infected with toxoplasmosis).    But how reliable is the toxoplasmosis-suicide connection in humans?  

According to a new study published in Archives of General Psychiatry,   the link between toxoplasmosis and later suicidal behaviour appears to be very real.   Conducted by a team of researchers from the United States, Denmark, Germany and Sweden, the study involved 45,788 women in Denmark who gave birth between the years 1992 and 1995.   Since Denmark is one of the few countries in the world to provide mandatory postnatal screening for T. gondii antibodies, the researchers examined Danish health registries for information on toxoplasmosis levels and later suicidal behaviour in mothers.     They also cross-checked the Danish Psychiatric Central Register to rule out pre-existing psychiatric issues that might account for later suicide attempts.   Based on their research findings,  the risk of suicidal behaviour in infected women is one and a half times that of uninfected women and rises with increasing levels of the T. gondii antibodies in their system.  Having a prior history of psychiatric problems does not appear to affect that relationship significantly.   The relative risk appeared to be even higher for women who resorted to violent methods in their suicide attempts although the actual number was far smaller than for the total number of suicide attempts. 

According to senior author, Teodor Postolache of the University of Maryland,  "We can't say with certainty that T. gondii caused the women to try to kill themselves, but we did find a predictive association between the infection and suicide attempts later in life that warrants additional studies.  We plan to continue our research into this possible connection."   While the researchers were able to examine the possible influences of other psychiatric disorders (a problem with other studies examining T. gondii and suicide attempts),  Dr. Postolache also acknowledged that the current research project had significant limitations such as the inability to identify specific causes for the suicidal behaviour.   While Denmark's health registries carry an amazing amount of information about patients, not all suicide attempts become recorded and it is not always possible to determine whether a self-inflicted injury was an actual suicide attempt.   Also, the study focused on solely on women who had given birth  so men and childless women were not included.    As Dr. Postalache added, the study design does not allow for actual causal assumptions to be made.   "T. gondii infection is likely not a random event and it is conceivable that the results could be alternatively explained by people with psychiatric disturbances having a higher risk of becoming T. gondii infected prior to contact with the health system," he reported. 

Whatever the exact nature of the relationship betwen T. gondii and suicide attempts, Dr. Postalache and his associates will be continuing their research to answer the intriguing questions that it raises.  As he points out, "Is the suicide attempt a direct effect of the parasite on the function of the brain or an exaggerated immune response induced by the parasite affecting the brain? We do not know. In fact, we have not excluded reverse causality as there might be risk factors for suicidal behavior that also make people more susceptible to infection with T. gondii.  If we can identify a causal relationship, we may be able to predict those at increased risk for attempting suicide and find ways to intervene and offer treatment."

For more information.

 

Preventing Major Depression

The 2009 Institute of Medicine report on prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders (National Research Council & Institute of Medicine, 2009b) presented evidence that major depression can be prevented. In a recent article published in American Psychologist,  a team of researchers highlighted the implications of the report for public policy and research. Randomized controlled trials have shown that the incidence of major depressive episodes can be significantly reduced. Meta-analyses suggest that 22% to 38% of major depressive episodes could be prevented with currently available methods. We argue that if major depressive episodes can be prevented, the health care system should provide routine access to evidence-based depression prevention interventions, just as it provides inoculations for other common and debilitating health problems. At the same time, researchers should pursue the major directions advocated by the Institute of Medicine report to increase the enduring effectiveness of future prevention interventions. These directions include taking a developmental perspective, learning to identify groups at high risk, and testing evidence-based interventions that are likely to have the widest reach. Scientific evidence has shown that clinical depression can be averted. Our societies must take action to reduce clinical depression to the lowest possible level. The current article is one of three in a special section (see also Biglan, Flay, Embry, & Sandler, 2012; Yoshikawa, Aber, & Beardslee, 2012) representing an elaboration on a theme for prevention science developed by the 2009 report of the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.

For the abstract