Mental Health/ suicide

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</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="outline: none !important;">amazon is a massive player in online retail. Most of the products sold on Amazon.com, however, are not sold by Amazon. Rather, they are sold by third-party retailers using Amazon's technology. In 2021, </span><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="blank" href="https://substack.com/redirect/f5db5f4c-aaa5-4c33-a4ac-7dbfd3bf9172?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none !important;">according to Amazon</a><span style="outline: none !important;">, its "U.S. selling partners sold more than 3.9 billion products – an average of 7,500 every minute – in Amazon’s store." These "partners" account for </span><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="blank" href="https://substack.com/redirect/648c32b0-388e-41a9-afc2-1ae12bca37bb?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none !important;">60% of all sales on Amazon.com</a><span style="outline: none !important;">. The fees that Amazon charges to third-party retailers make up a  significant, and growing, percentage of its overall revenue. The more products Amazon lists in its store — and the fewer humans it employs to review these listings — the more money it makes. </span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A series of lawsuits filed against Amazon allege that the online retailer facilitated the sale of "veritable suicide kits" to vulnerable teens and young adults. The lawsuits involve the sale of highly concentrated Sodium Nitrite, a lethal industrial chemical, on Amazon's marketplace. According to the plaintiffs, beginning in 2018, Amazon "received notifications from parents of children who died from various brands of Sodium Nitrite" but continued to offer it for sale. </b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most recent lawsuit was filed two weeks ago, on March 30, by the families of two teens — 19-year-old Demetrios Viglis (DJ) of Virginia and 18-year-old Ava Passannanti of Arizona. Both teens purchased Sodium Nitrite from Amazon.com in 2020. The "teens never met or knew the other existed, but the two are bound in how identical their deaths were and the role that Amazon played to enable the untimely ends of their lives." They both "purchased Sodium Nitrite for $19.99 plus shipping costs." </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="outline: none !important;">The lawsuit alleges that "Amazon bundles Sodium Nitrite with other offerings to create suicide kits." Specifically, Amazon's recommendation engine suggested purchasing Sodium Nitrite with "Tagamet, an acid reduction medicine that online suicide forums recommend to prevent lifesaving vomiting" and the "'Amazon Edition' of Dr. Philip Nitschke's suicide instruction book,<b> </b></span><span style="outline: none !important;"><b>The Peaceful Pill Handbook</b></span><span style="outline: none !important;"><b>."</b> The book "details instructions for how to use Sodium Nitrite to die." It also "touts how cheap and speedy Sodium Nitrite purchase and delivery is for suicidal readers who purchase it on Amazon, even providing an Amazon link."</span></font></p><div class="yiv4195381363captioned-image-container-static" style="line-height: 26px; margin: 32px auto; outline: none !important;"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="yiv4195381363image-wrapper" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; outline: none !important;"><tbody style="outline: none !important;"><tr style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; outline: none !important;"><td style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; word-break: normal; text-align: center; outline: none !important;" /><td align="left" width="1456" class="yiv4195381363content" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; word-break: normal; text-align: center; outline: none !important;">[pix]</td><td style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; word-break: normal; text-align: center; outline: none !important;" /></tr></tbody></table></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Further, Amazon users who "typed in 'sodium nitrite' saw 'sodium nitrite suicide' as the fifth suggested prompt to complete their search." A user searching for "sodium nitrate salt" was prompted with "sodium nitrate suicide" before they could complete the query.</font></p><div class="yiv4195381363captioned-image-container-static" style="line-height: 26px; margin: 32px auto; outline: none !important;"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="yiv4195381363image-wrapper" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; outline: none !important;"><tbody style="outline: none !important;"><tr style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; outline: none !important;"><td style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; word-break: normal; text-align: center; outline: none !important;" /><td align="left" width="1456" class="yiv4195381363content" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; word-break: normal; text-align: center; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[screenshot #5]</font></td><td style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; word-break: normal; text-align: center; outline: none !important;" /></tr></tbody></table></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Amazon also allegedly took steps to conceal the dangers of Sodium Nitrite. The lawsuit claims "upon learning that families were leaving one-star reviews for Sodium Nitrite relating to the deadliness of the product and its use for suicide, instead of removing the product, Amazon removed comments containing the word 'suicide.'"</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Carrie Goldberg is the lead attorney representing the families of DJ, Ava, and four others who died after ordering Sodium Nitrite from Amazon. Goldberg tells Popular Information that she is aware of more than 50 people who have died from Sodium Nitrite obtained from Amazon. </font></p><h3 class="yiv4195381363header-with-anchor-widget" style="line-height: 1.16em; margin: 1em 0px 0.625em; position: relative; outline: none !important;"><strong style="outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amazon's defense</font></strong></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The case on behalf of DJ and Ava was just filed recently, and Amazon has not yet responded. But Amazon has responded to a separate case filed by Goldberg in December on behalf of the families of 17-year-old Ethan McCarthy and 16-year-old Kristine Jónsson. Ethan and Kristine died after ordering the same brand of Sodium Nitrite from Amazon as DJ and Ava. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a motion to dismiss the case, Amazon places the blame squarely on the shoulders of the deceased teens. The company argues that the law does "not impose liability for the sale of a nondefective product to legally competent persons who intentionally misuse that product to commit suicide." Amazon stresses that "Kristine and Ethan formulated plans to commit suicide wholly independent of Amazon."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Highly concentrated Sodium Nitrite has no legitimate consumer use.</b> (In diluted form, Sodium Nitrite can be used to preserve meat.) But Amazon argued that the product "was not unreasonable unsafe," even though it has killed multiple people. Amazon also claims that "the sodium nitrite at issue here was not defective."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a motion to dismiss a third lawsuit involving sales of Sodium Nitrite, Amazon defends offering customers complementary products that could use with Sodium Nitrite to commit suicide. These "widgets," Amazon says, "simply reflect browsing patterns of other users rather than recommendations by Amaz</span>on."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amazon, represented by the powerful law firm <b>Perkins Coie</b>, also offers an avalanche of technical defenses, including that the claims are precluded by Washington State's product liability law. </font></p><h3 class="yiv4195381363header-with-anchor-widget" style="line-height: 1.16em; margin: 1em 0px 0.625em; position: relative; outline: none !important;"><strong style="outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amazon's letter to Congress</font></strong></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="outline: none !important;">In contrast to Amazon, "eBay and Etsy, discontinued Sodium Nitrite sales in 2019 or 2020." In November 2022, Amazon said it was </span><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="blank" href="https://substack.com/redirect/7b6e7a87-a0bd-49d8-a6fb-5bf461e90bd4?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none !important;">limiting sales of highly-concentrated Sodium Nitrite</a><span style="outline: none !important;"> to business customers, but it is unclear if this is a permanent policy change. </span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="outline: none !important;">In a February 2022 </span><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="blank" href="https://substack.com/redirect/ad09e57b-771a-40e9-a6b5-31606895665a?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none !important;">letter</a><span style="outline: none !important;"> to Congressperson Lori Trahan (D-MA), Amazon Vice President Brian Huseman defended Amazon's decision to offer Sodium Nitrite for sale to the general public. Huseman wrote that "Amazon is unaware of any legal restrictions in the United States on the sale of sodium nitrite, and we have not received any state or federal regulatory takedown requests for these products." According to Huseman, "Amazon makes a wide selection of products available to our customers because we trust that they will use those products as intended by the manufacturers." Huseman claimed that Amazon evaluates "any serious injury or death, regardless of the potential cause, and take[s] appropriate action." At the time, Huseman asserted that Amazon "has not found any teen accounts associated with the purchase of industrial sodium nitrite products."</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: 26px; outline: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="outline: none !important;">Huseman's letter ignored </span><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="blank" href="https://substack.com/redirect/aab8cf4b-e175-4adc-9da0-793cb2b16e31?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none !important;">dozens of specific questions</a><span style="outline: none !important;"> posed by Trahan, including how much Sodium Nitrite Amazon has sold, how many people have died purchasing Sodium Nitrite from Amazon, and Amazon's policy when it learns a product it sells was used in a customer suicide.</span></font></p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">note high suicide rate trans teens</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 3 22</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx no twt</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Texas librarian fired for refusing to remove books that had been banned: ‘That was censorship’</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaking at the WTTC Global Summit 2016]</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> Alex Henderson March 23, 2022</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Far-right culture warriors in Texas have been declaring war against books that offend them not only in public schools, but also, in public libraries. And in Llano County, Texas, librarian Suzette Baker has been fired from her position as head librarian for the Kingsland Branch Library for refusing to remove some books that had been banned.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Baker told KXAN-TV, an NBC affiliate in Austin, “The books in my library in Kingsland were not taken off the shelves. We did not move them. I told my boss that was censorship.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>According to Baker, a local group wanted to remove books they called “pornographic,” including one about a transgender teen — and Baker maintained that there was nothing wrong with that book.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Baker told KXAN, “It is her biography of her life growing up as a transgendered teenager, and obviously, this group thought that was too much for their children to read…. <b>No one is forcing their kids to read anything.”</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Leila Green Little, described by KXAN reporter Nabil Remadna as a “patron of the Llano County libraries,” speaks highly of Baker — telling the station, “I always thought she was extremely professional, very knowledgeable, has a strong character, and did her job well to the best of my knowledge.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Little has set up a GoFundMe page for Baker, raising more than $17,000 as of March 23. And she has a problem with the way in which books are being removed from the Llano County Library.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Little told KXAN, “I have now counted 12 books that I know have been removed from Llano County Library, and I can’t get clarification from the library system on why…. There are very clear rules that should be followed with regards to censorship to books in the public library. Those rules were not followed.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Tennessee group argues that teaching MLK is illegal — because of ... ›</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">'Throw those books in a fire': Virginia conservative school board ... ›</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Florida newspaper slams the 'new political correctness' of 'book ... ›</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Bill to criminally charge librarians, ban books with 'obscene ... ›</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Texas lawmaker Matt Krause targets 850 books he says could make ... ›</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The forgotten history of Republican book banning ›</font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></font></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">12 21 an salon</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>t</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>he TV was talking to me. I was in the midst of a delusion that the news anchors on CNN were operatives of a shadow government run by the Clintons.</b> Every time I crossed the living room of my father's dingy basement apartment, their heads followed me and the news anchors interrogated me about my role in the Russia investigation. <b>I believed "Russia investigation" was really code for a global conspiracy to enslave humanity through mind control. President Donald Trump and the Republicans were secretly working to overturn this shadow government and end the deep state programs. Targets of torture like me would be set free.</b></span></font></font></font></div><p style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I turned the channel to FOX News. They repeated over and over that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/trump-supporters-break-into-chants-of-lock-her-up-at-new-york-hilton-party/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Hilary Clinton</a> was a criminal. Even though I was a Democrat and had voted for Bill Clinton twice, I mailed in the form to join the Republican Party. Then I faxed evidence to the Russian consulate and sent a letter to the CIA offering to cooperate in the investigation.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What I didn't know I was that I was in the advanced stages of untreated paranoid schizophrenia. I was experiencing a psychotic break from reality.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It all seemed so real.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>When I was eventually treated, my psychiatrist explained to me, "With paranoid schizophrenia it's just like "The Bourne Identity" — there are people for you, people against you, and somebody always has to be the villain."</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I know what you're thinking — thank God they have medication for these people.<b> Now, I wonder, is the average American so different from me? Are we all susceptible to paranoid thoughts, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/11/16/anti-vaccine-conspiracy-theorists-say-you-can-reverse-your-vaccine-with-borax/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">conspiratorial thinking</a> and bias when executive function in the frontal lobes and our ability to reason are disabled by fear?</b></font></font></font></p><p style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Terrified by a global pandemic, there are people who believe Bill Gates is an evil mastermind who engineered the coronavirus, with plans to depopulate and microchip the world's population, while profiting in the process. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/10/10/anti-vaxxers-finding-clever-workarounds-to-instagrams-anti-misinformation-algorithms-report_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Antivaxxers</a> refuse to take a vaccine they think will alter the structure of human DNA. Our brains seek to impose order. Conspiracy theories can provide answers to people who feel overwhelmed. But ideally the frontal lobes should step in to challenge strange thoughts by asking the question: Is what I am perceiving based in reality?</font></font></font></p><p style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Dr. Oliver Freudenreich, Co-Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychosis Program, states that there is no generally agreed-upon definition on what constitutes a delusion. From a psychiatric or biological perspective, delusions are driven by <b>excessive amounts of the neurotransmitter dopamine. There is a biological basis to them, and treatment can correct this abnormality.</b> A person with such delusions (e.g., somebody with schizophrenia) is expected to respond to being treated with an antipsychotic medication which blocks dopamine. In other words, one can take a pill and think rationally.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>However, many people can't do that if their delusional thinking is part of a worldview that is more an ideology. According to Dr. Freudenreich, when people create their own insular groups — where delusional ideas are never corrected, but simply bounce around in an echo chamber — it is much harder to fight those types of delusions.</b></font></font></font></p><p style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Policy divides are now often framed as a battle between good and evil. The most obvious consequence of overheated partisan rhetoric is that someone with an untreated psychiatric illness can go on to commit an act of violence against a person or group that they believe is a perpetrator of their suffering. This is rare. More common is the normal person who goes down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and finds a world that makes sense to them.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 6th, 2021, incited by President Trump and believing the election had been stolen, a mob attacked the Capital building. Some in the crowd showed up for the "Storm," which is a QAnon conspiracy theory that posits that Trump was planning mass arrests of a secret cabal of satanic pedophiles and coup plotters, headed by Hilary Clinton and George Soros. Capitol police described the scene as being like fighting a medieval battle.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Social dynamics can propagate conspiracy-based thinking that mimics biologically triggered delusions. But there is no medication that will stop mass violence fueled by conspiracies.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I was a forty-six-year-old filmmaker when I suddenly began to have paranoid thoughts that people were following me. When I lost my day job due to bizarre behavior, I lost my excellent health insurance. I was dumped into America's broken mental health care system that offers substandard psychiatric care to patients on Medicaid, while spending vast amounts of taxpayer money. Misdiagnosed and neglected at the county hospital, I got sicker and sicker … until the TV started talking to me.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Years of my life are now gone. I try not to be bitter that I ended up unemployed, bankrupt and almost homeless, when all I needed was proper medical care. Every day I am grateful that I didn't wind up living on the streets or locked up in prison, like so many people with schizophrenia.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It's easy to mock people who think Bill Gates wants to put a microchip in them with the coronavirus vaccine. But it's much harder to separate conspiracy theorists' larger existential fears from our own. We're approaching the second year of a global pandemic, which is causing mass anxiety and depression. The internet routinely displays images of future roads in major cities as gushing rivers due to climate change. Billions of fish were boiled in the American Northwest and Canada during an unprecedented heatwave this summer. If someone's mind starts spinning with their wildest fears and finds solace in a conspiracy theory, can you really blame them?</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Television is a powerful medium. CNN and FOX News repeat the same headlines, the same phrases, over and over in the same news day. Back then, these read to my unhinged mind as coded speech; to the unsuspecting public, it is more akin to propaganda. When I was psychotic, I thought a shadow government had a ministry of propaganda and they colluded across networks. I worry about living in a country where the two major political parties are always at war, unable to get anything done, and the public is fed a delusional world by networks and social media companies competing for viewers.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>People with paranoid schizophrenia see patterns that don't actually exist. Just like conspiracy theorists, they are constantly scanning the news for pieces of information to connect the dots about unseen forces controlling events. Both groups believe they are being persecuted by others. I had grandiose beliefs that I was at the center of every news story on TV. My mind was looking to cast a villain to account for the symptoms of a brain disease. The media handed me a culprit to blame. [q or trump sent me]</b></font></font></font></p><p style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Dr. Anthony Fauci has complained about the extraordinary divisiveness surrounding the public health crisis created by the pandemic. The current battle is over masks and vaccines<b>. FOX News paints the Democratic Party as a threat to democracy that has invented domestic enemies, such as the unvaccinated, to desperately cling to power. News anchors across CNN repeat the phrase "viral blizzard" to warn the public and scare the unvaccinated about the new variant.</b> Fear mongering is psychologically destabilizing to the most normal person. But this media environment can be toxic to someone with an untreated psychiatric illness. I wish politicians and their media allies would stop contributing to the collective unraveling of the American mind.</font></font></font></p><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/qanon-cult/">
</a></font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/qanon-cult/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/qanon-cult/</a></font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> kos</font></font></font></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As mainstream media digs into the deeply concerning QAnon conspiracy theory—including coverage of the reality that we now have a </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/31/2013076/-Watch-Republican-governor-squirm-when-asked-simple-question-about-QAnon-congresswoman" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">QAnon congresswoman</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—we're also seeing more people who formerly identified with the movement come forward. In an </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/02/08/qanon-cult-former-believer-melissa-lively-newday-vpx.cnn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">interview</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> with CNN, Melissa Rein Lively described how she fell into the conspiracy tunnel, and why she wants to help people experiencing the same thing now. "</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I really became all consumed in the QAnon conspiracy theories because of a mix of</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">fear, anxiety, depression,"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> she told host Alisyn Camerota on Monday. "You know, uncertainty. Inconsistency about information coming out about the pandemic." She talked about feeling terrified seeing people around her lose their businesses. So what did she do? She went online. And that's when, according to Lively, the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">algorithm</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> took hold and brought her into an "echo chamber."</span></b></font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lively says she began looking at a number of wellness, spirituality, and New Age pages, and within a "matter of weeks," the algorithm hooked her into a "terrifying echo chamber" that "<b>completely changed the way that I think and that I process information.</b>" Lively notes that the Save the Children messaging, in particular, spoke to her. Lively went on to describe how her husband gave her an ultimatum between her family and the QAnon movement, including even calling the police out of concern for her well-being.</font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lively says she ultimately broke the QAnon spell by seeking mental health treatment with a specific focus on PTSD and trauma. "I really believe that it's a cult," she said. "It operates like a cult in every single way. And people don't realize that they're being consumed by QAnon until it's too late."</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>If Lively sounds familiar to you, it might be because she <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/07/30/mask-mandates-target-viral-video-arizona-tirade/5541401002/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">went viral</a> back in the fall yelling and throwing face masks on the ground in a Target. "I've been looking forward to this," her voice says in one video. "Target … I'm not playing any more of their games."</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a video later filmed at her garage, she is seen describing herself to police (summoned by her husband) as a "QAnon spokesperson" and claiming that she was on the phone with Donald Trump "all the time."</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview with <em><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/11/masks-qanon-target-melissa-rein-lively/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Washington Post</a>,</em> Lively described falling into QAnon as happening "gradually, and you don't realize you're getting more and more deep in it."</font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And if this language sounds familiar, it's likely because you heard about another former QAnon believer, Ashley Vanderbilt. As Daily Kos </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/3/2013765/-Watch-a-former-QAnon-believer-explain-how-she-fell-down-the-conspiracy-rabbit-hole" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">covered</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, Vanderbilt recently gave an interview to CNN talking about her fall into the QAnon rabbit hole. Vanderbilt, the mother to a four-year-old daughter, lifelong Republican, and employee of a construction company, told the network she fell deep down the conspiracy well when she became very "</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">isolated.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">" She also describes trusting Trump-supporting friends who sent her deeper down the conspiracy rabbit hole via conspiracy YouTube videos.</span></b></font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">A big similarity to Lively's journey? Algorithms. Vanderbilt described using social media (TikTok, specifically) and "liking" pro-Trump and anti-Biden posts, and then, lo and behold, the algorithm did the rest.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You can watch the full CNN interview with Lively below, <b>courtesy of YouTube.</b></font></font></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font></font></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">1/20 dn</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/10/headlines/study_raising_minimum_wage_by_a_dollar_could_prevent_thousands_of_suicides_a_year" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243); text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" text-align="text-align" center="center">Study: Raising Minimum Wage by a Dollar Could Prevent Thousands of Suicides a Year</a>
</font><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">extended: $ <a href="https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/2019/10/24/doreen-dodgen-magee-discusses-her-book-deviced-balancing-life-and-technology-in-a-digital-world-extended-interview/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/2019/10/24/doreen-dodgen-magee-discusses-her-book-deviced-balancing-life-and-technology-in-a-digital-world-extended-interview/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">u penn study shows 30 min soc med increases anxiety?!</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.57;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QFjAAegQIBhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /></font><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QFjAAegQIBhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QFjAAegQIBhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QFjAAegQIBhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Social media use increases depression and loneliness | Penn ...</a></font></font></font></h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 1px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 bc" style="font-style: normal; padding-top: 1px; line-height: 1.5;">https://penntoday.upenn.edu › news › social-media-use-increases-depressio...</cite></font></font></div><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=u+penn+study+shows+30+min+soc+med+increases+anxiety&oq=u+penn+study+shows+30+min+soc+med+increases+anxiety&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.1605j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b0" aria-label="Result Options" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0Q7B0wAHoECAYQAw" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; 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right: auto; top: 12px; white-space: nowrap; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s ease 0s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness%2B%26cd%3D1%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QIDAAegQIBhAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 1.57;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness%2B%26cd%3D1%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QIDAAegQIBhAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness%2B%26cd%3D1%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QIDAAegQIBhAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness%2B%26cd%3D1%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QIDAAegQIBhAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness%2B%26cd%3D1%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QIDAAegQIBhAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.57; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="f" style="line-height: 1.57;">Nov 9, 2018 - </span>For the first time, an experimental <span style="font-weight: bold;">study shows</span> a causal link between time spent on these social media and <span style="font-weight: bold;">increased</span> depression and loneliness. ... measures including fear of missing out, <span style="font-weight: bold;">anxiety</span>, depression, and loneliness. ... stay, it's incumbent on <span style="font-weight: bold;">society</span> to figure out how to use them in a way that limits ...</font></span></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><div class="TXwUJf"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:H7YNrX4dQSkJ:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness%2B%26cd%3D1%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0QIDAAegQIBhAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Missing: <s>min</s> ‎| Must include: </font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=upenn+study+shows+30+%22min%22+soc+med+increases+anxiety&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-xKuUkuPmAhUKAZ0JHThECl0Q5t4CMAB6BAgGEAg" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">min</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div class="TXwUJf"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">free? video</font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="outline: none;"><a href="https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/2019/12/26/deviced-balancing-life-and-technology-in-a-digital-world/">https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/2019/12/26/deviced-balancing-life-and-technology-in-a-digital-world/</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="bNg8Rb" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); height: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; white-space: nowrap; width: 1px; z-index: -1000;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="font-weight: normal;">Search Results</font></font></font></font></font></font></h1><div eid="UfIMXvzHDc-ztQa0woWYAw" data-async-context="query:sonali%20doreen%20mcgee" id="rso" style="margin-top: 6px;"><div class="bkWMgd"><h2 class="bNg8Rb" style="clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); height: 1px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; white-space: nowrap; width: 1px; z-index: -1000;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="font-weight: normal;">Web results</font></font></font></font></font></font></h2><div class="srg"><div class="g" data-hveid="CAEQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwi8tN_jkOPmAhXPWc0KHTRhATMQyDgoAHoECAEQAA" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px;"><div data-hveid="CAEQAQ" data-ved="2ahUKEwi8tN_jkOPmAhXPWc0KHTRhATMQFSgAMAB6BAgBEAE"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.57;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></font></font></font><h3 class="LC20lb" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="outline-color: initial; outline-width: initial; cursor: pointer;">doreen dodgen-magee psy.d.</span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3>
<div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 1px;"><cite class="iUh30" style="font-style: normal; padding-top: 1px; line-height: 1.5;">https://doreendm.com</cite></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EW 919</font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-childrens-mental-health-2640650546.html">
</a></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-childrens-mental-health-2640650546.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-childrens-mental-health-2640650546.html</a></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">Climate change</a> is <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/04/climate-change-makes-air-pollution-worse/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">making air pollution worse</a> and is exacerbating <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-impact-on-health-like-a-sunburn-on-your-lungs/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">smog-related health risks</a> such as heart and lung diseases, pregnancy complications and development issues. Now, a study by the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center has identified another health risk associated with rising <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">air pollution</a>: childhood psychiatric issues.</font></font></p><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-id="1" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem1"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;" /><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the study, published in the journal <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp4815" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;"><em>Environmental Health Perspectives</em></a>, short-term spikes in ambient air pollution are linked with an increase in hospital visits for childhood psychiatric issues. Also, children in low-income neighborhoods with poor access to healthcare appeared to be more susceptible to the mental health effects of air pollution.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/26/health/pollution-children-mental-health-intl-hnk-scli/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">CNN reported</a> that while previous research has shown an association between <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/particulate-matter-pm-basics" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">particulate matter pollution</a> in the air and adult mental health issues, this is the first time researchers have looked into its effect on children.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>During the <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190925075731.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">five-year study,</a> researchers focused on a very small type of particulate matter called <a href="https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/your-environment/air/air-pollution/pm25-particles-in-air#targetText=Sources%20of%20PM2.5%20particles,major%20sources%20of%20fine%20particles." target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">PM 2.5</a> </b>— fossil fuel-powered vehicles and power plants, cooking, dust and brush fires are all sources — can be easily inhaled and end up in organs and the bloodstream, causing inflammation in the lungs or brain, and, in the long term, may trigger <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cancer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">cancer</a> and heart attacks.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers looked at more than 13,000 visits by children to Cincinnati Children's emergency psychiatric unit and compared it with data on the concentrations of PM 2.5 where they live. Results showed that spikes in PM 2.5 concentration were associated with <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp4815" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">increased childhood psychiatric visits</a> one or two days later for adjustment disorder, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, while same-day visits were usually related to schizophrenia.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All daily exposures to PM 2.5 in the study were below levels set in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's <a href="https://www.epa.gov/criteria-air-pollutants/naaqs-table" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">National Ambient Air Quality Standards</a>, researchers said.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These spikes in air pollution increased the risk of hospitalization for suicidal thoughts by 44 percent overall, the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7500829/Spikes-air-pollution-disrupt-childrens-mental-health-study-finds.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">Daily Mail reported</a>, but the risk for children from disadvantaged areas was almost double that. These children were also 39 percent more likely to need treatment for anxiety.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers noted that the study was observational and more research would be needed to rule out other causes, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/air-pollution-has-been-linked-psychiatric-disorders-children-1460966" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">Newsweek</a> reported.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"More research is needed to confirm these findings, but it could lead to new prevention strategies for children experiencing symptoms related to a psychiatric disorder," lead author Cole Brokamp said in a <a href="https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/news/release/2019/air-pollution-mental-health" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">press release</a>. "The fact that children living in high poverty neighborhoods experienced greater health effects of air pollution could mean that pollutant and neighborhood stressors can have synergistic effects on psychiatric symptom severity and frequency."</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While this study only looked at PM 2.5, it builds on other recent research by Cincinnati Children's demonstrating that exposure to air pollution in general during childhood may contribute to a host of mental health issues at an early age.</font></font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In May, researchers at the Cincinnati Children's published a study in <a href="https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/childhood-anxiety-could-be-affected-by-air-pollution-052219.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;"><em>Environmental Research</em></a> showing a link between increased exposure to high traffic related air pollution (TRAP) and generalized anxiety. Another study <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30925441" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">published in June</a> found that exposure to TRAP shortly in early childhood was linked with symptoms of anxiety and depression in 12-year-olds.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;" /></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-id="2" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><twitter-widget class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" id="twitter-widget-0" data-tweet-id="1174518573252915202" style="position: static; visibility: visible; display: block; transform: rotate(0deg); max-width: 100%; width: 500px; min-width: 220px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div data-twitter-event-id="0" class="SandboxRoot env-bp-350" style="max-height: 10000px; direction: ltr; background: 0px 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.4; white-space: initial; position: relative;"><div class="EmbeddedTweet EmbeddedTweet--cta js-clickToOpenTarget" data-click-to-open-target="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/1174518573252915202" data-iframe-title="Twitter Tweet" data-scribe="page:tweet" id="twitter-widget-0" lang="en" data-twitter-event-id="1" style="overflow: hidden; cursor: pointer; border: 1px solid rgb(225, 232, 237); border-radius: 5px; max-width: 520px;"><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweetContainer"><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweet" style="padding: 20px 20px 10px;"><blockquote class="Tweet h-entry js-tweetIdInfo subject expanded" cite="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/1174518573252915202" data-tweet-id="1174518573252915202" data-scribe="section:subject" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; border: none;"><div class="Tweet-header" style="display: flex;" /></blockquote></div></div></div></div></twitter-widget></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://medium.com/positive-returns/a-mental-health-pandemic-is-the-world-getting-more-addicted-anxious-and-lonely-4e45bf533ae5"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://medium.com/positive-returns/a-mental-health-pandemic-is-the-world-getting-more-addicted-anxious-and-lonely-4e45bf533ae5</font></a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx, some text?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Erica Orange & Jared Weiner, The Future Hunters, and Eshanthi Ranasinghe, Exploration & Future Sensing, Omidyar Network</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Mental health issues today have almost become pandemic. Depression and anxiety in particular are increasing rapidly,</b> with much still clinically under- and undiagnosed. This pattern is persistent around the world. The World Economic Forum estimated that direct and indirect costs of mental health amount to over 4 percent of global GDP, more than the cost of cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease combined. This could cost the global economy up to $16 trillion between 2010 and 2030, and more than $6 trillion annually after that, if a collective failure to respond is not addressed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some of this global rise could be attributed to spreading norms around treatment; but hypotheses persist that mental health of global populations is increasingly at risk, in part due to a confluence of societal factors, such as: the stress of migration and cultural integration (including among refugee populations); an increasingly polarized world fueled by “<b>us versus them” narratives; </b>lack of available economic and employment opportunities; persistent gender- and race/ethnicity-based inequality, discrimination, and violence; shifting cultural norms and a feeling of “culture under threat”; and the role of tech and social media, fueling everything from tech addiction to loneliness to body image issues. Furthering this trend is the opioid crisis, with signs of it being exported from the US to the rest of the world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015 that more than 322 million people have depression?—?about 4 percent of the world’s population, an increase of 18.4 percent between 2005 and 2015. Loneliness is also on the rise. A recent study found that over 9 percent of adults in Japan, 22 percent in the US, and 23 percent in the UK always or often feel lonely or isolated.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><u>While this is more pervasive and rising more quickly among the young, demographic shifts, particularly aging populations in more developed markets, are leading to an increase in social isolation.</u></b> From 1980 to 2015, the number of seniors in Japan living alone increased more than six-fold, to almost 6 million, resulting in some unusual actions, including lonely seniors, typically women, shoplifting in search of the community and stability of jail. More than half of seniors caught shoplifting live alone; 40 percent either don’t have family or rarely speak with relatives. These people often say they have no one to turn to when they need help.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We know the “usual suspects”, mental health issues resulting directly from technology?—?addiction, as social media platforms use the same techniques as gambling firms to create psychological dependencies and real imbalance of brain chemicals among teens that resembles depression and anxiety; and smartphone anxiety, including “low-battery anxiety,” “nomophobia”, the fear people can feel when they are out of mobile contact, even FOMO (fear of missing out), which has nearly 23 percent of students in India logging more than eight hours on their smartphones daily. The dependency is strong, and globally pervasive, with nearly all of the 60 percent of Kenyans who own smartphones saying they find it hard to put them down. In China and South Korea, tech rehab camps are now common, and the World Health Organization officially recognizes video game addiction as a mental health disorder.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But there is evidence to suggest that we are just hitting the tip of the iceberg of tech-enabled mental health issues. Twenty four/seven access to information can cause a kind of collective anxiety and helplessness. Researchers using health-monitoring devices found that entire populations’ sleeping habits, heart rates, and distances walked can swing out of sync after large societal events (e.g., Brexit)?—?and much of this is heightened by a constant cycle of social media and digital news.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>We also see this manifesting socio-culturally. Smartphones have disintermediated many in-person conversations. We are talking to each other less and having fewer meaningful conversations which can increase feelings of loneliness and anxiety.</b> Not only are more people, particularly digital natives, craving “IRL” (in real life) connection, but studies have shown that people felt better and more connected during times when they only socialized face-to-face.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This level of social disconnection can also endanger health.</b> Loneliness has been alleged to have the same impact on life expectancy as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, with a risk factor that rivals excessive drinking or obesity. A lack of social contact can also speed up cognitive decline, heart disease, depression, and suicide. And, smartphones are methodically killing off boredom, which has a very important role in creativity. The seeds of ideas that may come from idle reflection are being replaced by constant distraction. And constant distraction?—?which causes dopamine to spike when confronted with newness and novelty, addictive but inherently unfulfilling–does not lead to a healthier mental state. Being creative, however, can.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ultimately, we still have a less-refined understanding of what is happening at the now-pervasive nexus of mental health and technology. And things get complicated when we’re also learning of many ways in which technology can improve mental health outcomes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Emerging Mental Health Epidemics: The US Opioid Crisis</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It’s difficult to talk about mental health without mentioning the US opioid crisis. The US faces a mental health epidemic; nearly 1 in 5 American adults suffering from a form of mental illness. Suicide rates are at an all-time high, 115 people die daily from opioid abuse, and 1 in 8 Americans over 12 years old take an antidepressant every day. </span>The economic burden of depression alone is estimated to be at least $210 billion annually. People abusing opioids also often face the additional burden of depression. And while the opioid crisis is most pronounced in the US, t<b>he problem has begun migrating to Europe?</b>—?which could portend an even greater, eventual global concern. <b>The relationship between opioid abuse and depression is bi-directional, meaning that suffering from one increases the risk of the other</b>. Many prescription opioid abusers may turn to using heroin. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This addiction can lead to the feelings of hopelessness, despair, and guilt, and researchers estimate that 48 percent of people dependent on the drug will also experience depression</span>.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Entrepreneurs, philanthropists, companies, and individuals have risen to the challenge, creating a range of tools and treatment options that go beyond traditional Western medicine. This includes the rise of “<b>anti-tech tech,” apps </b>and mobile phone-based tools that help users reduce phone use (like this app recently launched in the UK that allows users to earn rewards for not going on their phones</span>; and the MP02, designed for people who want to unplug from the world of apps and constant notifications and use a simple, stripped-down phone). In addition, other types of innovations?—?“technology Rx” and unusual applications of natural medicine–are being applied to mental health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Technology Rx” is part of the growing trend of adaptive technology that can personalize healthcare?—?outside of mobile phone-based apps.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Virtual Reality: VR therapy is being used to address complex anxiety disorders, such as social anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and even paranoid schizophrenia. </b>The Virtual Reality Medical Center in San Diego uses VR therapy as a treatment for reducing pain in patients undergoing procedures. Swedish pharmacy Apotek Hjärtat is prescribing its VR pain relief app, Happy Place, as a supplement to traditional pharmaceuticals.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gaming: Videogames can also be a tool in serving mental health needs. Akili Interactive Labs is creating a videogame to treat kids with ADHD. “Chill-out” games that focus on relaxation and aim to create a calming space for players are becoming more popular.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Robotic Therapists: Woebot, the bot therapist, does not pretend to be human; it appears as a cartoon robot when it chats with you on Facebook Messenger all while doing psychological work. Researchers found that after two weeks of interacting with the bot, the test subjects had lower incidences of depression and anxiety.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Voice Analysis: Researchers are increasingly enlisting smartphones and machine learning to find vocal patterns that might signal post-traumatic stress disorder or even heart disease.</b> Vocal tests could be useful because they are non-invasive?—?people are often embarrassed to talk about their mental health, so these conditions frequently go underdiagnosed–and add a level of rigor to measurement that mental health diagnosis has traditionally lacked.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Artificial Intelligence (AI): A</b>I solutions can help psychiatrists and other mental health professionals do their jobs better. They collect and analyze reams of data much more quickly than humans could and then suggest effective ways to treat patients. Ginger.io’s virtual mental health services include video and text-based therapy and coaching sessions. Through analyzing past assessments and real-time data collected using mobile devices, the Ginger.io app can help specialists track patients’ progress, identify times of crisis, and develop individualized care plans.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brainwave Treatments: While still in its infancy, technology using a patient’s own brainwaves might offer hope against mental health issues such as PTSD and chronic stress, research suggests. NeuroSky technology can detect and interpret brainwaves and has even been used to <b>develop a VR experience to help treat OCD</b>.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With loneliness and stigma both feeding into mental health challenges and preventing treatment, new efforts and organizations are creating community and connection to facilitate treatment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Online Chat Forums: Reddit may be helping people cope with mental disorders. Researchers learned that frequenting some of the site’s subreddits (e.g., r/depression) improved the mental state of subscribers. Ironically, or perhaps predictably, some of its forums have done just the opposite.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mental Health Text- and Hotlines: Text messaging is a surprisingly effective way to do crisis counseling and address mental health issues. And it’s the default mode of communication for young people. Three-quarters of US-based Crisis Text Line’s users are under 25 years old and 12 percent are under 13. Sri Lanka’s mental health problems skyrocketed after a three-decade civil war that ended in 2009. The CCC Line phone bank is a free counseling service run by volunteers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cathartic Experiences: A Japanese company, Ikemeso Danshi?—?which roughly translates to “Handsome Weeping Boys”?—?provides cry-therapy services for men seeking a catharsis they feel unable to express in daily life</span>. Cuddle therapy is also on the rise in the US as people seek out touch from strangers to feel soothed and pacified. With more digital and virtual relationships, rather than interpersonal, these services will likely increase.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Happiness Meters: Alibaba is pursuing a new biometric concept at its Futuremart store: a happiness meter to reward customers for positive attitudes.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Return to Happiness: A new wave of “happiness classes” in India focuses on learning through inspirational stories and meditation exercises. This approach emphasizes concentration and self-awareness.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Nature: Ecotherapy</b> refers to a series of nature-based exercises intended to address both mental and physical health. Ecotherapists are a small but growing group of healthcare professionals who are essentially medicalizing nature. Researchers have found that when people did physical activities in natural settings, they experienced less anger, fatigue, and sadness. The Japanese have long engaged in “forest bathing” to promote positive health. Other countries are starting to follow suit with similar efforts (e.g., India, the UK, Hong Kong).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Plant Medicine and Psychedelics:</b> Since the beginning of human history, plants have served many important medicinal and healing purposes. Trends in this area are going beyond medicinal marijuana, to “magic mushrooms”, ayahuasca tea, DMT, and MDMA. Psilocybin, the active chemical in magic mushrooms, may hold promise as a therapeutic approach for several mental health problems. Microdosing LSD has been found to increase mental clarity and treat conditions such as OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Play: </b>Playing physical games is known to positively effect mental health. Children are so over-scheduled in the US that doctors are being told by the American Medical Association to prescribe free play.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the overwhelming need, political leaders and international development agencies frequently overlook the importance of mental health. In Africa, the “treatment gap”?—?the proportion of people with mental illness who don’t get treatment?—?ranges from 75 percent in South Africa to more than 90 percent in Ethiopia and Nigeria. Overcoming the silence that comes with mental health is a growing issue in China. In India, 75 percent of millennials said they don’t feel comfortable talking to medical professionals about mental illness because of the stigma attached to mental health problems. In northern countries like the US and UK, mental health services are plentiful but often expensive, inaccessible, and often stigmatized among minorities, immigrants, and young men.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alternative therapies to combat mental health may become more mainstream. For instance, what would it look like to “prescribe nature”? What would nature-based methods of physical and psychological healing do to productivity? And what could this mean for the creation of sustainable communities?—?particularly in the developing world? Will more health insurance plans cover ecotherapy like they do cognitive therapy? Or cover prescription-strength video games? Will school psychologists be equipped with VR headsets? Will pet stores or animal shelters become wellness clinics? Will public parks turn into adult playgrounds? Will robots become our psychiatrists; therapists; confidantes? Will our smart homes, hospital rooms, classrooms, offices, retail spaces, and military arenas of the future be able to respond to individual moods and current mental health states? And while more employers are embedding yoga, meditation, and mindfulness practices into current wellness programs, it will be equally important to examine what technological tools employees are being given to optimize both their performance and their mental health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our environments will increasingly be populated with technologies that anticipate people’s feelings, determine if they are suffering from something like depression, or have mental health issues. One of the important ethical quandaries going forward will be how those technologies could manipulate individuals’ mental health using those data points. A practical example we see today is a Chinese school using facial-recognition to analyze student behavior. The technology records facial expressions, categorizing them into happy, angry, fearful, confused, or upset categories?—?and the school can tailor its approaches accordingly. We will likely see more applications of this among global populations?—?in academia, in the workplace, and, in some instances, through direct utilization by governments.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is Trend #5 of 5 in Omidyar Network’s Exploration and Future Sensing, 2019 Trends to Watch. View the full series here.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Consider Explorations an open space for discussion. We welcome new perspectives?—?especially those rarely heard, contradictory, relevant, and tangential?—?and most of all, conversation and partnership to build the future we want, one that includes and empowers us all. To connect and follow new insights we generate, please reach us at explorations@omidyar.com.</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-columbine-became-a-blueprint-for-school-shooters-115115" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://theconversation.com/how-columbine-became-a-blueprint-for-school-shooters-115115</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-ten large-grid-nine grid-last content-body content entry-content instapaper_body" itemprop="articleBody" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" line-height="line-height" float="float" left="left" width="width" px="px" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 12px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When 12 students and one teacher were killed in Littleton, Colorado 20 years ago, it not only became what at the time was the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/columbine-high-school-shootings" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">worst high school shooting</a> in U.S. history. It also marked when American society was <b>first handed a script for a new form of violence in schools.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We make that observation as researchers – a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hoHQX8MAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">psychologist</a> and a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iS4HAEMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">sociologist</a> – who have been studying mass public shootings as <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooters" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">part of a grant</a> from the U.S. Department of Justice.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Since the 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School, we identified six mass shootings and 40 <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-study-2000-2013-1.pdf/view" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">active shooter</a> incidents at elementary, middle or high schools in the United States. Mass shootings are <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44126.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">defined by the FBI</a> as an event in which four or more victims died by gunfire.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 20 – or<b> nearly half – of those 46 school shootings, the perpetrator purposely used Columbine as a model.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Columbine’s influence continues until this day. On April 17 – just three days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting – authorities <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/columbine-related-threat-by-armed-woman-shuts-denver-area-schools-11555501233" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">closed schools across Colorado</a> due to a credible threat of a woman armed with a shotgun and who was “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/04/16/jefferson-county-schools-lockout/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">infatuated with Columbine</a>.” The 18-year-old Florida woman was reportedly <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/fl-ne-columbine-lockdown-20190416-story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">found dead in Colorado</a> later in the day from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.</font></p><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ties that bind to Columbine</font></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In our study of school shootings, we only looked at cases where a gun was fired on campus, following the practice of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-database/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c542ac9200c5" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The Washington Post’s</a> database on school shootings.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Had we included <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/columbine-effect-mass-shootings-copycat-data/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">foiled plots</a>, the number would be <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/columbine-shootings-grim-legacy-50-school-attacks-plots/story?id=26007119" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">significantly higher</a>.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several school shooters in our study were <a href="https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/a-dark-day-for-fort-gibson-school-shooting-now-years/article_0f51d05b-999c-575f-bff6-6465404a9d24.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">fascinated with Columbine</a> and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/21/at-least-2-dead-in-nevada-school-shooting" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">researched</a> the massacre before their own. This includes the <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cruz-researched-columbine-massacre-parkland-shooting-article-1.3953545" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Parkland shooter</a>, a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/12/jesse-osborne-pleads-guilty-south-carolina-school-shooting/2297747002/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">14-year-old</a> who aspired to be “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/12/jesse-osborne-pleads-guilty-south-carolina-school-shooting/2297747002/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">the youngest mass murderer</a>,” and a <a href="https://www.pantagraph.com/news/th-grader-detailed-shooting-in-deadly-diary/article_02d99158-90ac-55b5-9ec4-b56fab93b49f.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">15-year-old</a> who shot at his teacher after she <a href="https://www.pantagraph.com/news/th-grader-detailed-shooting-in-deadly-diary/article_02d99158-90ac-55b5-9ec4-b56fab93b49f.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">refused to praise Marilyn Manson</a>, the rock singer who was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/sep/21/columbine-destroyed-my-entire-career-marilyn-manson-on-the-perils-of-being-the-lord-of-darkness" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">erroneously blamed</a> for inspiring the Columbine killers.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The timing of the April 17 threat to Colorado schools is no coincidence. Prior perpetrators chose the anniversary of Columbine to commit their shootings, including <a href="https://www.rockdalenewtoncitizen.com/news/local/tj-solomon-heritage-high-school-shooter-released-after-years/article_66508783-e652-5f3c-94c3-acaa6164f3ee.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">one month</a> and <a href="https://www.apnews.com/3df17eb2c8aef3e916a6a866ce97013c" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">two years</a> after. A different shooter talked of how he was going to “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,102077,00.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">pull a Columbine</a>.” Others discussed Columbine with <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/was-columbine-the-trigger/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">classmates</a>, even <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/william-atchison-led-double-life-online-749363" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">joked about it</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/adam-lanzas-terrifying-online-life-revealed-mass-shooting-spreadsheets-columbine-collages-and-murder-tumblrs" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Sandy Hook Elementary School</a> shooter idolized the Columbine killers and curated a Tumblr account paying homage, alongside a graphic collage of Columbine victims. A North Carolina shooter was so <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14591327/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/cops-nc-suspect-e-mailed-columbine-official/#.XKzqaZhKjD5" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">obsessed with Columbine</a> that he <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/21/north.carolina.castillo.trial/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">took a vacation</a> there with his mother and fantasized about <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/crime/article10353572.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">“finishing off”</a> any wounded survivors.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Multiple shooters, including one <a href="https://katu.com/news/local/school-shooting-suspect-claims-columbine-influence" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">15-year-old in Oregon</a> and another in <a href="https://komonews.com/news/local/teen-charged-in-freeman-high-shooting-in-court" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Washington state</a>, were inspired by a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0754392/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">documentary</a> about Columbine that included detailed recreations of what happened. One <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wisconsin-hostage-standoff-gunman-shoots/story?id=12272586" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Wisconsin teenager</a> held his classroom hostage after <a href="https://www.theawl.com/2010/12/two-hours-in-marinette-lessons-from-a-school-shooting/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">reading a book</a>about Columbine.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Perpetrators also <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/story/student-charged-in-missouri-middle-school-shooting" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">dressed in trench coats</a> like the Columbine shooters, including those responsible for the <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Teen-suspect-in-Santa-Fe-shooting-promoted-12926019.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">2018 Santa Fe shooting</a>, where 10 people died, and a 2004 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/nyregion/student-agrees-to-20year-term-after-nonfatal-shooting-spree-in.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">nonfatal shooting</a> in New York. Indeed, the <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/santa-fe-shooting-trench-coat-ban" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">trench coat</a> has appeared in subsequent school shootings because Columbine gave it meaning beyond any intrinsic use.</font></p><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why Columbine?</font></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Columbine has spawned an entire <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0002764218755835" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">subculture of “Columbiners” and copycats</a>. A March 2019 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-violence-school/inspired-by-columbine-brazil-pair-kill-eight-and-themselves-in-school-shooting-idUSKBN1QU1TT" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">shooting in Brazil that killed eight</a> shows that Columbine’s influence is global. But Columbine was not the <a href="https://www.k12academics.com/school-shootings/history-school-shootings-united-states" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">first school shooting</a>, not even that year.<b> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/05/22/612465197/20-years-ago-oregon-school-shooting-ended-a-bloody-season" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Eleven months</a> before the horror in Littleton unfolded, an expelled 15-year-old – also wearing a trench coat –</b> killed two and injured 25 at a school in Springfield, Oregon. Why do we not now talk about the “Springfield effect”?</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Partly because the perpetrator in Springfield was <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/trial/sack.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">professionally diagnosed as psychotic</a>, meaning his attack could be more easily explained away. He also acted alone, whereas having two shooters immediately intensified the intrigue around Columbine. But the main reason for Columbine’s longevity was that its perpetrators created <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/us/07columbine.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">manifestos</a> and <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,992873,00.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">home movies</a> of their preparations in hopes that their story would outlive them. Unfortunately, it has.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Before Columbine, there was no script for how school shooters should behave, dress and speak. Columbine created “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9998.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">common knowledge</a>,” the foundation of coordination in the absence of a standardized playbook. Timing was everything. The massacre was one of the first to take place after <a href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-shooting-media-20160618-snap-story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">the advent of 24-hour cable news</a> and during the “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/574132.stm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">the year of the net</a>.” This was the <b>dawn of the digital age of <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9436.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">perfect remembering</a>, where words and deeds live online forever. Columbine became the pilot for future episodes of <a href="http://www.startribune.com/terrorism-is-a-performance-don-t-watch/507322442/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">fame-seeking violence</a>.</b></font></p><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Separating myth from reality</font></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Our research has found that school shootings have nothing to do with <a href="http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19990613&slug=2966238" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">jock envy</a>, <a href="https://www.bethwinegarner.com/the-columbine-effect" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">satanism</a>, <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2007/07/04/study-links-computer-denial-to-columbine/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">video games</a>, or <a href="https://www.westword.com/news/keanu-reeves-blamed-for-parkland-and-columbine-10010081" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Keanu Reeves</a>, and school shooters are not <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/04/at-last-we-know-why-the-columbine-killers-did-it.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">psychopathic masterminds</a>. In fact, these soundbite explanations for aberrant behavior only blind us to the reality of school violence.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">School shooters are almost always <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-shooters-usually-show-these-signs-of-distress-long-before-they-open-fire-our-database-shows-111242" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">current students</a> of their schools. They are students who are in crisis, students who have experienced trauma, and students who are <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/03/27/school-safety-security-policy-minn-researchers-question" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">actively suicidal</a> prior to the shooting and expect to die in the act. Such children have always existed. But for 20 years they’ve had a new script to follow.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And we, the public, have contributed to the production and direction of this script. Again and again and again. Through our obsession with <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/736073/why-true-crime-obsession-bad-society" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">true crime</a> and films, <a href="https://www.columbine-guide.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">books</a>, memes and entire websites devoted to Columbine. By releasing CCTV footage of the shooting to the public. By running our children through regular lockdowns and <a href="https://theconversation.com/active-shooter-drills-may-reshape-how-a-generation-of-students-views-school-93709" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">active shooter drills</a> starting in preschool through 12th grade. By sending them to school through secure entrances with <b><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/more-school-choice-means-more-school-safety" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">clear backpacks</a> and <a href="https://www.wfsb.com/news/bulletproof-school-supplies-put-to-the-test/article_29b34fdf-1bf3-5154-9536-b87f41521cb6.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">bulletproof binders</a>.</b> Society and culture have reared a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/22/generation-columbine-has-never-known-world-without-school-shootings/361656002/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Columbine generation</a>, modeling that this is just part of childhood in America.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">see also foxconn</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">kpfa upfront loss of agency purpose, worker co-operative</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; 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outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">cf</font></span></a><span open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-march-11-2019/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"> https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-march-11-2019/</font></a></span><span open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">lost connections johann hari </font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/florida-man-jokes-are-an-excuse-to-laugh-at-the-poor/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/florida-man-jokes-are-an-excuse-to-laugh-at-the-poor/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">
</font></div><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Another tedious, liberal, PC scold,” you may think as you read the headline for this piece. “Why can’t we just have fun and enjoy a hilarious meme in peace?” Well, you can enjoy “Florida man” all you want, but by any objective metric, it’s worth noting that “Florida man” memes—just like all “dumb criminal” or “weird crime” stories—are little more than a socially acceptable way of gawking at and belittling the dispossessed and indigent.</font></p><div class="p1_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">At the very least, it’s a possibility worth examining—if you would indulge me. </span>The general premise behind “Florida man” memes and jokes is that Florida, for whatever reason, produces uniquely wacky news stories. It’s an online bit that goes back more than a decade, leading to a popular twitter account, @floridaman, and thousands of glib internet cracks. Everyone’s in on the joke, especially people from Florida. A recent tweet by @g_pratimaaa, making a game out of the name by typing in one’s birthday, has reignited the meme on Twitter, resulting in write-ups in <a href="https://time.com/5555893/florida-man/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Time magazine,</a> <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/florida/2019/03/21/florida-man-challenge-which-ridiculous-headline-matches-your-birthday/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Tampa Bay Times</a>, <a href="https://www.wptv.com/news/local-news/water-cooler/google-florida-man-and-your-birthday-which-florida-man-are-you" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">NBC Palm Beach</a>, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/21/florida-man-birthday-why-google-search-challenge-has-gone-viral/3235270002/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">USA Today</a>.</font></p><div class="p2_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But any cursory survey of “Florida man” stories reveals that the butt of the joke the vast majority of the time isn’t Florida, but simply poor people, typically those with likely drug or mental health problems. So as not to be accused of cherry-picking, I’ve highlighted the “Florida man” stories referenced in the above Tampa Bay Times story:</font></p><div class="p3_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/naked-florida-man-revealed-on-video-sneaking-into-restaurant-and-munching-on-ramen-20181112/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“Naked Florida man revealed on video sneaking into restaurant and munching on ramen”</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/florida-man-throws-bicycle-then-other-man-off-bridge-20180925/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“Florida man throws bicycle, then other man off bridge”</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/A-71-year-old-Florida-man-tied-a-gun-to-a-weather-balloon-to-fake-his-own-murder-police-say_170034046" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“A 71-year-old Florida man tied a gun to a weather balloon to fake his own murder, police say”</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/Police-A-Florida-man-thought-a-neighbor-stole-his-lawn-mower-so-he-set-his-Corvette-on-fire_165895469" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“Police: A Florida man thought a neighbor stole his lawn mower, so he set his Corvette on</a><a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/Police-A-Florida-man-thought-a-neighbor-stole-his-lawn-mower-so-he-set-his-Corvette-on-fire_165895469" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> fire</u>”</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/bizarre/Woman-tried-to-start-paper-towel-holder-on-fire-in-Tropicana-Field-bathroom-police-say_168020088" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Woman tried to start paper towel holder on fire in Tropicana Field bathroom, police say”</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<a href="https://www.tampabay.com/breaking-news/florida-woman-cradles-baby-alligator-in-maternity-photo-shoot-20190209/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Florida Woman cradles baby alligator in maternity photo shoot”</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/bizarre/Florida-man-climbs-atop-playground-equipment-at-Clearwater-park-tells-kids-where-babies-come-from_168438881" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Florida man climbs atop playground equipment at Clearwater park, tells kids where babies come from</a><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">”</u></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/bizarre/Florida-man-climbs-atop-playground-equipment-at-Clearwater-park-tells-kids-where-babies-come-from_168438881" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">They got married on Clearwater Beach Sunday. Then they got drunk and arrested, police said.”</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/bizarre/Florida-man-climbs-atop-playground-equipment-at-Clearwater-park-tells-kids-where-babies-come-from_168438881" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Florida man broke into jewelry store, cut himself on glass and bled all over everything, police say”</font></a></u></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/bizarre/Florida-man-climbs-atop-playground-equipment-at-Clearwater-park-tells-kids-where-babies-come-from_168438881" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“St. Pete man gets drunk, falls off bicycle, hits man at hospital with folding chair, police say”</font></a></u></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/bizarre/To-get-back-at-co-worker-St-Pete-woman-took-photos-of-her-on-the-toilet-She-now-faces-charges-168027345" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">To get back at co-worker, St. Pete woman took photos of her on the toilet. She now faces charges.</a><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">”</u></font></li></ul><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Look at the details of these stories, the pictures, the neighborhoods where they take place. Without speculating on the specifics of each subject’s mental health or possible addiction status, can anyone honestly argue both aren’t a major component in most of these cases?</font></p><div class="p4_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Typically, these stories are accompanied by a pretrial mugshot, which often goes viral and— invariably and without fanfare—ruins the reputation of the party being mocked. The cases involve varying degrees of criminality, ranging from innocuous public intoxication arrests to murder, but none of this matters—a zany mugshot and an absurd headline is all that’s wanted. The details or mitigating circumstances are of little import.</font></p><div class="p5_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January, for media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, I <a href="https://fair.org/home/the-medias-profitable-indefensible-addiction-to-mugshots/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">interviewed three people</a> whose lives had been ruined by viral mugshots. This genre of clickbait may seem trivial or “just for fun,” but these stories involve real human beings with real families and real nuances and complexity and, very often, real mental health or drug problems. And while we may view this type of story as a harmless joke, having spoken to those upended by our viral tabloid story obsession, I can assure you it’s not. Goofy “dumb criminal” stories—the close cousin to “Florida man” stories—in all their iterations feed a culture of indifference toward incarcerated people and the poor.</font></p><div class="p6_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two material factors likely lead to “Florida man” being a thing in the first place. First is that Florida’s <a href="https://www.good.is/articles/florida-man-sunshine-laws-transparency" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">famously transparent “sunshine laws”</a> make the details of criminal cases easily accessible to journalists. Reporters, desperate for content, can effortlessly search for the most sensational and bias-reinforcing cases. Transparency is laudable, but in these instances, it effectively streamlines and packages the worst aspects of people’s lives for ethically dodgy reporters window-shopping for the grossest headlines.</font></p><div class="p7_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/percapita.jpg" alt="" width="272" height="564" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: top; height: auto;" /></font></p><div class="p8_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The second and more morally relevant factor is that Florida is in the midst of a major mental health crisis and has been for a long time.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://interactive.orlandosentinel.com/mental-illness/intro.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">According to the Orlando Sentinel</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> “Florida ranks 49th among the states for mental-health programs, spending $37.28 per person last year.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b> Mississippi spent four times as much on its mentally ill.</b>” Additionally, according to </span><a href="https://termlife2go.com/10-states-with-the-best-and-worst-drug-addiction-support/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">one life insurance company study</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,<b> Florida ranks 41st in support for those affected by drug addiction</b>. From its lack of mental health and drug treatment programs to its laws that </span><a href="https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2018/nov/08/steve-galloway/more-felons-regained-right-vote-florida-population/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">barred thousands of people from voting</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> due to felony convictions to its push for </span><a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article25114639.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">drug testing the poor for welfare benefits</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, Florida is notorious for having some of the country’s harshest systems for those on the margins of society.</span></font></p><div class="p9_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The reason Florida seems to have more “bizarre news” stories is because it leaves tens of thousands of people with financial, mental health and drug problems to fend for themselves, and then, under the banner of transparency, hands over the inevitable result of this lack of support to a click-hungry press. To paraphrase <a href="https://twitter.com/trillburne/status/750721471157198848?lang=en" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">another viral tweet</a>, it monetizes the rot.</font></p><div class="p10_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Florida man” isn’t an accident. It’s the logical byproduct of a state whose politics have been defined by cruel, racist indifference to the poor for decades.</font></p><div class="p11_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The privileged, as a general rule, love proxy language that permits them to engage in bullying and mockery that would otherwise be socially frowned upon</b>. For decades, white sports writers have criticized “spoiled,” “lazy” basketball players because they can’t openly attack “uppity” blacks—with nary a word on the shortcomings of billionaire white owners. The viral “Thug Kitchen” sensation from five years ago allowed white liberals to openly mock African-American Vernacular English until, one day, we <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/10/living/thug-kitchen-controversy-eatocracy/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">realized it was super racist</a>. White men love to use “white women” as a punchline, frequently as a pseudo-woke means of simply mocking women. I am, I admit, guilty of doing so myself.</font></p><div class="p12_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We need to be aware of these proxies and what we’re really talking about when we make light of and dehumanize an ostensibly nonracialized, class neutral, gender agnostic target. Are we really mocking Florida, or using it as shorthand for the poor and mentally unwell? Are we creating a culture that values human life or one that takes people’s worst moments and turns them into viral chum?</font></p><div class="p13_14" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you think this is too self-serious and buzzkill-y, fair enough. But while gawking at the dispossessed and mentally unwell, let’s at least be honest and admit that this is what we’re actually doing.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">j hari</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-our-mental-health-struggles-are-linked-each-others-surprising-ways">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-our-mental-health-struggles-are-linked-each-others-surprising-ways</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/it-will-take-political-revolution-cure-epidemic-depression">https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/it-will-take-political-revolution-cure-epidemic-depression</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">W<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">hat causes depression and anxiety? I have been a practicing psychologist and psychoanalyst for almost 40 years and have seen hundreds of patients suffering from both. In my experience, some factors are obvious. People who suffer from depression and anxiety have experienced stresses and traumas in their development that predispose them to mood disorders. Garden-variety psychodynamic theory teaches us that issues involving loss, neglect, guilt, and rejection usually figure prominently in the backgrounds of people who present with significant symptoms of depression and anxiety.</span></font></div><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, over 50 years of research into the neurobiology of mood disorders strongly suggests that genetic and biological factors usually accompany, if not underlie these painful affective states. As a result of these assumptions, the treatment of depression today usually relies heavily on pharmacology, and drug companies have spent billions making sure this explanation is widely accepted. Some one in five US adults is taking at least one drug for a psychiatric problem; nearly one in four middle-aged women in the United States is taking antidepressants at any given time; and around one in 10 boys at American high schools are being given powerful stimulants to make them focus.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since it's well known that psychological events produce biological changes, it remains debatable whether or not disorders of our biochemistry are causes or effects. What we do know is that untold amounts of money have been spent by the pharmaceutical industry to finance research and public relations designed to enshrine biochemistry and pharmacology as primary in the diagnosis and treatment of depression and anxiety.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, what of the social, cultural and even political contexts that contribute to emotional suffering? We owe writer and journalist Johann Hari a great debt for illuminating these broader contextual factors in his new book<b><u>, Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression—and the Unexpected Solutions. Hari </u></b>first debunks the "received wisdom" that assumes the jury is in regarding the neurochemical basis of depression and the efficacy of antidepressants. He points to research based on the unpublished studies done by pharmaceutical companies on the efficacy of antidepressants, that almost unintentionally reveal a profound placebo effect underlying the clinical improvements reported. When depressed people who are being studied feel cared for by psychiatric researchers, they improve at astoundingly high rates (sometimes by as much as 40%). Thus, the pure biochemical antidepressant effect of these medications is much smaller than has commonly been assumed. In addition, when patients do get better, a commonly seen phenomenon, within a year at least half of them are again clinically depressed.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We have to acknowledge that some real people get better in real ways on antidepressants. However, it is also true that these benefits are less than advertised and results often diminish over time. Locating the cause of depression entirely in the brain and advocating a primarily pharmacological approach to its treatment is a paradigm with limited efficacy.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hari argues that depression and anxiety should be considered two sides of the same coin. He asserts that everything that causes an increase in depression also causes an increase in anxiety, and the other way around. He points out that these two types of distress "rise and fall together." Again, this aligns with my own clinical experience treating patients with depression and anxiety: It's rare to see one without the other.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most of <em>Lost Connections</em> presents the author’s account of the research done on the social and cultural causes of depression. For example, in the 1970s, British researchers George Brown and Tirril Harris and their team extensively interviewed 115 women living in a working-class suburb of London who were diagnosed with depression and compared their responses to a second group of 344 so-called normal—that is, not depressed—women from the same income group. Their findings were stunning at that time: The depressed women were three times more likely to have experienced certain major life stressors in the year prior to their diagnosis than the non-depressed women. The depressed women had more stressors, more trauma and fewer factors thought to provide psychological resilience, such as close friends and supportive extended family.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The notion that trauma and stressful life experience cause depression and anxiety is really no longer controversial. In the mid-1990s, Vincent Felitti of Kaiser Hospital in San Diego conducted an extraordinary and simple study, called the Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACE Study. He sent out a questionnaire to 17,000 people who were seeking healthcare from Kaiser, asking people to check off which of 10 different categories of childhood trauma they had experienced. These traumas included most of the terrible things that can happen to you when you're a child, including various types of sexual, physical or emotional abuse. In addition, respondents filled out a detailed medical questionnaire testing for all sorts of things that could be problematic, such as obesity, addiction or depression. The results stunned even Dr. Felitti: For every category of traumatic experience someone went through as a child, that person was radically more likely to become depressed as an adult. The correlation was almost perfect: the greater the trauma, the greater the risk for depression, anxiety or suicide. For example, if you had six categories of traumatic events in your childhood, you were five times more likely to become depressed as an adult than someone who didn't have any. If you had seven types of traumatic events as a child, you were 3,100 percent more likely to attempt suicide as an adult.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The notion that depression isn't a disease, but a normal response to abnormal life experiences wouldn't surprise most of us, except for the fact that we live in a culture which pathologizes psychic suffering as a disorder within individuals, rather than as suffering that makes sense given a pathological environment. The cost of such victim blaming is high. If you believe = depression is solely a result of disordered brain chemistry, you don't have to think about your life and about what other people may have done to you. It's painful to think along these lines, which may be one of the reasons why a biological explanation is often easier. As Hari says, quoting Dr. Robert Anda who worked on the ACE study, "When people have these kinds of problems, it's time to stop asking what's wrong with them, and time to start asking what happened to them."</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hari believes that the social and cultural causes of depression all involve some form of "disconnection." He argues that people in our culture are disconnected from meaningful work, citing as evidence a huge Gallup poll about work conducted in 2011 and 2012 that included millions of workers across 142 countries. Gallup found that only 13% of people described themselves as "engaged" in their jobs, meaning that they were enthusiastic about and committed to their work and pleased with their contribution to their organization. Sixty-three percent reported themselves "not engaged" and 24% described themselves as "actively not engaged," which in this survey, meant that they acted out their unhappiness, undermining their coworkers and even seeking to damage the companies where they work. Nearly twice as many people hate their jobs as love their jobs. The prevalence of deadening, routinized and alienated work leads people to feel unappreciated, unrecognized and frustrated, with little or no sense of contributing to something bigger and better than themselves. Disempowerment and indifferent hierarchies at work cause depression.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hari explores another form of disconnection that is more obvious, namely being disconnected from other people. Social isolation and loneliness have been shown to have a wide range of negative physical/health consequences. Feeling lonely causes our cortisol levels to soar, a hormonal outcome that causes wide-ranging damage to the body and mind. In fact, acute loneliness is seen as every bit as stressful as being physically attacked. Human beings are wired to be in groups, and when we are alone for too long, we feel alienated and insecure.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Loneliness and social isolation is increasingly a public health epidemic in America. As sociologist Robert Putnam has shown, the percentage of Americans actively involved in community organizations has radically declined. From 1985 to '95—just one decade—active involvement in community organizations decreased almost 50 percent. We seem to have stopped banding together and have found ourselves increasingly shut away in our own homes. We do things together less than any generation that came before us. And finally, we know that being alone changes our brains and that curing that loneliness changes our brains, so if we're not looking at social as well as biological factors, we can't understand what's really going on with depression today.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hari goes on to talk about another form of disconnection: being disconnected from "meaningful values." In this section, he offers a critique of our consumer culture clearly dominated by an addiction to material possessions, money and status. He points out that advertising experts have admitted since the 1920s that their job is to make people feel inadequate and to then offer their products as the solution to the very inadequacy they have created. A capitalist economy and culture that tells us that there is never enough, and that we are never enough, provides us with what Hari calls "junk values." Materialism has never been associated with health and happiness. In fact, when people are asked to reflect on what really matters to them they usually admit to such deep values as meaningful work, community, family, or being a loving person in service to others. When we are estranged from ourselves, we suffer.</font></p><div class="in_content_ad_container ad_13" style="width: 300px; height: 250px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); float: left; margin: 0px 15px 15px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="proper-ad-unit" style="margin: auto; padding-bottom: 25px; position: relative; min-width: 100px; text-align: center; box-sizing: border-box !important;"><div id="proper-ad-alternet_content_2" data-google-query-id="CKHWmczQxtkCFU44TwodcA4Bzw" style="position: relative; margin: auto; min-width: 300px; min-height: 250px; box-sizing: border-box !important;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></div></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/it-will-take-political-revolution-cure-epidemic-depression#report-ad" data-aid="proper-ad-alternet_content_2" class="call-modal report-ad" style="text-decoration-line: none; left: 0px; right: 0px; line-height: 23px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box !important; position: absolute !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Report Advertisement</font></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div></div><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hari also reviews some of the usual suspects that come up in any discussion about emotional well-being, including being disconnected from status, respect and social approval by virtue of the gross and radical imbalances of income and wealth in our society, as well as being disconnected from the natural world and animals in a society in which most people live in cities and conduct most of their lives indoors. There is powerful scientific evidence that suggests societies with greater equality have less psychiatric illness and that being out in nature reduces depression and anxiety.</font></font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hari wants to be clear that he is not saying genetics and neurobiology have no effect on depression. What he is saying is that the brain and even our genes respond to signals from the world. When scanned, the brains of London cabdrivers who have to memorize the entire map of London, reveal that the part responsible for spatial awareness is bigger than in other people's brains. Experience changes the brain. Clearly, once changes in the brain have occurred, they gain a momentum of their own and contribute to, or reduce, emotional distress. Genes can significantly increase our sensitivity to environmental stress, but that's a far cry from saying that they are a primary cause of depression. Hari points out that historically depression and anxiety were regarded as moral failures, and as a result, the notion that depression is primarily biological can be seen as a defense against blame and judgment. However much such a defense may help some people fend off social disapproval and private shame, the question of causation isn't answered.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The importance of understanding the social and cultural conditions that seem to produce depression and anxiety is that it points the way toward interventions and social changes that could yield tremendous psychological benefits on a mass scale.  Obviously, I'm a believer in psychotherapy and I've also repeatedly seen the short- and medium-term benefits of medications. However, to truly deal with the epidemic of depression and anxious suffering in the world we need to consider making more radical social and political changes. Reducing inequality is not merely in the interest of justice, but would likely produce a significant decrease in depression and anxiety. Further, experiments in cooperative, more democratic and egalitarian work arrangements have shown that such innovations, by reducing the alienation and estrangement people feel at work, can significantly decrease stress while not sacrificing success in the marketplace. Hari suggests we ask depressed people not “What's the matter with you?” but instead, “What matters to you?”</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Such "solutions" involve making radical changes in social life. However, I think that our movement acquires a greater degree of urgency and validity if we understand how much emotional suffering can potentially be remediated. Such understanding can even inform political proposals like those that call for a universal basic income, or UBI, in which people are given a fixed amount of money every year, completely without conditions, to do with whatever they wish—something that has been tried experimentally in many places in the world. Such projects not only directly address the problem of poverty and income inequality, but emotional health and welfare as well. The UBI gives people the freedom to live and work in ways aligned with their deeper non-materialistic, non-junk values. They can hold out for work that is less alienated and more safely connect with their families and communities. The research into these experiments has shown that they greatly enhance the overall levels of emotional as well as physical well-being.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When we privilege explanations of depression and anxiety that emphasize our internal biology, we let society off the hook. We privatize psychological pain even as the role that our culture contributes to that pain goes unchallenged. Johan Hari’s new book helps us tell a different story. As Hari points out, it is even a story endorsed by the World Health Organization, the leading medical body in the world, which in 2011, summarized the evidence this way: "Mental health is produced socially: the presence or absence of mental health is above all a social indicator and therefore requires social, as well as if individual, solutions.” In its official statement for World Health Day in 2017, the United Nations explained that "the dominant biomedical narrative of depression" is based on "biased and selective use of research outcomes" that "cause more harm than good, undermine the right to health, and must be abandoned."</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hari eloquently states this case in his last chapter, when he says: "You aren't a machine with broken parts. You are an animal whose needs are not being met. You need to have a community. You need to have meaningful values, not the junk values you've been pumped full of all your life, telling you happiness comes through money and buying objects. You need to have meaningful work. You need the natural world. You need to feel you are respected. You need a secure future. You need connections to all these things. You need to release any shame you might feel for having been mistreated.”</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I think it's fair to say that in order to achieve these things, we need a revolution.</font></font></font></p><div wibbitz="embed-main-player" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="bio-new body_living" style="width: 630px; line-height: 22px; height: auto; border-top: 3px solid rgb(223, 223, 218); clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="author-bio" style=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Bader is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in San Francisco. He is the author of "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/More-than-Bread-Butter-Psychologist-ebook/dp/B00VDHMACA/?tag=alternorg08-20" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">More Than Bread and Butter</a>: A Psychologist Speaks to Progressives About What People Really Need in Order to Win and Change the World" (Blurb, 2015).</font></font></font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font></font></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/rampant-consumerism-unfulfilling-work-and-lack-social-connection-all-factor">https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/rampant-consumerism-unfulfilling-work-and-lack-social-connection-all-factor</a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">booktv? kpfa?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When British journalist Johann Hari was 18 years old, he became so depressed that he went to his family physician for treatment to end his despair. Hari’s mom had suffered from depression throughout his coming of age, and he had seen numerous television programs report that low mood was inherited, innate, carried in the genes of those who agonized.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hari’s doctor confirmed this but added that <b>depression was also caused by a chemical imbalance—a lack of serotonin</b>—that could easily be corrected with medication. The teenaged Hari was instantly relieved, eager to take whatever concoction was necessary to restore his confidence and equilibrium. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unfortunately, the cure turned out to be far more illusory than Hari expected and in short order his depression returned. His doctor’s solution was to up his dosage of Paxil before switching him to Prozac.    </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s been 20 years since Hari took his first anti-depressant—something he did for 13 years—and the intervening decades have taught him a great deal about the fallacies surrounding mental health and its management. For one, he learned that depression and anxiety have biological, psychological and social triggers, and need treatments that tap into each part of this triumvirate.  </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He discovered that consumers in much of the world have been sold a false bill of goods. The result? Unwarranted confidence in pharmaceutical solutions to the anomie caused by fraying social ties, rampant consumerism, and unsatisfying work. This, of course, has boosted the bottom line of drug companies while doing little-to-nothing to alleviate the stress, strain, and trauma of contemporary life.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Hari’s Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions</b> (Bloomsbury) zeroes in the social change that is needed to restore better relationships on the job, in families, and in the neighborhoods we call home. The book is part memoir, part investigative report and part expose of the ways consumers have been hoodwinked into relying on medication to relieve emotional distress.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hari spoke to AlterNet reporter Eleanor J. Bader via Skype in late January, several days after Lost Connections was released.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Transcript:</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eleanor J. Bader: You knew from personal experience that anti-depressants typically do not work for very long. Many readers will find this shocking. As you did your research, did you find anything that surprised you? </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Johann Hari: There were a lot of things that were really jarring. Let me start by saying that as a teenager, I went to the doctor because the pain was leaking out of me and I couldn’t control or regulate it.  My doctor said I needed a drug to boost my serotonin level but after taking the pills I was still depressed and I wanted to know why. This has been a long journey. I spent three-and-a-half years researching and writing Lost Connections but I’ve been thinking about these issues for far, far longer.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Once I began my research I was excited, and somewhat surprised, to learn that what I’d been told about having a chemical imbalance was just not true. I was told that anti-depressant drugs cured depression and would make me and others well. Yes, anti-depressant drugs expand the options; I do not want to take anything away since medications do benefit some people, but the degree to which the drug companies lied about or were selective about the findings they reported to the Food and Drug Administration about each drug’s efficacy is incredible. The failure of regulators to probe more deeply before okaying a drug is shocking.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We’ve basically given doctors one lever to pull. As a culture we need to give doctors more options for treatment because it turns out our mental health is a social indicator and it needs social solutions.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a teenager I thought depression was all in my head. I considered myself weak. Then I thought it was a chemical imbalance. I’ve now discovered that there are biological causes of depression, but the causes are also social and how we live can explain why many people feel so awful....</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
=</font><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/human-rights/hospital-staff-dumped-mentally-ill-patient-out-freezing-wearing-nothing-hospital-gown"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/human-rights/hospital-staff-dumped-mentally-ill-patient-out-freezing-wearing-nothing-hospital-gown</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Hospital Staff Dumped a Mentally Ill Patient Out In Freezing Weather Wearing Only a Hospital Gown</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Patient dumping is a symptom of a broken healthcare system.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By April M. Short / AlterNet January 13, 2018, 11:39 AM GMT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This week, on a night with temperatures dropping below freezing, hospital personnel at the University of Maryland Medical Center dumped a 22-year-old woman out onto the curbside, clad in nothing but a hospital gown. No shoes. No underwear.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Imamu Baraka, a psychologist who was leaving work nearby, noticed the hospital staffers throwing the woman, reportedly named Rebecca, out in the cold. Aghast, he took out his phone and filmed the incident. The footage shows Rebecca as she stumbles over to a nearby bench, coughing, shivering and visibly disoriented. The psychologist confronts the hospital staff, asking for a manager, and checks on the shivering woman.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Baraka posted the video on Facebook and it has since gone viral, with almost 3 million views just days since it was uploaded. He said he started recording because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I had no choice but to give this young lady a voice in this moment," Baraka told the Associated Press. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gene Sperling, who was a national economy advisor for both Clinton and Obama, tweeted that those responsible for the incident should be charged with "attempted murder."...</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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              <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><a href="http://alternet.org">AlterNet</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span></span></span></span>             /               By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/thom-hartmann" style="">Thom Hartmann</a> <span class="print-footnote" style="">[2]</span>
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        <h1 class="node-title"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Corporate Right-Wing Agenda Is Driving Thousands of Americans to Attempt Suicide</font></h1>
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          <div class="story-date"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><em><span class="field field-name-field-date field-type-date field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" content="2013-08-03T11:26:00-07:00">August 3, 2013</span></span></span></span>

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<p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/07/30/2383521/virginia-suicide-rate-national-problem/">Virginia’s suicide rate is now the highest</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span> it’s been in the last 13 years; Virginians are now three times more likely to die from suicide than they are from homicide.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Virginia is not alone.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over

the past decade, our nation’s suicide rate has been steadily climbing,

rising a staggering 23 percent.  According to the Centers for Disease

Control, there were 700,000 emergency room visits in 2010 alone for

self-inflicted injuries.  </font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The fact is, America’s suicide rate is on the rise, and Conservative economic policies are to blame.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/opinion/how-austerity-kills.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">In a study released in May</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span>,

Professors David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu of <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Oxford University in

England found that suicide rates in both the U.S. and U.K. increase when

working class wages and wealth decline.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The study

calculates, for example, that there were 4,750 “excess” suicides during

the recession period in the U.S., compared with suicide rates before the

recession.   </font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stuckler and Basu conclude their report

by saying that,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> “what we’ve learned is that the real danger to public

health is not recession per se, but austerity.”</span></font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s

right. The very same austerity policies that Republicans in Washington

are constantly pushing on us are the same policies that are driving

Americans to kill themselves.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And these findings are nothing new.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Australian research <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2263690.stm">shows that suicides increase under Conservative governments</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span>.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Australian

scientists found that suicides in that country increased markedly when a

Conservative government was in power. And, they found similar results

for the U.K.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The team of Australian scientists analyzed

suicide statistics for the New South Wales area of Australia between

1901, when the Australian federal government was established, and 1998.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They

then looked at which political parties had control in both state and

federal governments in New South Wales, which have consistently been

under either Labour (like the Democratic Party in the U.S.) or

Conservative control.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And surprise, the scientists found

that the highest rates of suicide occurred when Conservative state and

federal governments were in power.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And then here’s another smoking gun: When Conservative-backed austerity policies began to ravage Greece in 2010, <a href="http://www.euronews.com/2012/04/05/austerity-suicides-climbing/">the suicide rate shot up by 18 percent</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span>.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Athens alone, the suicide rate soared 25 percent.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before austerity came to Greece, that nation had the lowest suicide rate in the entire European Union.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In other European nations hit with austerity, the results are the same.   </font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Italy, for example, the suicide rate has also increased thanks to devastating austerity policies.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So,

if Conservative-backed austerity policies are driving suicides here in

the U.S. and around the world, and we’ve known this for over a decade,

what can be done to reverse this trend?</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Going back to

the study by Stuckler and Basu, they found that to stop the epidemic of

austerity-driven suicides, we must invest more in our economy and

country, not less.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They show that, during the Great

Depression, each $100 per capita of “relief” spending from FDR’s New

Deal ($1800 in today’s dollars) led to a decline in pneumonia deaths of

18 per 100,000 people; a reduction in infant deaths of 18 per 1,000 live

births; and a drop in suicides of 4 per 100,000 people.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stuckler

also highlights the case of Iceland. In 2008, Iceland experienced

arguably the largest banking crisis in history, relative to the size of a

nation’s economy.  Three of its major banks failed, its debt soared,

the unemployment rate skyrocketed, and the nation’s currency completely

collapsed.  </font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite all of this, rather than take the

Conservative approach that we took here in America, bailing out the

banks and slashing funding to crucial government programs, Iceland

decided to say no to austerity, and rejected major cuts to its social

safety net programs.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a result, there was no significant increase in suicides during Iceland’s economic collapse.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You’d

think that the clear correlation between austerity and suicide rates in

Europe would wake Republicans up, and encourage them to stop inflicting

the same despicable and devastating policies on Americans.  In their

continuing service to the billionaire class, Republicans continue to

slash away at social safety net programs, and continue pushing the

Reaganomics policies that have devastated America’s working class.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Remember, when Republicans talk about how bad the economy is, they’re bragging.  </font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative economic policies, from austerity to sequester to Reaganomics, kill people.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now that the science is in, and irrefutable, it’s time to wake Americans up to this deadly con game.</font></p>

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      <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/right-wing">right-wing</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span>,     </font></div>      <div class="field-item odd">
      <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/suicide-0">suicide</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span>,     </font></div>      <div class="field-item even">
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    <div class="print-source_url"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Source URL:</strong> <a href="http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/corporate-right-wing-agenda-driving-thousands-americans-attempt-suicide">http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/corporate-right-wing-agenda-driving-thousands-americans-attempt-suicide</a></font></div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>