Free Republic

Last semester, I was giving a lecture on the history of the Supreme Court from 1953 to present. Toward the end of the lecture, I asked my students if they could name the current Chief Justice. None were able to do so. There were thirty students in the class. This was in a college classroom, mind you. I was annoyed by the failure of a single student to know the name of one of the three most powerful men in America. But, whenever annoyed, I have a tendency to make jokes to lighten the atmosphere. So I told my students...

Yet another panel of scientists has found no evidence that a popular vaccine causes autism. But despite the scientists’ best efforts, their report is unlikely to have any impact on the frustrating debate about the safety of these crucial medicines. “The M.M.R. vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and the evidence is overwhelming that it doesn’t,� Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, the chairwoman ... --snip-- The panel did conclude, however, that there are risks to getting the chickenpox vaccine that can arise years after vaccination. People who have had the vaccine can develop pneumonia, meningitis or hepatitis years later if the virus used...

How many more tragedies like the Tucson shootings will we have to watch before we start facing the harsh truth? For the last three years, I’ve been trying to find a publisher for a book about the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill and the destructive effects on our society that it has caused. I keep getting told that no one is interested in the topic. The tragedy in Tucson on Saturday — like dozens of other such incidents over the last three decades involving mentally ill persons who made headlines — is the reason that people should be interested. Watching...

Dr. Andrew Wakefield's 1998 report in the journal Lancet purporting to show a link between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella "was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud," says Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, in an editorial published Tuesday. The editorial accompanies the first of three reports by British investigative journalist Brian Deer that document how Wakefield manipulated data in his attempts to prove something that he "knew" before he started his research. Most of the information in the reports has been published previously, but...

My daughter's 11 month old Red Standard Poodle has been diagnosed with "mega esophagous" which means that his esophagous is nearly twice as large as it ought to be, and the food has a hard time making into the stomach and just sits in the esophagous. He regurgitates much of his dinner daily. This is a worrisome, messy, smelly condition, but not fatal. Her vet says she should learn to manage it by keeping him calm & upright for a half hour after he eats and offering smaller meals. Obviously he's getting some nutrition because he's 49 lbs, although he's...

Horns, tattooed eyebrows and earlobe implants were among the 'personal oddities' noted by police on Jesse Thornhill's arrest sheet after the 28-year-old fitty allegedly tried to run over his landlady with his people carrier. Officers were called to a disturbance in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after receiving reports of a late-night altercation involving the fetching death metal fan. They were told he'd attempted to run over his landlady after an argument, using his vehicle as a 'dangerous weapon'. The landlady managed to jump out of the way of the people carrier. He was found and arrested a few hours later, spending the...

People who carry a lot of weight around their middle are at increased risk of developing dementia, say researchers.

On March 4, 2010, John Bendell shot two police officers at the entrance to the Pentagon. He and I have a feared and very personal trait in common. Like me - and 5.7 million other Americans - Mr. Bendell had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. However, unlike Mr. Bendell, most of those 5.7 million and I have never committed a crime and are not violent.

Sleep is supposed to be a time of peace and relaxation. Most of us drift from our waking lives into predictable cycles of deep, non-rapid-eye-movement sleep, followed by dream-filled rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. But when the boundaries of these three phases of arousal get fuzzy, sleep can be downright scary. In fact, some sleep disorders seem more at home in horror films than in your bedroom.

IF you ask my daughter, Isabel, what autism means to her, she won’t say that it is a condition marked by impaired social communication and repetitive behaviors. She will say that her autism makes her a good artist, helps her to relate to animals and gives her perfect pitch. The stigma of autism is fading fast. One reason is that we now understand that autism is a spectrum with an enormous range. Some people with autism are nonverbal with profound cognitive disabilities, while others are accomplished professionals. Many people with milder symptoms of autism have, for the past 20 years...

Asperger's syndrome is really just a form of autism and does not merit a separate diagnosis, according to a panel of researchers assembled by the American Psychiatric Association. --snip-- But a new draft fifth edition released Wednesday moves Asperger's officially into the autism category, provoking a wide range of responses among people with Asperger's — some of whom say they do not want to be labeled as autistic.

There is a lot of controversy right now over homosexuals in the military, gay marriage, teaching children in school ... At the root of this issue is the question of whether or not it is a choice, or if a person can be born gay/homosexual. In the book "If You Read Just One Book This Year ... " the author, who goes by the pen-name "An American Man," addresses this issue ... The author starts out with a humorous approach ... by comparing homosexuals to vegetables ... He proceeds to address hate crimes and how television media plays a role....

Avatar Gives Film Fans the Blues By Stephen Jones Epoch Times Staff A luminescent, idyllic world populated by peace-loving aliens may have captivated cinema audiences across the world, but for some the 'immersive' experience of watching the film Avatar has threatened to overshadow their own lives. Hundreds of fans of James Cameron's blockbuster 3-D epic have complained that they feel despair after leaving the cinema that they can never live in a world like the mythical Pandora, in the film. An online discussion board, titled “Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible,” has received...

Children who are ambidextrous, using either hand with the same ease, may be more likely to have mental health, language and academic problems than their peers, according to a new study. The researchers say the findings may help teachers and health professionals identify children who are particularly at risk of developing these problems. The researchers aren't sure what is behind this link, though they suggest differences in the brain between ambidextrous individuals and those who have a dominant hand may play a role. In fact, scientists aren't sure why some people can use both hands equally well (with no dominant...

Patrick Muirhead's story: 'The day I decided to stop being gay..' Muirhead has an interesting article in the Times Online. With the current legal fight over same sex marriage (Prop 8 ) here in California I wonder if there’s something of value in his perspective. Its well written and very thoughtful. Here’s part of what he wrote: “There was a little voice, lost long ago in the drowning din of my homosexuality, that still called quietly; the smothered, smaller voice of a boy who liked girls.”

BOSTON (Reuters) – The number of children aged 2 to 5 who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs has doubled over the past decade, according to research released on Friday. The research suggests that while it is still rare to prescribe powerful psychiatric drugs to 2-year-olds, the practice is becoming more frequent. The data, compiled from 2000 to 2007, and published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, could inform testimony at the upcoming Boston-area murder trials of the parents of 4-year-old Rebecca Riley. The girl died of an overdose...

Two brain areas fail to connect when children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder attempt a task that measures attention, according to researchers at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain and M.I.N.D. Institute. "This is the first time that we have direct evidence that this connectivity is missing in ADHD," said Ali Mazaheri, postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Mind and Brain. Mazaheri and his colleagues made the discovery by analyzing the brain activity in children with ADHD. The paper appears in the current online issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry. The researchers measured electrical rhythms from the brains...

AMERICANS, particularly if they are of a certain leftward-leaning, college-educated type, worry about our country’s blunders into other cultures. In some circles, it is easy to make friends with a rousing rant about the McDonald’s near Tiananmen Square, the Nike factory in Malaysia or the latest blowback from our political or military interventions abroad. For all our self-recrimination, however, we may have yet to face one of the most remarkable effects of American-led globalization. We have for many years been busily engaged in a grand project of Americanizing the world’s understanding of mental health and illness. We may indeed be...

According to various media reports, President Obama has hired a transgender woman as a senior adviser at the Commerce Department – but the White House is refusing to confirm the appointment. Mitchell Simpson, now known as "Amanda" following a sex change, is said to have been appointed senior technical adviser at the Commerce Department. He purportedly began work today. The Commerce website now lists an "Amanda Simpson" in its directory along with a Bureau of Industry and Security e-mail address. The directory does not list a phone number for "Amanda." The Obama administration has not officially announced the appointment, and...

During a recent talk regarding my book, “Blessed with Bipolar,” I was stumped by the question, “How does a person get to where you are now from where you were in the psych ward?” I actually have a 380 page answer to that question. What stumped me was the question behind the question: “How do I get my bipolar daughter into treatment?”

Dr. Sam Vaknin, psychologist, noted “Obama’s shallowness. . .an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. “His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama’s speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history."

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah man who inspired Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie "Rain Man" has died. Kim Peek, 58, collapsed at his home in Salt Lake City on Saturday from what his dad says was a massive heart attack. Kim couldn't do simple things like turning on a light or dressing himself because the membrane that allows the right and left hemisphere to talk to each other was missing. Kim was a unique megasavant. He was able to recall most everything he read or heard -- from zip codes to historical events -- and he could do...

New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows... --snip-- The F.D.A. has approved antipsychotic drugs for children specifically to treat schizophrenia, autism and bipolar disorder. But they are more frequently prescribed to children for other, less extreme conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, aggression, persistent defiance or other so-called conduct disorders — especially when the...

Based on this detailed, comprehensive Mayo Clinic definition, one that I believe perfectly describes Obama, it's obvious he needs prescription medicine and extended psychotherapy. Our country is in tremendous danger with a person suffering from this complex mental illness in our White House.

Josie Romero loves the colour pink, braiding her hair and having her fingernails painted. But life has not always been easy for this sweet and charming eight-year-old, who was born in the body of a boy. The transgender youngster, then called Joseph, knew at the age of four that she was the wrong sex and even told her parents: 'I am really a girl.' At five, she was refusing to have her hair cut and only wore colours like orange which were nearest to girly pink. By the time she reached six, Josie had been diagnosed as transgender and was...

Some children and teens are more likely than their peers to become addicted to the Internet, and a new study suggests it's more likely to happen if kids are depressed, hostile, or have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or social phobia. Although an Internet addiction is not an official diagnosis, signs of a potential problem include using the Internet so much for game playing or other purposes that it interferes with everyday life and decision-making ability. (The diagnosis is being considered for the 2012 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the "bible" of mental ailments published by...

The prevalence of mental health disorders in this country has nearly doubled in the past 20 years. Who is treating all of these patients? Clinical psychologists and therapists are charged with the task, but many are falling short by using methods that are out of date and lack scientific rigor. This is in part because many of the training programs—especially some Doctorate of Psychology (PsyD) programs and for-profit training centers—are not grounded in science. A new report in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, by a panel of distinguished clinical scientists—Timothy Baker...

WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 35 million people around the world are living with Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia, says the most in-depth attempt yet to assess the brain-destroying illness—and it's an ominous forecast as the population grays. The new count is about 10 percent higher than what scientists had predicted just a few years ago, because earlier research underestimated Alzheimer's growing impact in developing countries. Barring a medical breakthrough, the World Alzheimer Report projects dementia will nearly double every 20 years. By 2050, it will affect a staggering 115.4 million people, the report concludes.

Return to the Article September 16, 2009Is Obama a Narcissist?By Robin of Berkeley Many of us are asking ourselves the million dollar question: are Obama and his crew  narcissists? (Translation:  What in God's name is wrong with these people?  Are they on medications?  Are they off their medications? Are we being unknowingly subjected to some new reality show, Extreme Alien Invasion?) Now as a newby conservative, I have a long way to go to herald myself as an expert on conservatism, neoconservatism, paleoconservatism (whatever that is), and the like. But one thing I do know is crazy -- and that's...

A new study shows that homosexuals and lesbians seek mental health counseling far more than heterosexuals. The UCLA School of Public Health found that to be true in California, but there have been other studies with similar results. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality says homosexuals usually respond that they would not have so many problems if society would simply accept their behavior as normal. "You can't just keep going back to homophobia and societal stigma to account for this huge difference between straights and homosexuals with regard to various pathologies," he contends. "First of all, we're talking...

August 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study led by Susan Cochran and her team of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, published in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry, reports that homosexuals seek treatment for mental health issues or substance abuse at a rate over two times higher than heterosexuals. The study of 2074 people interviewed in the California Health Interview Survey found that 48.5% of homosexual and bisexual individuals reported receiving psychiatric or drug abuse treatment in the past year as compared to 22.5% of heterosexuals. When the research results were broken down by gender, the report...

Take a look :-)

Dr. Sam Vaknin is an Israeli psychologist. He has written extensively about narcissism. Dr. Vaknin states "I must confess I was impressed by Sen. Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's speeches are unlike any...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday. About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 -- 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found. "Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans," Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry. "Not...

HAVING BIPOLAR vs. BEING BIPOLAR (excerpt from the book, "Blessed With Bipolar: 36 God-Given Gifts of Manic Depression) I have bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder does not have me. Bipolar disorder is not, my identity. It is not who I am. Bipolar disorder impacts my personality, emotions, and behavior. It does not dictate what I think, believe, say, or do. There are blessings that come with “having bipolar disorder.” “Being bipolar,” on the other hand, would be nothing but a burden. If I think of myself as “being bipolar” (or of bipolar as being my being), then I am controlled by...

He was diagnosed with autism, had received counseling for an attraction to child pornography and lived in a group home. Still, a recruiter thought that Joshua Fry had what it took to be one of “the few, the proud, the Marines.” Pvt. Fry, who spent the last year in the brig at Camp Pendleton on charges of possessing child pornography, leaving base without authorization and concealing his psychiatric history, was discharged today from the Marines for bad conduct and sentenced to four years confinement. Although the case has been settled and a verdict handed down, disturbing questions about exactly how...

An experience of sexual abuse in childhood or adolescence is associated with an increased risk of gay men becoming HIV-positive in adult life, American researchers report in the July 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. The research also showed that men with a history of sexual abuse in early life had higher levels of depression and problematic drug and alcohol use, as well as being less receptive to HIV prevention interventions. “This is the first study…to demonstrate a predictive relationship between a history of childhood sexual abuse and high rates of HIV infection among HIV-uninfected men...

Karl Greenfeld’s painful, eloquent memoir lays bare the disease’s toll.Boy Alone: A Brother’s Memoir, by Karl Greenfeld (Harper, 368 pp., $25.99) In the 1988 film Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman plays an autistic adult named Raymond Babbitt, a role for which he received an Academy Award. Hoffman’s performance has another distinction: 21 years later, it remains the phoniest portrayal of autism ever put on screen. Those who suffer from that affliction, unlike Raymond, aren’t all cuteness and intuition. Their rages don’t last three picturesque minutes; they can go on for days. In infancy, those stricken most severely retreat into themselves, never...

Lawyers for President Obama are quietly drafting first-of-their kind guidelines barring workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees, officials said Tuesday. The guidelines will be in an updated federal handbook for managers and supervisors to be distributed and posted online in the next couple of months, and they could also be included in other materials for managers. They will list transgender people — those who identify their gender differently from the information on their birth certificates — as among several groups protected by antidiscrimination laws. Though transgender men and women are not believed to make up more than a fraction of...

Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler. She turned 16 in January. "Why doesn't she age?" Howard Greenberg, 52, asked of his daughter. "Is she the fountain of youth?" Such questions are why scientists are fascinated by Brooke. Among the many documented instances of children who fail to grow or develop in some way, Brooke's case may be unique, according to her doctor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine pediatrician Lawrence Pakula, in Baltimore. "Many of the best-known names in medicine, in their experience ... had not seen anyone who matched up to...

For Ann Hohmann, Oct. 21, 2004, began just about like any other day. On that morning, the 54-year-old mother of two living in McAllen, Texas, was preparing to take her eldest son to school. She had an early appointment, so her husband, Rick Hohmann, would be dropping off younger son, 14-year-old Matthew, at his school that day. About a month earlier, Matthew had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. And like an estimated 2.5 million other children in the United States, he was taking medication for the condition.

(The following commentary includes material obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.) Psychopathy is a personality disorder manifested in people who use a mixture of charm, manipulation, intimidation, and occasionally violence to control others, in order to satisfy their own selfish needs. Although the concept of psychopathy has been known for centuries, the FBI leads the world in the research effort to develop a series of assessment tools, to evaluate the personality traits and behaviors attributable to psychopaths. Interpersonal traits include glibness, superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth,...

Los Angeles, CA (BANG) - Cher's daughter is having a sex change. Chastity Bono - the 40-year-old daughter of the "Believe" singer and her late husband Sonny - began the lengthy gender reassignment process earlier this year. She has asked family and friends to call her Chaz, and will have surgery to give her male genitals later this year. Her spokesman said: "Chaz has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity. He is proud of his decision and grateful for the support and respect that has already been shown by loved ones." "It is Chaz's hope that his...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is using her public profile to draw attention to the needs of those with autism and other developmental disabilities in the New York metropolitan area. The former Republican vice presidential candidate is scheduled to join a fundraising walk for the group Autism Speaks in Westchester County on Sunday morning. Then she is to be honored on Long Island later Sunday at an anniversary celebration for Independent Group Home Living Inc. Palin's youngest son, Trig, has Down syndrome.

Neil Whitehead, Ph.D. Twin studies are favorites of mine because of the potential light they throw on the origins of same-sex attractions (SSA). The latest one (Santtila et al., 2008) is three times larger than any previous study - in fact, larger than all the rest put together.Does this latest study teach us something new? Quick answer: No. It confirms the best recent studies, which tell us that genetic factors are minor; non-genetic factors are major.The paper's title is "Potential for Homosexual Response is Prevalent and Genetic." This implies to the average reader that homosexuality is sometimes hidden, but commonly...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--A social researcher who has studied sexual behavior for 24 years believes the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has sound reasons for maintaining its prohibition against gay scoutmasters. A homosexual cannot automatically be considered a child molester, said Judith Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education in suburban Louisville, Ky. But with 17-24 percent of boys being abused by age 18, nearly as many as the 25 percent of girls, there is cause for concern, she said. Since heterosexuals outnumber the homosexual population about 44 to 1, as a group the incidence of homosexuals molesting children is...

How should the Catholic community respond to men and women who think that a person's sex change operation would solve their problem? Catholic teaching in this area is clear. It is impossible to "change" a person's sex. Hormone treatments, cosmetic surgery and surgery to mutilate the sex organs do not change a person' sex. Confusion in this area has come about because people tend to defer to scientists, particularly in areas where their personal experience is limited. Therefore, when doctors, including those from the prestigious Johns Hopkins, have promoted "sex change" operations for physically normal men who believed they were...

As transgender activists protested outside the American Psychiatric Association (APA) meeting, speakers at the meeting were presenting on the same topic: gender identity disorder (GID). Some of their words would add clinical weight to the political slogans. Some of the speakers are activists themselves, including Rebecca Allison, MD, cardiologist who is transgender, widely published author Sarah Hoffman, whose son is gender variant, and Hewlett-Packard engineer Kelley Winters, PhD, founder of GID Reform Advocates. Winters1 has called on the APA to use the DSM-V revision to affirm that “in the absence of dysphoria, gender identity and expression that vary from assigned...

The attempt to prove that homosexuality is determined biologically has been dealt a knockout punch. An American Psychological Association publication includes an admission that there's no homosexual "gene" -- meaning it's not likely that homosexuals are born that way. For decades, the APA has not considered homosexuality a psychological disorder, while other professionals in the field consider it to be a "gender-identity" problem. But the new statement, which appears in a brochure called "Answers to Your Questions for a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality," states the following: "There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that...

(Media-Newswire.com) - The Royal College shares the concern of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association that positions espoused by bodies like the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality ( NARTH ) in the United States are not supported by science. There is no sound scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Furthermore so-called treatments of homosexuality as recommended by NARTH create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish. The Royal College of Psychiatrists holds the view that lesbian, gay and bisexual people should be regarded as valued members of society who...