Turns Out Rust Colored Water Probably Not So Good After All

This always happens when I can't sleep. I lie in bed checking my CrackBerry and come across something that angers or excites me leaving me even more awake. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now, but alas, I am just as human as you are.

This time the culprit was a brand spanking new study showing that exposure to the substance manganese found in groundwater is linked, for perhaps the first time, to IQ deficits in children. "Yawn." I know. Big deal considering exposure to the current sociopolitical climate is making all of us more stupid by the day.

Then I suffered (because insomnia IS suffering) the thought that woke me up. Even though I can't find it anywhere online, I swear I saw a recent news story about rust colored water in St. Tammany Parish homes. I'm almost certain a spokesman in that story said it was probably because of the high levels of manganese in the area and that while the water looks weird, the manganese is harmless. An online document from the St. Tammany Parish government website calls manganese "a nontoxic substance" (see Why Is My Water Discolored on page 2).

Maybe not:

Lead author Maryse Bouchard explains, "We found significant deficits in the intelligence quotient (IQ) of children exposed to higher concentration of manganese in drinking water. Yet, manganese concentrations were well below current guidelines."

The analyses of the association between manganese in tap water and children's IQ took into account various factors such as family income, maternal intelligence, maternal education, and the presence of other metals in the water. For co-author Donna Mergler, "This is a very marked effect; few environmental contaminants have shown such a strong correlation with intellectual ability." The authors state that the amount of manganese present in food showed no relationship to the children's IQ.

-Bouchard et al., Environmental Health Perspectives, September 2010

The difference in IQ was 6 points. To put that in some perspective, the current black-white IQ gap for 12-year-olds in America is approximately 9.5 points. That realization then led me to ponder the strength of the environment-over-genetics argument for the gap in racial achievement in the U.S., and you better believe that thought REALLY had me wide awake! That's going to have to be a whole other series of posts for another day.

There was definitely no sleeping after that because now I had to get up out of bed and...sigh...save the children. So I just emailed Tammany Utilities to alert them to this. In their defense, as indicated in the research article, while airborne exposure to manganese is harmful to adults and children, manganese in the levels present in groundwater in North America has heretofore not been widely known to be a neurotoxin. Lots of other public water systems need to take heed too.

Anyway, the moral of the story is: the next time some snot-nosed, smart aleck kid mouths off at you, smile and offer them a nice glass of water.


Filtered water, people! What kind of an animal do you think I am?!

Physician, Heal Thy Profession

I just stumbled upon this link: When Doctors Kill Themselves.

The unsettling truth is that doctors have the highest rate of suicide of any profession. Every year, between 300 and 400 physicians take their own lives—roughly one a day. And, in sharp contrast to the general population, where male suicides outnumber female suicides four to one, the suicide rate among male and female doctors is the same. (Newsweek)

Interestingly, it was written in April 2008 and not at all in response to the Ft. Hood incident yesterday. It reminded me of my thoughts from earlier today while listening to WWL talk radio. I guess because the gunman hadn't been deployed yet, it didn't occur to the callers or the host that occupational stress might have played a role -- at least not during the 45 mins. of the show that I heard.

There are obviously other factors involved (so do not go the hell off in my comments section about me being a "liberal/socialist" apologist for terrorists who hate America, or about Muslims, or tea bags, or big government, or whatever), but as a mental health professional, my first reaction was to wonder what stress military psychiatrists and psychologists, as well as civilian ones working for the VA, must be under. It's no secret that the soldiers returning from war have experienced serious psychiatric illnesses, and that the VA system is stretched very thin right now and, by extension, so are the doctors.

I wouldn't be surprised if being a doctor played a significant role in leading this psychiatrist to such a low point in his life. Physician suicide vs. going the hell off and killing others are two different things, but the two scenarios share some of the same causes.

Article on physician suicide:

they worry—not without reason—that if they admit to a mental-health problem they could lose respect, referrals, income and even their licenses...

...physicians are supposed to be the strong ones who care for the sick, not the sick ones who need to be cared for. "I did not want it to go on my medical record that I had been treated for depression," says Dr. Robert Lehmberg, 60, whose moving account of his struggle with the condition—and the stigma it carries.

Article on the Ft. Hood shooting:

The consensus at Walter Reed, Casscells said, was that Hasan was sent to Fort Hood for "a fresh start" after a difficult time at the medical center.

Hasan received a poor performance evaluation there, the Associated Press reported, quoting an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. While he was an intern, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, according to Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time...

...The military will look at all this closely and decide if there is any mental or physical illness, whether this is just a lonely guy with a remote personality who got a bad officer evaluation report and lost the confidence of his peers...

...Our focus was on the doctors to dig deep and do all they can for these guys (troops) and to have one of our own do this is personally crushing.

Healthcare providers, especially doctors, are supposed to "push through it" and perform perfectly no matter what is going on, an expectation that's hard to argue with since they're responsible for human lives. Still, at a certain point and with enough pressure, something's gotta give.

Stacy Head's Emails: An Analysis

Garland Robinette is put off, and rightfully so, by the public's focus on a few distasteful emails to the detriment of the bigger problems facing the City. Still, Stacy Head's ongoing issues with how she approaches things and people are relevant to how well she is performing in the very important job of councilwoman. So, I really can't help but weigh in on what the T-P published today. I often agree with what Ms. Head tries to accomplish on the Council, but her presentation sucks.

My analysis of her electronic communications:

"Pisses me off 100 percent of the time. I have been shopping carefully, looking at the per serving cost of all items. This chick in front of me is buying pre made croissant and egg, canned soups, solft driinks, pre made beef pattie (who eats that???), pre made RICE KRISPYs!!! Precut sweet potatos (didn't know those existed) and is payong with a food stamp card. I am voting for the freak mccain and his trash bag vp. I am sick of it."

• First of all, this rant was written 6 days post-Gustav. Citizens evacuated via public transportation were still trying to get home, electricity was still lacking in a good number of areas, curfew was still in effect. She was stressed out I'm sure, but THIS set her off? And at the same time most public officials were trying to extend emergency food stamp benefits to practically everyone?
• Ms. Head assumes the food stamp user is not cost conscious. Does she know the woman's monthly food budget or how much money she had on her food stamp card?
  
• Apparently, food stamp users should be forced to buy the cheapest food in the store while simultaneously meeting Ms. Head's personal culinary standards of no pre-packaged foods.
• It seems Ms. Head would compromise her political philosophy in a second to either end food stamps or make food stamp recipients cook everything from scratch. (I guess I missed this particular pledge of the McCain-Palin platform.)
  
• Why is she so angry about this?

Putting this together with the other emails, and from much of what I have heard come straight out of Stacy Head's mouth, this is not someone inclined to understand, let alone respect, others' points of view or life circumstances. Does it ever cross her mind that she could be wrong or that she doesn't know everything. Even her failure to check her spelling and grammar suggests that she expects people to know what she is talking about, and it shows a lack of consideration for bothering with whether others grasp what she's trying to say or accomplish.

Does she ever talk TO people or just about them?

She comes across as a spoiled bully. She wants things the way SHE wants them, and more and more it seems like being confrontational is the only way she knows how to accomplish anything.

Spin, Lie, or Fraud?

With Jindal's administration continuing to distort reality and turn truth on its head to convince us to support its misplaced priorities, the latest directives from the governor's office can be aptly described by all of the words in the above title. Their latest attempt to convince us that closing N.O. Adolescent Hospital (NOAH) does not amount to a reduction in services took the form of an editorial yesterday in the Times-Picayune written by DHH Secretary Alan Levine.

It is one of the most dishonest opinion pieces I have ever read.

Levine tries to convince us that because the state spent millions expanding community health care services in N.O. that there is no longer as much of a need for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization (which strikes me as a point DHH wouldn't have to keep pushing if they really felt they were not REDUCING services in the N.O. area -- but that's just my crazy, bizarre opinion). True, assertive mental health services were expanded last year under Nicola's Law, according to this T-P article which also points out that there are little data to support the supposition that such services reduce the need for psychiatric hospitalization.

Such services are partly granted through various "waivers" which provide services like home health care aides who help families care for developmentally delayed individuals and those with severe behavioral and emotional problems. Something Levine conspicuously failed to mention, as he touted the hundreds of children and adults now served by last year's increase in mental health funding, is that there are many more on the waiting lists for these services. One family in our clinic has been waiting 5 years for their waiver (a VERY common wait time), yet DHH is cutting the meager funding for the waivers they provide (see page 14 of linked-to document) while simultaneously rejecting stimulus money to save healthcare from budget cuts. Another thing he left out, when saying "fewer than 15% of the referrals from the mental health Emergency Room at University Hospital are referred to NOAH," was the number of referrals that actually refers to. Also, that percentage has probably plummeted since the state already quietly closed an adult psychiatric unit housed at NOAH 2 months ago.

But back to the issue at hand: NOAH. Secretary Levine's reasoning that NOAH can be safely "moved" (DHH's euphemism) because there are more outpatient services now defies not only logic but also common sense for the same reason that having a primary physician in no way means one will never need hospitalization. Family physicians can no more treat heart attacks, strokes, and traumatic brain injury in their offices than can mental health providers treat psychiatric emergencies on comfortable office couches.

Levine insists: "Our proposal does not reduce the number of mental health beds." He forgot to add in New Orleans at the end of that sentence because when you add those 3 words to this new DHH mantra, it translates into: There will be ZERO publicly funded inpatient psychiatric hospital beds for children and adolescents by the time we get through screwing New Orleans, who by the way did not vote for Gov. Jindal...not that our decisions have anything to do with that fact. If you're a master of subtlety and reading between the lines, you might have picked up the slightly different meaning those 3 little words add.

Yup, I can spin with the best of 'em!

As for fraud, I am sad to say that Secretary Levine has intentionally tried to deceive us when he said: "less than 35 percent of the children treated at NOAH are even from New Orleans." There really is no excuse for trying to slide this piece of misleading info into the mix when just a few weeks ago Arnie Fielkow and Shelly Midura exposed DHH Deputy Secretary Sybil Richard for attempting the same act of deceipt at a city council Subcommittee on Mental Health meeting on March 27. Yes, 35% come from Orleans Parish, followed by another 40% or so from Jefferson Parish. I'm willing to bet the ones that also come from St. Bernard, Plaquemines, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, Terrebonne, and Lafourche also would not appreciate an even longer drive than they already have to see their hospitalized children.

Honestly, I do not know why the state is putting the entire southshore in such dire straits. I'd ask them, but I doubt they'd tell me the truth anyway.

Who Said Hope Isn't A Solution?

Actually, I've said it and quite often. Don't get me wrong. It's necessary to get anything of significance done; it's just not a plan of action. Or maybe it is:

One intriguing hint of what researchers led by Ray Friedman of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management calls the “Obama Effect” suggests that maybe, just maybe, Obama will do more for the scholastic achievement of African-Americans than anything since Brown v. Board of Education.

Apparently, a mere four days into Obama's term, the recalcitrant Black-White test score gap may have all but disappeared:

The results varied according to when the students took the test. Before the convention and in early October, the performance gap was as wide as ever: white students got a median score of 12.1 compared to blacks’ 8.8 before the convention; the scores were 12.9 and 8.4, respectively, in early October. But just after Obama’s convention speech, and just after election day, “when Obama’s stereotype-defying accomplishments garnered national attention,” as the researchers put it, there was a remarkable effect. Among students who watched Obama’s speech, blacks’ and whites’ scores were statistically equal (10.3 vs. 12.1) after the acceptance speech and 9.8 vs. 11.1 after election day. The difference is considered statistically insignificant--that is, likely due to chance.

If I didn't know any better, I'd immediately write off this study as containing a fatal flaw. But I do know better. I know that there is an extensive body of research experiments that supports the theory that a significant portion of the Black-White test score gap has to do with stereotype threat, as explained in this article.

As a scientist, I'm still not ready to gleefully embrace the results of this study. In fact, I can't wait to read it so I can pore over it for flaws and limitations (as we are brainwashed to do in grad school).

But dammit, living in this city and through this current turd of an economy, I'm takin' a li'l Hope wherevers I can find it.

Dear Gov. Jindal, Do The Right Thing

Dear Governor Jindal,

I was so pleased to hear that you understand and are concerned about the link between dropping out of school and ending up in prison, and that you would like to address these problems.

Every year 14,000 high school students drop out of school. Every year we lock up about 14,000 people in our prisons. I don't think that's a coincidence. -Gov. Bobby Jindal on his initiatives to reduce Louisiana's dropout and recidivism rates. [Times Picayune, 1/4/09, p. A-13]

I was not so pleased to read on the very same newspaper page your plans to stave off a projected $341 million budget shortfall by delaying the opening of a mental health crisis center in New Orleans and by canceling plans to add 6 inpatient beds to the N.O. Adolescent Hospital. You should be aware that a recent study shows that children in LA impacted by Hurricane Katrina currently suffer from physical and mental health problems at rates double that of homeless children in New York City.

NY Times 12/5/08:
...41 percent under age 4 had iron-deficiency anemia -- twice the rate for children in New York City's homeless shelters. Anemia, often attributable to poor nutrition, is associated with developmental problems and academic underachievement.

More than half of those ages 6 to 11 had a behavior or learning problem, yet in the East Baton Rouge School District children can wait for as long as two years to be tested for learning disabilities.

...many of the children of Hurricane Katrina are behind in school, acting out and suffering from extraordinarily high rates of illness and mental health problems. Their parents, many still anxious or depressed themselves, are struggling to keep the lights on and the refrigerator stocked.

Governor, these are the children most likely to not finish high school and then end up in jail, and these are the very children that your budget cuts will hurt most. I think that the Obama administration and Congress would be hard-pressed to hand over $450 million for a new Charity hospital to a state that won't even spend $4.25 million to address the dire needs of its own citizens, needs which should have been addressed 3 years ago now.

Show us that you care about your citizens. Let us know whether a man of God would choose $385,040 in pay raises for 6 Cabinet members already making six figures a year over thousands of families who have nowhere else but you to turn to for survival. Six psychiatric inpatient beds at NOAH will cost $250,000.

Governor Jindal, do the right thing this time.

Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life

"Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory,or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color. Perpetrators of microaggressions are often unaware that they engage in such communications when they interact with racial/ethnic minorities."

"In the world of business, the term “microinequities” is used to describethe pattern of being overlooked, underrespected, and devaluedbecause of one’s race or gender. Microaggressions are often unconsciously delivered in the form of subtle snubs or dismissive looks, gestures, and tones. These exchanges are so pervasive and automatic in daily conversations and interactions that they are often dismissed andglossed over as being innocent and innocuous. Yet, as indicated previously, microaggressions are detrimental to persons of color because they impair performance in a multitude of settings by sapping the psychic and spiritual energy of recipients and by creating inequities (Franklin,2004; D. W. Sue, 2004)."

American Psychologist, Vol. 62, No. 4
D.W. Sue et al., 2007:

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I know there will be more than a few white people reading this, already getting set to roll their eyes all over their heads because "now that they can't find real racism, they gotta go make up this 'racial microaggression' bull!" The term sounds juuuust a bit dramatic to me too, and I'm a black psychologist so trust me -- I have used my share of "weird" terminology. But before folks just reflexively dismiss this as "P.C., bleeding heart liberal, Rainbow Coalition" shenanigans, I hope they at least consider WHY such a phenomenon couldn't exist? It's easy to say, "oh that's just baloney," but tell me why it's baloney.

Receiving this article from American Psychologist serendipitously occurred at the end of a week during which allegations of police brutality against a young black boy inspired many an exasperated citizen-neighbor to vent on talk radio shows and porches. More frustrating was hearing two black women, one from N.O. and another from Metairie, consecutively tell two remarkably disgusting and frightening stories about run-ins with local officers only to be followed by a white male police officer who was obviously feeling a bit demoralized and shocked that his fellow officers could do such a thing.

That was his sentiment at first anyways.

You could almost hear him processing his disappointment in some law enforcers' behaviors. Then he said, "Those stories are SO frightening and just awful, I have a hard time believing all of it." Granted, a normal reaction when most are given shocking news. That opinion then quickly became, "I really don't think everything in those womens' stories were true." But why?

Aside from the issue of how white people feel they can give authoritative answers regarding the existence of discrimination, a minority who alleges discrimination has to bear the burden of proof to be believed, yet frustrated white people are often let off the hook with maybe an anecdote and data that's usually more perception ("Mexicans are moving in all around here") than fact ("Three Latino families moved into 3 houses in a1000-home subdivision - and 2 of those 3 families are actually the American born descendants of mid-century Puerto Rican immigrants").

Anyway, this article nicely lays out what racism looks like these days, and why most white people can't see it. Are minorities overly sensitive about race? Probably. Most people who've endured traumatic things get touchy when one mentions or does something related to such a painfully negative situation. (So even if you think it's all just in our heads, this should at least answer that age old question: 'Why are you people so angry?") The main audience of this article is counseling professionals, but anyone who can read or have it read to them will learn something beneficial (in my opinion). If not, then ask yourself why the odds are such that you are right; and then maybe even consider why it is impossible for racist interactions to occur so much?

"Most White Americans experience themselves as good, moral, and decent human beings who believe in equality and democracy. Thus, they find it difficult to believe that they possess biased racial attitudes and may engage in behaviors that are discriminatory (D. W. Sue, 2004). Microaggressive acts can usually be explained away by seemingly nonbiased and valid reasons."

And yes, please consider it without switching the focus to nefarious reasons this "liberal doctrine is being forced upon us in this election cycle!!"

----------------------------------------------------------------
More Excerpts from American Psychologist, D.W. Sue et al., 2007:

Microinvalidations are characterized by communications
that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts,
feelings, or experiential reality of a person of color. When
Asian Americans (born and raised in the United States) are
complimented for speaking good English or are repeatedly
asked where they were born, the effect is to negate their
U.S. American heritage and to convey that they are perpetual
foreigners.

When a Latino couple is given poor service at a restaurant
and shares their experience with White friends, only to be
told “Don’t be so oversensitive” or “Don’t be so petty,” the
racial experience of the couple is being nullified and its
importance is being diminished.

White Americans tend to believe that minorities are doing better in life, that discrimination is on the decline, that racism is no longer a significant factor in the lives of people of color, and that equality has been achieved. More important, the majority of Whites do not view themselves as racist or capable of racist behavior. Minorities, on the other hand, perceive Whites as (a) racially insensitive, (b) unwilling to share their position and wealth, (c) believing they are superior, (d) needing to control everything, and (e) treating them poorly because of their race. People of color believe these attributes are reenacted everyday in their interpersonal interactions with Whites, oftentimes in the form of microaggressions (Solo´rzano et al., 2000). For example, it was found that 96% of African Americans reported experiencing racial discrimination in a one-year period (Klonoff & Landrine, 1999), and many incidents involved being mistaken for a service worker, being ignored, given poor service, treated rudely, or experiencing strangers acting fearful or intimidated when around them (Sellers & Shelton, 2003).

Young Student's Documentary Leaving Audiences Stunned

A high school student recently filmed her replication of the Kenneth & Mamie Clark "doll studies," well known within psychology, or to anyone studying ethnic identity development.

As cynical as I usually am, I found myself surprised by what she found. I then asked myself what results did I expect.

My honest answer: I don't know.

This, by the way, is not one of the series of studies I referred to in my previous blog entry. I just found out about this study today. However, assuming it was done properly, this study is a thought-provoking example of how deep issues of race may be and how early associations about race are embedded in our psyches. There are other possible explanations, sure, but this is another reason why it is not so far flung to suspect that people are "subconsciously racist."

A Kindler, Gentler Racism?

Governor Blanco made the following comment about Nagin and New Orleans' majority black government:

"Blanco has said Nagin's office has difficulty understanding the process through which federal aid flows and has urged Nagin staff to be more 'hands on.'"

Again, I think Nagin and company are doing a horrible job, so criticism is certainly warranted. The motivation behind this particular critique, however, I find questionable. Anything is possible, but I find it hard to believe that her conception does not flow from our society's tendency to question the intelligence and capability of black people, despite any evidence to the contrary. Because several factors likely led to this conceptualization of the problem, her view is, at best, only partly rooted in a stereotype that has been instilled in Americans of every race.

Note that she criticizes not the inefficiency of city government, but a core intrapersonal trait, their ability to understand something complicated.

I speak not only from personal experience but with the knowledge that multiple studies show that white people, even when they don't consciously believe or support such stereotypes, still subconsciously link black people to poverty, crime, and lower levels of achievement in psychological experiments. Even when they have documentation of a black person's socioeconomic standing or achievement, white people as a group (not all white people) still tend to underestimate that black person's social class and level of education, or undervalue that evidence. (e.g., Dovidio et al., 2002; other relevant studies )

It's the new racism. Twenty-first century prejudice. An almost kindler, gentler racism, subtle, unconscious, and even unintended and contrary to one's conscious and espoused beliefs. But it's still there and still every bit as wrong.