I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
As the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally Caucus of the Michigan Democratic party prepares for a lobbying day next week to support anti-bullying legislation, a new study from England might become an important tool.
The study, published in Archives of General Psychiatry, found that children exposed to chronic or severe bullying and harassment make them twice as likely to have delusions, hallucinations or other psychotic symptoms as pre-teens as those who have not been bullied.
The study followed 6,437 students starting at age 7 and going until age 12, with yearly physicals and psychological testing, as well as regular surveys from parents.
Reuters reports:
At each visit, trained interviewers rated the children on whether they had experienced psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions or thought disorders during the prior six months. Children, parents and teachers reported on whether the child had been bullied — as defined by negative actions by one or more other students with the intention to hurt.
A total of 46.2 percent of participants were considered victims of bullying when they were 8 or 10.
They found that the appearance of psychotic symptoms was twice as high among the victims of bullying, regardless of whether they had any psychiatric illness, family trouble or their level of intelligence. This link was stronger when the bullying was chronic or severe.
It is not yet clear how bullying raises the risks for psychotic behaviors in adolescents, but it may be that bullying brings out such behaviors in people who are already genetically predisposed to schizophrenia, they said.
Or it may be that repeated bullying alters a person’s ability to respond to stress.
That needs more study, but intervention programs aimed at reducing bullying may help prevent some psychiatric problems later on, they said.
Advocates have been trying to pass legislation mandating local school systems to have anti-bullying policies in place across the state, but the bills have stalled consistently because family groups and conservatives oppose the legislation’s use of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression as protected classes in the legislation.
The Caucus will hold a lobby day May 13 featuring Mark Brewer, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, and Sen. Glenn Anderson, author of one of the safe schools anti-bullying bills in the state Senate.
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