Gender Identity Disorder Conversation Continued

Hi everyone!  As the Gender Identity Disorder conversation continues, I came across this and wanted to share...  I touch on this topic every semester, and I must say, I am so proud of my students for having mature, respectful conversations about this controversial, complex topic.  There are no easy answers.

Check out this story about transgendered teen Gavin Grimm:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/gender-revolution-a-journey-with-katie-couric/videos/gavin-grimms-story-extended/

Trying to put my personal beliefs on the topic aside for a moment, a few things really stuck with me about this clip:

When I saw people emphatically cheering at the school board meeting, it made me very uneasy.  I'm not sure 'cheering' is a response we should have on this topic.  A kid, who is in a very tough situation, is hurting.  A school is divided.  It isn't a football game.  This is a complex decision with many ramifications.  When Gavin got up at the school board meeting: WOW!  Most kids shudder at having to do a speech in communications class.  This kid spoke up in a room, where clearly there were people who didn't understand/agree with him and were quite vocal about that.  No matter where your opinion falls on this issue, I think we can all give him props for doing that.  That would have been difficult for me to do, and he was 15-16 years old at the time.

To tie this issue back to another issue we cover is psychology when discussion research is the idea of an operational definition.  As one gentleman referred to in the video, what exactly do we base bathroom selection on?

If bathroom selection is to be decided on biological sex, then Gavin would use the women's restroom (biologically, Gavin is a female - even if gender reassignments surgery occurred, the DNA would still show an XY chromosome).  To complicate the article even more, there are intersexed individuals - people born with both male and female sexual organs.

We call it a women's restroom, even though woman is a gender term, and remember that is different than biological sex.  That, again, confuses the conversation even more.  A lot of this confusion is due to the fact that we've always used the words male/man and female/woman interchangeably, when in fact, biological sex and gender are completely separate dynamics.

As a refresher, check out this quick rundown of the difference of gender, sex and sexual orientation: https://youtu.be/xXAoG8vAyzI

Belief Perseverance

Belief perseverance is an interesting phenomenon that we all fall prey to, myself included.

Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to our initial belief even after receiving new information that contradicts or dis-confirms the basis of that belief.

A few example in my life where belief perseverance has 'clouded' my judgment:

1.  I grew up in the 80's.  Bagels and pasta were considered a health food because they were low in fat.  I used to eat an entire package of Snackwell's cookies and not feel bad because they were fat free (sidenote: they were loaded with chemicals and sugar).  I still struggle with the fact that meat and fat are actually good for you, while carbs and low-fat products are bad for you.  And, while I know the science, it is still hard to make the mind-shift.

2.  I think back to a relationship I had.  He WAS a good guy (truth be told, he IS a good guy).  He would NEVER cheat on me.  Even when I saw evidence that he was unfaithful, I tried so hard to convince myself he wasn't because that isn't who I believed he was.  It took a mountain of evidence for me to realize what was happening.  My belief that "he would never..." held on tight, despite the mounting evidence.

3.  Think back to the last presidential election.  The mountain of social media posts, some true and some untrue, aren't swaying anyone's minds.  We have our minds made up, and when confronted with conflicting evidence (even if it's true), it's not likely to sway our opinions.

4.  Okay, this is a touchy one ~ and I don't mean to offend anyone here, but I think it is a great example of belief perseverance and how strong that force can be.  I'm a Christian.  I believe in the Bible.  I also am a scientist and believe in the scientific process.  There are several issues where science and the Bible don't jive and it is very hard for me to reconcile that fact.  Where there are discrepancies, the belief I held first typically wins out, even if I am presented with information that contradicts my initial belief.

5.  Another touchy subject: The belief that if the government says it's true or good, we accept that it is true.  I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I have to admit in my early 20's I was naive to the fact on how our government operated.  I believed they made decisions off of research...  the more I start to understand politics, I understand this is not at all the case.  Politics are extremely murky and often follow a money trail or some political agenda more than hard evidence.

6.  Some people hold the erroneous belief that autism is caused vaccinations.  There was some bad science that came out in the 90's on this topic.  The media and celebrities jumped on the study and were very vocal about the findings, even though the research design was flawed.  Once a plethora of new evidence was presented to debunk the finding, some people still cling very closely to this belief.

Our minds are incredibly powerful things ~ and sometimes that is a blessing and sometimes that is a curse.

How Nature and Nurture Hug It Out

It's a great debate that is present in any psychology class: Nature vs. Nurture.

Nature being our genes, biological traits that we inherit and have no control over and nurture being our environment (even in utero).  Which aspect is strongest when shaping who we are?  

I was watching men's beach volleyball during the Olympics and one of the commentators mentioned that if this Brazilian athlete had been born in the United States, he likely would have gone into the NBA, as he had incredible athletic talent and was very tall.  Of course, there is no way to tell if that were true, but if definitely got me thinking about the nature/nurture question.  

Genetically, this athlete was gifted; He was tall, strong, agile, etc.  However, his environment also had a huge impact on him, he was raised in a country where volleyball was a predominate sport, not basketball.  He obviously had parents, who encouraged him to play volleyball and nurtured his natural talent.  If raised in a different environment, his life may have been very different.  If his parents weren't supportive of his athletics he may have just been a tall guy who had lots of potential, but that potential would have never been discovered.  If he had lived in a place where basketball was a dominate sport, perhaps he would have played in the NBA and had a completely different lifestyle for himself and his family (I don't know what pro-volleyball players make, but I doubt it compares to what an NBA player makes).  

The same can be true for Michael Phelps.  Check out this article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201209/adhd-kid-olympic-gold-medalist. Michael was diagnosed with ADHD.  He could have easily been a kid who struggle in school, perhaps even one who dropped out because he didn't fit the type of mold that traditional school classrooms are built around.  Again, clearly, he has some genetics (nature) that assist him in being a champion swimmer (Have you seen his feet?  They are like fins!), He was also in an environment that nurtured that talent: a supportive mom who enrolled him on a swim team and a coach that saw talent, his family had the financial means to pay for swim team and his parents must have worked a schedule that allowed him to participate in practice, he lived in a community that had accessible pools so his craft could be fine tuned.  The combination of nature and nurture definitely played a roll in him ending up as the most decorated Olympian of all time.

Lab Rats' Conditions Bad for Animals and Science Too

Check out this article on the ethical treatment of animals in research.  It's interesting that there would be an uproar if dogs/cats/primates were kept in similar conditions.  Thoughts?

Lab Rats’ Cramped Cages Called Bad For Animals 

And Science Too

Research on rats and other animals has been credited with major advances in the treatment of all sorts of deadly ailments, including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. In fact, it’s been said that “practically every drug, treatment, medical device, diagnostic tool or cure we have today was developed with the help of lab animals.”

But let’s face it: Being a lab rat probably isn’t much fun, and housing may be part of the problem. The typical lab rat spends its days in a cage so small that there’s no room to climb or burrow or even to stand up straight.

And according to the leader of a study of lab rat behavior published June 29 in Royal Society Open Science, being cooped up like that compromises not only the animals’ welfare but also the reliability of rodent research.

“These animals are not ‘normal,’ and therefore may yield ‘abnormal’ results,” study leader Dr. Joanna Makowska of the University of British Columbia told The Huffington Post in an email. “This leads to lack of reproducibility between studies, as well as lack of validity of the results because these results may be idiosyncratic to the specific animals who were used in a particular study, rather than to ‘rats’ in general.”

For the study, Makowska and Dr. Dan Weary, an animal welfare expert at the university, observed the behavior of rats housed in standard plastic enclosures, (45 × 24 × 20 cm) and in bigger wire enclosures (91 × 64 × 125 cm) that included soil for burrowing (see below).

JOANNA MAKOWSKA

Standard enclosure for lab rats.

JOANNA MAKOWSKA

Larger, “semi-naturalistic” enclosure.

The rats in the bigger, “semi-naturalistic” cages did a lot of climbing, burrowing and just standing upright. The rats in the standard cages didn’t do those things. But the researchers noticed that those rats stretched out their bodies (a process scientists call pandiculation) nine times more frequently than their big cage counterparts.

As Makowska and Weary wrote in their paper, the extra stretching is likely “a corrective response to the stiffness and positional stress associated with restricted movements in standard cages.”

Sounds unpleasant, for sure. But is there really any solid evidence that rats housed in standard cages are somehow unwell?

This remains an open question, said Dr. Larry Carbone, a lab animal veterinarian at the University of California at San Francisco and the author of the 2004 book What Animals Want: Expertise & Advocacy in Laboratory Animal Welfare.

“Any confinement limits their opportunities, but also, hopefully, limits things they don’t want, like food shortages, extreme weather, lurking predators,” Carbone told HuffPost in an email. “So the challenge is figuring out which of those limitations actually affects the animals’ welfare.”

In any case, cramped quarters may not be the only downside to life as a lab rat.

Recent research suggests that the animals can be stressed by the low temperatures maintained in some labs. And then there are all the things that lab rats experience in the course of experiments, which can include injections, surgical procedures and euthanasia.

In case you’re wondering about legal protections for lab rats, it’s complicated. Some federal regulations do address the treatment of lab animals. But while the all-important Animal Welfare Act protects the well-being of warm-blooded animals in general, it makes an exception for rats, along with birds and mice.

Those exceptions might be a matter of practicality, given the untold millions of rodents and the other unprotected animals housed in U.S. labs.

But Makowska sees another possible reason: People just don’t like rats.

“Rats are less valued than other (larger, cuter) mammals,” she said. “They have been blamed for the plague (which, incidentally, was recently shown to be untrue). They are viewed as pests. And they are constantly being vilified by the world of films, books and cartoons, where they are often made to be the symbol of malevolence.”

Carbone said the study suggests ways in which regulations for housing animals in laboratories should be updated. “Scientists have to make sure that their use of animals really does lead to quality, useful data,” he added, “and they have to do their best to meet current standards of animal welfare.”

As for Makowska, she said rodents should be accorded the same ethical considerations as more charismatic animals. She called for more research — and bigger cages.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lab-rats-tiny-cages_us_57753d4be4b0bd4b0b13c3dc?ncid=APPLENEWS00001

NYU Study Gone Wrong, and a Top Researcher Dismissed

I ran across this article and it touched on several aspects of things we cover: ethics, experimental design, altered states of consciousness and mental health.  Good stuff, check it out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/health/nyu-cannabis-ptsd-psychiatry.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

HEALTH

An N.Y.U. Study Gone Wrong, and a Top Researcher Dismissed

By BENEDICT CAREYJUNE 27, 2016

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More
• Save

New York University’s medical school has quietly shut down eight studies at its prominent psychiatric research center and parted ways with a top researcher after discovering a series of violations in a study of an experimental, mind-altering drug.

A subsequent federal investigation found lax oversight of study participants, most of whom had serious mental issues. The Food and Drug Administration investigators also found that records had been falsified and researchers had failed to keep accurate case histories.

In one of the shuttered studies, people with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress caused by childhood abuse took a relatively untested drug intended to mimic the effects of marijuana, to see if it relieved symptoms.

“I think their intent was good, and they were considerate to me,” said one of those subjects, Diane Ruffcorn, 40, of Seattle, who said she was sexually abused as a child. “But what concerned me, I was given this drug, and all these tests, and then it was goodbye, I was on my own. There was no follow-up.”

It’s a critical time for two important but still controversial areas of psychiatry: the search for a blood test or other biological sign of post-traumatic stress disorder, which has so far come up empty, and the use of recreational drugs like ecstasy and marijuana to treat it.

At least one trial of marijuana, and one using ecstasy, are in the works for traumatized veterans, and some psychiatrists and many patients see this work as having enormous promise to reshape and improve treatment for trauma. But obtaining approval to use the drugs in experiments is still politically sensitive. Doctors who have done studies with these drugs say that their uncertain effects on traumatic memory make close supervision during treatment essential.

The New York Times pieced together details of the research and the investigation through documents, letters and emails, as well as interviews with a participant and several researchers familiar with the project.

Continue reading the main story

The violations “jeopardize subject safety and welfare, and raise concerns about the validity and integrity of the data collected at your site,” the F.D.A. said in a letter, obtained by The Times, to Dr. Alexander Neumeister, the studies’ lead investigator.

Dr. Charles Marmar, the chairman of the psychiatry department at N.Y.U., said that people working with Dr. Neumeister had reported concerns about the lab’s compliance with research standards. Once some of those issues were confirmed, Dr. Marmar said, the university placed Dr. Neumeister on leave, “and suspended all activity, suspended access to all accounts. I took control of those studies.” Dr. Neumeister later submitted his resignation.

Georges Lederman, a lawyer for Dr. Neumeister, said there may have been protocol violations, “but N.Y.U. has taken the position that those violations were more egregious than we believe they actually were.” The issues could have been easily remedied, he said, and noted that they did not cause the sponsor of the research, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, to shut it down.

Both the university and Mr. Lederman said there was no evidence that any study participant had been harmed.

Pfizer said that N.Y.U. was responsible for conducting the trial, and that the company had previously tested the same drug, known as an F.A.A.H. inhibitor, for osteoarthritic pain, without significant side effects. “The safety profile we observed does not preclude future development of our compound,” a Pfizer spokesman said by email.

Careful oversight is a centerpiece of ethical research practice, particularly when studies involve people taking an experimental drug. Earlier this year, six patients in a French trial of another experimental drug with similar, marijuana-like effects were hospitalized with severe neurological problems; one has reportedly died.

Study participants with mental disorders are especially susceptible to adverse reactions, experts said. “These are people who are more vulnerable to being exploited in the research process, and more vulnerable to things going wrong during the research, so you want extra vigilance,” said Elisa Hurley, the executive director of Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research, a national nonprofit devoted to promoting high research standards. “If someone in my family were in a situation like this, I would want to be sure that the institution was crossing its t’s and dotting its i’s.”

The study was an attempt to extend a small trial that Dr. Neumeister had done previously, suggesting that cannabis might relieve anxiety in some people with post-traumatic stress disorder. “We know very well that people with PTSD who use marijuana often experience more relief from their symptoms than they do from antidepressants and other psychiatric medications,” Dr. Neumeister said in a 2014 N.Y.U. news release after the first trial.

The research team decided to use a drug intended to produce some of marijuana’s effects, made by Pfizer, which financed the trial. Some participants took the drug over a seven-day period; others took a placebo pill. The N.Y.U. team performed scans on each person to see whether brain activation patterns correlated with symptom relief.

The study called for recruiting 50 people with a PTSD diagnosis, according to study documents. Only 14 enrolled at the N.Y.U. site, according to federal documents, and many had participated in previous studies by Dr. Neumeister. One had completed a study of another drug 16 days earlier, when the protocol called for a 30-day window, according to the F.D.A.

The federal inspection, from July 16 to Aug. 5 last year, found that the research team had failed to assess at least three subjects 24 hours after they had taken the experimental drug, contrary to study protocol, according to the F.D.A. letter. In several instances, the agency found, Dr. Neumeister had falsified documents by signing a fellow investigator’s name on reports. “However, in fact, you or another study employee actually conducted these study procedures,” not the colleague, the F.D.A. concluded.

Ms. Ruffcorn, who writes a popular Facebook blog on trauma called A Little Bent, said the most unsettling part of the experience was not the loose monitoring, but the preparations for the trial. To participate, the N.Y.U. team told her, she first had to stop taking all her medications. But the study had several false starts, requiring her to stop taking medication, then restart, then stop again — and restart.

“It was horrible,” she said. “I had flashbacks, returning nightmares, every symptom coming on full force, not to mention the withdrawal. After going off and back on four or five times, I told them, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

That’s when she was flown to New York to enter the trial.

Ms. Ruffcorn said she had several odd symptoms after the trial, including a hyper, wired sensation that occurred without the usual memories of abuse. For months, she tried to find out whether those reactions were tied to the experimental drug, but because the study was shut down and the data belonged to Pfizer, the N.Y.U. doctors could not tell her whether she’d taken the drug or a placebo.

Earlier this month, after much persistence, she found out that she’d taken the placebo. “It was a big relief,” she said.

Dr. Neumeister and N.Y.U. continue to disagree over the seriousness of the research violations, both sides said. But the university has tossed out all of the data as unreliable, and tracked down the study participants to check on their health, Dr. Marmar said.

“I honestly believed I had the best qualified and among the most ethical researchers on the faculty” running these studies, Dr. Marmar said.

Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on June 28, 2016, on page D5 of the New York edition with the headline: Troubled Drug Study Gives N.Y.U. a Black Eye. Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe