Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Question to Children Protective Services What Are We Doing To Our Children?
Question to Children Protective Services
What Are We Doing To Our Children?
Once again, a child died. As usual, we learn that Child welfare officials were familiar with the family, but naturally they did not do anything to prevent the death from occuring. Once again, a CPS worker had the opportunity to know that child was in danger. Once again, the wrong decision was fatal.
If you don't have over 2 million falsely accused families for child abuse,or the newborns taken from the delivery room maybe..... than you will be able to save those Children's life.
If states can't keep children safe, how can they take children from their parents? There are hundreds of incidents of children being killed in foster care. It is proven that government is a terrible, abusive "parent". The government should have parental right removed, permanently!
"The phenomenon of children dying in state care is one that deserves special scrutiny.We know that there are many more deaths than made the newspapers.The total number of children who die annually while under state care is unknown.While multiple agencies track their numbers, no central tracking agency exists and tracking methods differ between agencies.That's one of the issues should be addressed." Justice Maura Corrigan
"Our system is broken. The Department of Human Services is a mess. It's terrible for kids.We still have children dying. We still have children being moved around. The more we ignore the reality of this, our children are going to pay." said Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City, a frequent critic of DHS who has called for the agency to be broken up into three separate parts to better focus its resources on children and families.
Since 2002, 30,000 children have died from child abuse, suicide or homicide in the United States, compared with about 5,000 American troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. But more attention has been paid to the troops dying" - By Michael Petit, president of Every Child Matters Education Fund
So I´m asking, what are we doing to our children?
"These are the state's children.And if you live in a democracy, then these are your children.Don't you want to know, when your child dies, how and when and why they died?" -- By Robert Fellmeth of the Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego
"The department sees putting a roof over a child's head as its only job.The loss of self, the loss of trust that happens when we take these kids away from their parents-we don't address that." -- By State Sen. Donne E. Trotter
http://suncanaa.com/cps
classified experiments on humans
article: classified experiments on humans
Filed under: articles, blog post by FRV June 23, 2010
Ten years have passed since unethical radiation experiments were publicly revealed in 1990s front page news and the Office for Human Subject Research, OHRP, recently confirmed that there have been no changes in federal regulations on human subjects of classified research since then. In 1995 the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, (ACHRE) reported that the federal government was “blameworthy for not having had policies and practices in place to protect the rights and interests of human subjects” in several thousand experiments. President Clinton adopted one of the ACHRE recommendations in a 1997 presidential memorandum requesting that federal agencies modify their policy governing classified research. A 1998 Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) proposed rule on the Clinton memorandum has stalled and secret unethical experimentation could happen again.
This is the second time a major scandal involving human experiments for national security purposes has occurred. Past military and CIA experiments with toxic chemicals and for behavior modification were headline news in the 1970s. Congressional hearings uncovered illegal and extensive government programs including the CIA’s now infamous MKULTRA mind control experiments. As a result, a series of presidential executive orders were implemented.
President Reagan’s 1981 executive order, E.O. 12333, is the only current law governing classified experiments by intelligence agencies. Legal experts say it is unenforceable for several reasons, one being that a provision of the executive order states, “Nothing contained herein or in any procedures promulgated hereunder is intended to confer any substantive or procedural right or privilege on any person or organization.”
Federal regulations are ineffective – Adopted by 17 federal agencies, the current regulations on experiments are called “The Common Rule”. The rules cover both classified and unclassified experiments and include the cornerstone of human experimentation law, informed consent of the research subject. But experts agree the regulations lack any mechanisms for how classified research can be reviewed and conducted with informed consent.
Efforts to adopt a regulation on classified research have failed. A new draft regulation has been circulated but it’s current status could not be confirmed. Some experts say US national security policy on weapons development is the main reason for the lack of effective protections for human subjects of classified experiments.
9-11 secrecy law increases risk of unethical experiments – “It borders on the scandalous that we still don’t have rules in place that would at least begin to protect the people who are in those trials,” warned Jonathan D. Moreno in a 2002 news account. Dr. Moreno, a University of Virginia ethicist reported that President Bush had given the Secretary of Health and Human Services [HHS] the authority to classify information as secret. Moreno said “that could allow the Defense Department or CIA to undertake secret human experiments with the HHS.”
Dr. Andrew Goliszek, author of the 2003 book, “History of Secret Programs, Medical Research, and Human Experimentation” warned, “While there is much debate, there are no clear guidelines or legislation that would prevent the government from conducting secret research in order to stay one step ahead of terrorists who would use bio weapons against us.”
Proposed legislation fails – Fred Allingham is executive director of the National Association of Radiation Survivors, NARS, a network of 11,000 radiation survivors. Allingham recently described NARS legislative work. “Five to eight years ago, our members brought a proposed Nuclear Ethics Law to their local congresspeople (over 200) asking them to sponsor such a piece of legislation in order to make it not only a civil wrong but a criminal wrong, to expose people to radiation deliberately for experimental purposes… Not one congressman touched it. We … decided we are going to try again.”
Former Senator Glenn of Ohio described his 1997 bill as “the nation’s first criminal sanctions for medical researchers who fail to obtain consent from people participating in experiments.” The bill did not pass. Congressman Diane Degette of Colorado will reintroduce her 2002 bill on experimentation very soon, her office reported last week.
No national statute on protections for human subjects of classified experimentation that would help to prevent national security experiments like the radiation or mind control experiments has passed.
Lack of justice in the courts – Lawyers of radiation and mind control experiments litigation describe a nightmare of legal hurdles. Courts give great deference to national security and the government is immune to many types of lawsuits. While the government admitted to wrongdoing, not one government official or researcher involved in mind control or radiation experiments has been punished.
A 1994 US News account reported few victims of the drug and behavior control experiments were told what was done to them and most were never compensated. Radiation victims report a similar tragedy. A huge number are not eligible for the available legislative compensation because of extremely demanding requirements.
No change in sight – Commenting on the total lack of legal protections, law professor Alan Scheflin stated, “The message to scientists and governments around the world is that you can get away with unlawful experiments on unwitting victims with impunity.” New classified weapons comparable to the atomic bomb have actually been in development for a long time and classified, unethical human experiments are inevitable, without major changes.
Coping with the Weapons of Tomorrow, a 2003 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) conference featured a discussion of concerns about new nonlethal weapons using electromagnetic energy. A disarmament expert read from the 1975 Geneva protocol treaty debates about the then-future weapons including, “…geophysical, ecological, electronic and radiological warfare as well as devices generating radiation, microwaves, infrasonic waves, light flashes and laser beams”.
According to Dr. Colin Ross, author of Project Bluebird, on CIA experiments, new nonlethal weapons “are beamed at individuals in order to control them.” Dr. Ross predicted, “It is implausible that there hasn’t been some clandestine experiments of nonlethal weapons on individuals today.”
Source: “Protections for human subjects of classified experiments still lacking” by Cheryl Welsh, November 2003, mindjustice.org
http://targetedindividualscanada.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/article-classified-experiments-on-humans/
Filed under: articles, blog post by FRV June 23, 2010
Ten years have passed since unethical radiation experiments were publicly revealed in 1990s front page news and the Office for Human Subject Research, OHRP, recently confirmed that there have been no changes in federal regulations on human subjects of classified research since then. In 1995 the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, (ACHRE) reported that the federal government was “blameworthy for not having had policies and practices in place to protect the rights and interests of human subjects” in several thousand experiments. President Clinton adopted one of the ACHRE recommendations in a 1997 presidential memorandum requesting that federal agencies modify their policy governing classified research. A 1998 Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) proposed rule on the Clinton memorandum has stalled and secret unethical experimentation could happen again.
This is the second time a major scandal involving human experiments for national security purposes has occurred. Past military and CIA experiments with toxic chemicals and for behavior modification were headline news in the 1970s. Congressional hearings uncovered illegal and extensive government programs including the CIA’s now infamous MKULTRA mind control experiments. As a result, a series of presidential executive orders were implemented.
President Reagan’s 1981 executive order, E.O. 12333, is the only current law governing classified experiments by intelligence agencies. Legal experts say it is unenforceable for several reasons, one being that a provision of the executive order states, “Nothing contained herein or in any procedures promulgated hereunder is intended to confer any substantive or procedural right or privilege on any person or organization.”
Federal regulations are ineffective – Adopted by 17 federal agencies, the current regulations on experiments are called “The Common Rule”. The rules cover both classified and unclassified experiments and include the cornerstone of human experimentation law, informed consent of the research subject. But experts agree the regulations lack any mechanisms for how classified research can be reviewed and conducted with informed consent.
Efforts to adopt a regulation on classified research have failed. A new draft regulation has been circulated but it’s current status could not be confirmed. Some experts say US national security policy on weapons development is the main reason for the lack of effective protections for human subjects of classified experiments.
9-11 secrecy law increases risk of unethical experiments – “It borders on the scandalous that we still don’t have rules in place that would at least begin to protect the people who are in those trials,” warned Jonathan D. Moreno in a 2002 news account. Dr. Moreno, a University of Virginia ethicist reported that President Bush had given the Secretary of Health and Human Services [HHS] the authority to classify information as secret. Moreno said “that could allow the Defense Department or CIA to undertake secret human experiments with the HHS.”
Dr. Andrew Goliszek, author of the 2003 book, “History of Secret Programs, Medical Research, and Human Experimentation” warned, “While there is much debate, there are no clear guidelines or legislation that would prevent the government from conducting secret research in order to stay one step ahead of terrorists who would use bio weapons against us.”
Proposed legislation fails – Fred Allingham is executive director of the National Association of Radiation Survivors, NARS, a network of 11,000 radiation survivors. Allingham recently described NARS legislative work. “Five to eight years ago, our members brought a proposed Nuclear Ethics Law to their local congresspeople (over 200) asking them to sponsor such a piece of legislation in order to make it not only a civil wrong but a criminal wrong, to expose people to radiation deliberately for experimental purposes… Not one congressman touched it. We … decided we are going to try again.”
Former Senator Glenn of Ohio described his 1997 bill as “the nation’s first criminal sanctions for medical researchers who fail to obtain consent from people participating in experiments.” The bill did not pass. Congressman Diane Degette of Colorado will reintroduce her 2002 bill on experimentation very soon, her office reported last week.
No national statute on protections for human subjects of classified experimentation that would help to prevent national security experiments like the radiation or mind control experiments has passed.
Lack of justice in the courts – Lawyers of radiation and mind control experiments litigation describe a nightmare of legal hurdles. Courts give great deference to national security and the government is immune to many types of lawsuits. While the government admitted to wrongdoing, not one government official or researcher involved in mind control or radiation experiments has been punished.
A 1994 US News account reported few victims of the drug and behavior control experiments were told what was done to them and most were never compensated. Radiation victims report a similar tragedy. A huge number are not eligible for the available legislative compensation because of extremely demanding requirements.
No change in sight – Commenting on the total lack of legal protections, law professor Alan Scheflin stated, “The message to scientists and governments around the world is that you can get away with unlawful experiments on unwitting victims with impunity.” New classified weapons comparable to the atomic bomb have actually been in development for a long time and classified, unethical human experiments are inevitable, without major changes.
Coping with the Weapons of Tomorrow, a 2003 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) conference featured a discussion of concerns about new nonlethal weapons using electromagnetic energy. A disarmament expert read from the 1975 Geneva protocol treaty debates about the then-future weapons including, “…geophysical, ecological, electronic and radiological warfare as well as devices generating radiation, microwaves, infrasonic waves, light flashes and laser beams”.
According to Dr. Colin Ross, author of Project Bluebird, on CIA experiments, new nonlethal weapons “are beamed at individuals in order to control them.” Dr. Ross predicted, “It is implausible that there hasn’t been some clandestine experiments of nonlethal weapons on individuals today.”
Source: “Protections for human subjects of classified experiments still lacking” by Cheryl Welsh, November 2003, mindjustice.org
http://targetedindividualscanada.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/article-classified-experiments-on-humans/
AFRA EDITORIALS It has to end
AFRA EDITORIALS
by J. Holderbaum
June 28, 2010
It has to end
In the United States of America our child protection industry is engaging in Medicaid fraud, racketeering and human rights abuses. We have granted the child protection industry unlimited power to remove children from their families on the basis of suspicion alone. There is no system of accountability or oversight in place to deter this. Its mission of protecting children has been undermined by a criminal element. We are allowing criminals to use child protection for their own greed and personal agendas.
It has to end.
Child abuse is a crime. It is assault, rape, torture, starvation and homicide. It is violent crime and the evidence is obvious. There is no mystery to it. We must bring science, logic and reason back into the way we handle violent crimes against children. We must base our statistics on scientific evidence, not mere accusations.
We must remove the perpetrator, not the child.
We are accusing our citizens of crimes without the use of forensic evidence and denying them due process in a criminal court of law. We are tearing children out of the arms of their mothers and fathers, and their extended families without evidence of a crime. We are warehousing children in foster homes and facilities across the nation without evidence of a crime. We are allowing children to be exposed to sexual abuse in the custody of the states. We are allowing children to be used in servitude in the custody of the states. We are allowing children to be brutalized and murdered in the custody of the states. There are children aging out of foster care into homelessness and crime.
Our prisons are filled with children who grew up in foster care. It has to end.
Taking children for profit and abusing them in state custody is not what Walter Mondale had in mind when he signed CAPTA into law in 1974. It is not what Bill Clinton had in mind when he signed ASFA into law in 1997 and it is not what Hilary Clinton had in mind when she wrote "It Takes a Village."
These leaders entrusted our professionals working within the child protection industry with the resources to protect abused and orphaned children. It was a noble gesture. But child protection let us down. They failed to fulfill their promise to our children, our leaders and to our great nation. They engage in egregious violations of law and human rights abuses. The industry has been taken over by criminals who have no decency or integrity.
They have crossed the line. They have turned child protection into a national disgrace and it has to end.
We can't reform an industry that commits atrocities against children. We must start over with new ideas and a completely different approach. We must change the way we think about child abuse and child protection. We must focus our efforts on helping impoverished families build better lives for themselves, not try to turn a profit on human suffering. It is not only impoverished families who are being subjected to brutality. It is any family who can't afford a costly legal defense against it.
Your family could be next. It has to end.
If we tear down the child protection industry and return to the practice of criminal investigations under due process of law in criminal court, the number of cases will drop dramatically. We will have the resources we need to help our impoverished and save billions of tax dollars at the same time.
We must do better than this for the future of our nation.
We must free our mandated reporters from the threat of losing their licenses if they don't report their suspicions. Let them go back to healing, teaching, protecting and serving without this constant threat hanging over their heads. We must trust that they are competent and intelligent enough to make a distinction between crime and poverty.
We are turning neighbor against neighbor, family against teachers, doctors, police officers, politicians and our country by allowing the criminal element in child protection to continue on this course.
It has to end.
I encourage every American to join together to:
1. Call for an immediate nationwide moratorium on all child abuse investigations that do not use forensic evidence;
2. Call for the immediate transfer of power from child protective services to a division of law enforcement specializing in investigations of violent crime. These investigations must include the use of forensic evidence, and must be conducted independently of anyone working within child protection or in the promotion of child protection, with no financial incentives for taking children whatsoever;
3. Call for immediate state and federal investigations of every organization affiliated with child protection and family court across the nation for the crimes of Medicaid fraud, racketeering and all other crimes, including crimes against humanity;
4. Call for the return of children to families who were accused of crimes and denied due process in criminal court keeping in mind that some children may never be going home.
5. Call for a repeal of CAPTA to end mandated reporting and the child abuse hotline and end the practice of central registries for all cases not proven in a criminal court of law.
Thank you,
J. Holderbaum
Child Protection Reform
child.protection.reform@gmail.com
http://familyrights.us/news/archive/2010/june/it_has_to_end.html
by J. Holderbaum
June 28, 2010
It has to end
In the United States of America our child protection industry is engaging in Medicaid fraud, racketeering and human rights abuses. We have granted the child protection industry unlimited power to remove children from their families on the basis of suspicion alone. There is no system of accountability or oversight in place to deter this. Its mission of protecting children has been undermined by a criminal element. We are allowing criminals to use child protection for their own greed and personal agendas.
It has to end.
Child abuse is a crime. It is assault, rape, torture, starvation and homicide. It is violent crime and the evidence is obvious. There is no mystery to it. We must bring science, logic and reason back into the way we handle violent crimes against children. We must base our statistics on scientific evidence, not mere accusations.
We must remove the perpetrator, not the child.
We are accusing our citizens of crimes without the use of forensic evidence and denying them due process in a criminal court of law. We are tearing children out of the arms of their mothers and fathers, and their extended families without evidence of a crime. We are warehousing children in foster homes and facilities across the nation without evidence of a crime. We are allowing children to be exposed to sexual abuse in the custody of the states. We are allowing children to be used in servitude in the custody of the states. We are allowing children to be brutalized and murdered in the custody of the states. There are children aging out of foster care into homelessness and crime.
Our prisons are filled with children who grew up in foster care. It has to end.
Taking children for profit and abusing them in state custody is not what Walter Mondale had in mind when he signed CAPTA into law in 1974. It is not what Bill Clinton had in mind when he signed ASFA into law in 1997 and it is not what Hilary Clinton had in mind when she wrote "It Takes a Village."
These leaders entrusted our professionals working within the child protection industry with the resources to protect abused and orphaned children. It was a noble gesture. But child protection let us down. They failed to fulfill their promise to our children, our leaders and to our great nation. They engage in egregious violations of law and human rights abuses. The industry has been taken over by criminals who have no decency or integrity.
They have crossed the line. They have turned child protection into a national disgrace and it has to end.
We can't reform an industry that commits atrocities against children. We must start over with new ideas and a completely different approach. We must change the way we think about child abuse and child protection. We must focus our efforts on helping impoverished families build better lives for themselves, not try to turn a profit on human suffering. It is not only impoverished families who are being subjected to brutality. It is any family who can't afford a costly legal defense against it.
Your family could be next. It has to end.
If we tear down the child protection industry and return to the practice of criminal investigations under due process of law in criminal court, the number of cases will drop dramatically. We will have the resources we need to help our impoverished and save billions of tax dollars at the same time.
We must do better than this for the future of our nation.
We must free our mandated reporters from the threat of losing their licenses if they don't report their suspicions. Let them go back to healing, teaching, protecting and serving without this constant threat hanging over their heads. We must trust that they are competent and intelligent enough to make a distinction between crime and poverty.
We are turning neighbor against neighbor, family against teachers, doctors, police officers, politicians and our country by allowing the criminal element in child protection to continue on this course.
It has to end.
I encourage every American to join together to:
1. Call for an immediate nationwide moratorium on all child abuse investigations that do not use forensic evidence;
2. Call for the immediate transfer of power from child protective services to a division of law enforcement specializing in investigations of violent crime. These investigations must include the use of forensic evidence, and must be conducted independently of anyone working within child protection or in the promotion of child protection, with no financial incentives for taking children whatsoever;
3. Call for immediate state and federal investigations of every organization affiliated with child protection and family court across the nation for the crimes of Medicaid fraud, racketeering and all other crimes, including crimes against humanity;
4. Call for the return of children to families who were accused of crimes and denied due process in criminal court keeping in mind that some children may never be going home.
5. Call for a repeal of CAPTA to end mandated reporting and the child abuse hotline and end the practice of central registries for all cases not proven in a criminal court of law.
Thank you,
J. Holderbaum
Child Protection Reform
child.protection.reform@gmail.com
http://familyrights.us/news/archive/2010/june/it_has_to_end.html
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Study links bullying to cognitive deficits, brain changes-Good Article for DCYF!
This is a good article for DCYF to read, especially when they blame parent's for their children's mistakes and then ultimately refuse them custody of their grandchildren!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Study links bullying to cognitive deficits, brain changes
By ANNE McILROY
Toronto Globe and Mail
They lurk in hallways, bathrooms, around the next blind corner.
But for the children they have routinely teased or tormented, bullies effectively live in the victims’ brains, as well – and not just as a terrifying memory.
Preliminary evidence shows that bullying can produce signs of stress, cognitive deficits and mental-health problems.
Now, University of Ottawa psychologist Tracy Vaillancourt and her colleagues at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., plan to scan the brains of teens who have been regularly humiliated and ostracized by their peers to look for structural differences compared with other children.
“We know there is a functional difference. We know their brains are acting differently, but we don’t know if it is structural, as well,” said Vaillancourt, an expert in the biology of bullying.
She says she hopes her work will legitimize the plight of children who are bullied and encourage parents, teachers and school boards to take the problem more seriously.
Vaillancourt has been following a group of 17-year-olds since they were 12. All 70 of the children were routinely bullied during those years – teased, harassed, threatened or excluded.
Physical violence is relatively rare, she says, because their tormentors are smart enough to know it will get them into trouble.
“For many of these kids, every day is a nightmare,” Vaillancourt said.
They go to school and no one will talk to them. Someone deliberately bumps into them in the hallway, and all the other children laugh. They get called horrible names.
The researchers will start with brain scans of 15 of the extreme cases, such as the child who stood in her gym uniform while other kids put her school clothes in the toilet and urinated on them.
There also are teenagers in the study who have been bullied for five straight school years.
The scientists have already shown that children who are bullied are more likely than other kids to have cognitive deficits. They score lower on tests that measure verbal memory and executive function, a set of skills needed to focus on a task and get the job done. Mental-health problems, such as depression, are also more common.
Vaillancourt suspects they will also have a smaller hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory. Depression has been shown to be related to a smaller hippocampus.
As well, animal studies have shown that chronic high levels of stress can kill brain cells. Vaillancourt says this kind of damage may help explain why children who are bullied often perform poorly academically.
She will also be looking for a smaller prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in being able to pay attention and other executive functions.
These kinds of differences have been documented in functional magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, studies of children who have been neglected or abused. Vaillancourt suspects the chronic stress of being bullied will have a similar impact.
She and her colleagues have already published research showing that boys who are bullied tend to produce more of the stress hormone cortisol. It’s as if their system is in permanent overdrive.
It’s the opposite for the girls; they tend to produce less cortisol than average, as though their stress response system is overly subdued. “At some point, their brains stop reacting,” said Vaillancourt, who holds a Canada Research Chair in children’s mental health and violence prevention.
These changes to the brain’s stress response system may be linked to the higher rates of depression among children who are regularly picked on by their peers, especially girls. The adolescent years are when peer relations are most important and when girls, more than anything, want to belong, Vaillancourt says.
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/living/health/779858-224/study-links-bullying-to-cognitive-deficits-brain.html
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Study links bullying to cognitive deficits, brain changes
By ANNE McILROY
Toronto Globe and Mail
They lurk in hallways, bathrooms, around the next blind corner.
But for the children they have routinely teased or tormented, bullies effectively live in the victims’ brains, as well – and not just as a terrifying memory.
Preliminary evidence shows that bullying can produce signs of stress, cognitive deficits and mental-health problems.
Now, University of Ottawa psychologist Tracy Vaillancourt and her colleagues at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., plan to scan the brains of teens who have been regularly humiliated and ostracized by their peers to look for structural differences compared with other children.
“We know there is a functional difference. We know their brains are acting differently, but we don’t know if it is structural, as well,” said Vaillancourt, an expert in the biology of bullying.
She says she hopes her work will legitimize the plight of children who are bullied and encourage parents, teachers and school boards to take the problem more seriously.
Vaillancourt has been following a group of 17-year-olds since they were 12. All 70 of the children were routinely bullied during those years – teased, harassed, threatened or excluded.
Physical violence is relatively rare, she says, because their tormentors are smart enough to know it will get them into trouble.
“For many of these kids, every day is a nightmare,” Vaillancourt said.
They go to school and no one will talk to them. Someone deliberately bumps into them in the hallway, and all the other children laugh. They get called horrible names.
The researchers will start with brain scans of 15 of the extreme cases, such as the child who stood in her gym uniform while other kids put her school clothes in the toilet and urinated on them.
There also are teenagers in the study who have been bullied for five straight school years.
The scientists have already shown that children who are bullied are more likely than other kids to have cognitive deficits. They score lower on tests that measure verbal memory and executive function, a set of skills needed to focus on a task and get the job done. Mental-health problems, such as depression, are also more common.
Vaillancourt suspects they will also have a smaller hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory. Depression has been shown to be related to a smaller hippocampus.
As well, animal studies have shown that chronic high levels of stress can kill brain cells. Vaillancourt says this kind of damage may help explain why children who are bullied often perform poorly academically.
She will also be looking for a smaller prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in being able to pay attention and other executive functions.
These kinds of differences have been documented in functional magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, studies of children who have been neglected or abused. Vaillancourt suspects the chronic stress of being bullied will have a similar impact.
She and her colleagues have already published research showing that boys who are bullied tend to produce more of the stress hormone cortisol. It’s as if their system is in permanent overdrive.
It’s the opposite for the girls; they tend to produce less cortisol than average, as though their stress response system is overly subdued. “At some point, their brains stop reacting,” said Vaillancourt, who holds a Canada Research Chair in children’s mental health and violence prevention.
These changes to the brain’s stress response system may be linked to the higher rates of depression among children who are regularly picked on by their peers, especially girls. The adolescent years are when peer relations are most important and when girls, more than anything, want to belong, Vaillancourt says.
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/living/health/779858-224/study-links-bullying-to-cognitive-deficits-brain.html
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