Posts Tagged ‘politics’

In response to the recent publication of World Health Organisation research into depression in The Lancet, the UK’s Mental Health Foundation calls attention to the cost to the economy of mental health problems: some 30 billion pounds in direct costs, and nearly 100 billion pounds when other social and health factors are included.

Headline writers are having a field day with the results of a meta-analysis to be published in The Lancet which found that cannabis users are 40% more likely than non-users to develop psychotic symptoms. Radio, print, and internet publications urge that more must be done to warn the public of the risks of cannabis use. But hold on, did the headline writers miss the lesson on correlation vs. causation in their Science for Journalists class?

I wonder whether the folks over at TechCrunch actually read our 2004 article on pro anorexia sites before citing it last week as an example of media hype over internet safety? We appreciate the link love, but do they seriously think we’re partly responsible for the results of a survey which found that US parents consider internet safety to be a more serious health threat to children than school violence, sexually transmitted diseases, abuse and neglect? I mean, seriously?

British MPs today begin debating what some have described as a truly draconian Mental Health Bill. Once hailed for its potential to pave the way for a more modern approach to mental health in the United Kingdom, the bill — some 9 years in the making — is now strongly opposed by the Mental Health Alliance, a coalition of 80 organisations representing doctors, nurses, social workers, people with mental illness and their families.

Frequently a target of criticism over its practitioner accreditation requirements, the BACP recently attempted to clarify its supervision hours guidelines, only to muddy the picture even further. Despite attempts to market it all as ‘quite clear’, the basic mathematics of BACP guidelines lead to some counter-intuitive conclusions.