Psyche, Science, and Society

LA Board refusal to investigate Larry James abuse charges appealed

Former Army Col. Larry James, now Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Ohio, was Chief Psychologist with the Joint Intelligence Group and a member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team [BSCT] at Guantanamo from January till May, 2003. Official documents and press and detainee accounts raise serious questions as to whether Dr. James aided, participated in, or looked away from the numerous human rights abuses occurring at Guantanamo during that time.

Psychologist Trudy Bond has filed ethics complaints against James with the American Psychological Association and the Louisiana Board of Psychology. Both have decline to investigate, as has every health professional association or state licensing board with whom complaints of Guantanamo or other detainee abuse have been raised or  filed. The ethics officials of the health professions appear to be taking a “see no evil, hear no evil, investigate no evil” approach, making a mockery of the concept of professional ethics. While the American Psychological Association and other professional associations have issued pious statements against torture and detainee abuse, the clearly do not see pursuing accountability for those health professionals who aided Bush administration abuses as part of their responsibility.

In addition to these ethics complaints, the Center for Constitutional Rights [CCR] and the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) filed a request for an investigation by the Canadian government of potential war crimes possibly committed by James during James’ visit to Canada last August during the American Psychological Association convention. Unfortunately, the Canadian government also failed to investigate. Not surprisingly, after this request, Dr. James came out publicly against official investigations of war crimes.

Today the Center for Constitutional Rights announced an appeal of a Louisiana court refusal to order the LA Board to reconsider its peremptory rejection of Dr. Bond’s complaints against James. CCR realizes, as James and the psychological “ethics experts” do not, that concerns about James’ behavior will not go away until there is a thorough, credible, investigation of James’ actions and of the actions of other health professionals potentially involved in torture and other detainee abuse. Psychologists and other health professionals simply cannot indefinitely “stay in their lane” and avert their eyes from potential major abuses committed by members of the professions.

Here is today’s CCR press release:

Louisiana Court Battle Over Guantanamo Psychologist Continues Today

State Psychology Board Challenged over Refusal to Investigate Alleged Ethical Violations by Dr. Larry James

Contact: press@ccrjustice.org

October 15, 2009, Baton Rouge and New York – Today, attorneys filed an appeal before the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal, in the case Dr. Trudy Bond v. Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists. Toledo-based psychologist Dr. Trudy Bond is calling on the Louisiana State Board of Examiners to investigate Louisiana psychologist and retired U.S. Army colonel Dr. Larry C. James, a former high-ranking advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

According to his own statements, Dr. James played an influential role in both the policy and day-to-day operations of interrogations and detention at the prison camps.  Publicly-available information shows that while Dr. James was at Guantanamo, abuse in interrogations was widespread, and cruel and inhuman treatment was official policy.

Allegations of abuse during Dr. James’s January to May 2003 deployment include beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions. Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, who is still imprisoned in Guantanamo, is one of the prisoners who has alleged brutal treatment in the spring of 2003, when he was only 16 years old. James was also stationed in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 and returned to Guantanamo in 2007. In 2008, he was named Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

In compliance with her ethical obligation to report abuse by other psychologists, in February 2008 Dr. Bond filed a complaint against Dr. James before the Board, the agency that issued and now regulates his psychology license. Dr. Bond alleged that Dr. James breached professional ethics by violating psychologists’ duties to do no harm, to protect confidential information and to obtain informed consent, and she called on the Board to investigate whether action should be taken against Dr. James.

As Chief Psychologist of the Joint Intelligence Group and a senior member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) at Guantanamo, Dr. James had access to the confidential medical records of people he was charged with exploiting for intelligence. According to former Guantanamo interrogators, BSCTs used information from patients’ records to help interrogators increase the patients’ psychological duress, including by exploiting their fears. The very purpose of these mental health professional teams, the interrogators said, was to help “break” the prisoners. Dr. James denies that claim, but an extensive government paper trail supports the interrogators’ accounts.

The Board summarily refused to investigate Dr. Bond’s complaint, claiming that the statute of limitations had run, despite conclusive information to the contrary. Dr. Bond then filed suit against the Board in Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District Court, which in July 2009 dismissed her case without looking at the merits. Today’s brief before the First Circuit Court in Baton Rouge argues that the District Court should have reviewed the Board’s clearly wrong legal decision.

Said Dr. Bond, “The five psychologists on the Louisiana Board were given plenty of credible evidence, but they chose not to investigate the head intelligence psychologist of prison camps notorious for their use of psychological torture.  I don’t think Louisiana lawmakers intended to give five fellow professionals total, unchecked power to make arbitrary decisions that deeply affect the public welfare.”

Said CCR Cooperating Attorney Deborah Popowski, “The Louisiana Board is fighting awfully hard to turn a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse.  We wish the Board would devote its resources to investigating unethical conduct instead. Everyone, including the people of Louisiana, would be better served.”

To read today’s brief, click here.

For more information on the involvement of health professionals in torture and abuse visit the Center for Constitutional Rights website http://whenhealersharm.org.

October 15th, 2009

New study: Green space improves physical and mental health

A new study finds that the presence of green space in one’s neighborhood leads to improved physical and mental health. Here is a BBC account:

There is more evidence that living near a ‘green space’ has health benefits.

Research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health says the impact is particularly noticeable in reducing rates of mental ill health.

The annual rates of 15 out of 24 major physical diseases were also significantly lower among those living closer to green spaces.

One environmental expert said the study confirmed that green spaces create ‘oases’ of improved health around them.

The researchers from the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam looked at the health records of 350,000 people registered with 195 family doctors across the Netherlands.

Only people who had been registered with their GP for longer than 12 months were included because the study assumed this was the minimum amount of time people would have to live in an environment before any effect of it would be noticeable.

Health impact

The percentages of green space within a one and three kilometre (0.62 and 1.86 miles) radius of their home were calculated using their postcode.

On average, green space accounted for 42% of the residential area within one kilometre (0.62 miles) radius and almost 61% within a three kilometre (1.86 miles) radius of people’s homes.

And the annual rates for 24 diseases in 7 different categories were calculated.

The health benefits for most of the diseases were only seen when the greenery was within a one kilometre ( 0.62 miles ) radius of the home.

The exceptions to this were anxiety disorders, infectious diseases of the digestive system and medically unexplained physical symptoms which were seen to benefit even when the green spaces were within three kilometres of the home.

The biggest impact was on anxiety disorders and depression.

Anxiety disorders

The annual prevalence of anxiety disorders for those living in a residential area containing 10% of green space within a one kilometre (0.62 miles) radius of their home was 26 per 1000 whereas for those living in an area containing 90% of green space it was 18 per 1000.

For depression the rates were 32 per 1000 for the people in the more built up areas and 24 per 1000 for those in the greener areas.

The researchers also showed that this relation was strongest for children younger than 12.

They were 21% less likely to suffer from depression in the greener areas.

Two unexpected findings were that the greener spaces did not show benefits for high blood pressure and that the relation appeared stronger for people aged 46 to 65 than for the elderly.

The researchers think the green spaces help recovery from stress and offer greater opportunities for social contacts.

They say the free physical exercise and better air quality could also contribute.

Dr Jolanda Maas of the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam, said: “It clearly shows that green spaces are not just a luxury but they relate directly to diseases and the way people feel in their living environments.”

“Most of the diseases which are related to green spaces are diseases which are highly prevalent and costly to treat so policy makers need to realise that this is something they may be able to diminish with green spaces.”

Professor Barbara Maher of the Lancaster Environment Centre said the study confirmed that green spaces create oases of improved health around them especially for children.

She said: “At least part of this ‘oasis’ effect probably reflects changes in air quality.

“Anything that reduces our exposure to the modern-day ‘cocktail’ of atmospheric pollutants has got to be a good thing.”

Here is the study abstract:

Background: Due to increasing urbanisation people face the prospect of living in environments with few green spaces. There is increasing evidence for a positive relation between green space in people’s living environment and self-reported indicators of physical and mental health. This study investigates whether physician assessed morbidity is also related to green space in people’s living environment.

Methods: Morbidity data were derived from electronic medical records of 195 general practitioners in 96 Dutch practices, serving a population of 345,143 people. Morbidity was classified by the general practitioners according to the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC). The percentage of green space within a one kilometre and three kilometre radius around the postal code coordinates was derived from an existing database and was calculated for each household. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were performed controlling for demographic and socio-economic characteristics.

Results: The annual prevalence rate of 15 of the 24 disease clusters was lower in living environments with more green space in a 1 km radius. The relation was strongest for anxiety disorder and depression. The relation was stronger for children and people with a lower socio-economic status. Furthermore, the relation was strongest in slightly urban areas and not apparent in very strongly urban areas.

Conclusion: This study indicates that the previously established relation between green space and a number of self-reported general indicators of physical and mental health can also be found for clusters of specific physician assessed morbidity. The study stresses the importance of green space close to home for children and lower socio-economic groups.

October 15th, 2009

Palast, Health care reform, NOT health insurance reform

Greg Palast explains why we need health care reform, not health insurance reform, as President Obama claims:

The S-Word and Dr. Kevorkian’s Accountant
Health care Rx from my socialist fire department

By Greg Palast

Tell me where it hurts, Mr. President.

What’s killing you, Barack, is what’s killing us all: an evil germ called “Medical Loss Ratio.”

“Medical Loss Ratio” [MLR] is the fancy term used by health insurance companies for their slice, their take-out, their pound of flesh, their gross – very gross – profit.

The “MLR” is the difference between what you pay an insurance company and what that insurer pays out to doctors, hospitals and pharmacists for your medical care.

I’ve totted it up from the raw stats: The “MLR,” insurance companies’ margins, is about to top – holy mama! – a quarter trillion dollars a year. That’s $2.7 trillion over the next decade.

Until the 1990′s, insurers skimmed only about a nickel on the dollar for their “service,” Wendell Potter told me. Potter is the CIGNA insurance company PR man who came in from the cold to tell us about what goes down inside the health insurance gold mine. Today, Potter notes (and I’ve checked his accuracy), porky operators like AIG have kicked up their Loss Ratio by nearly 500 percent.

The industries’ slice is growing to nearly a quarter of your insurance bill. All of it just paperwork and profiteering.

President Obama is never going to pull the insurance company piggies from a trough this big, especially when the industry has made room for Congressional snouts.

So what’s the Rx? Easy: Kill the pigs and call the fire department.

The only solution to Loss Ratio piggery is to kill the pigs: eliminate health insurers from the health industry entirely.

We can’t cure our ills, as our president has attempted, by attacking the problem ass-backwards. No, Mr. Obama, we don’t need HEALTH INSURANCE for everyone, we need HEALTH CARE for everyone. There’s a giant difference. Instead of concentrating on PAYMENT, we need to focus solely on providing the health SERVICE.

From my London days writing for The Guardian, I can tell you the British do NOT have national health insurance. They have a National Health Service.

The government builds hospitals, hires doctors and, when you need the service, you just go and get it. It’s kind of like the fire department. When your house is on fire, you don’t call your fire insurance company, you call THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. We care first about the service, not the payment.

The British government hires the doctors, like firemen, and Brits use them, like firemen, as they need them.

It works. My mother-in-law, a nurse, on a visit to England, was stunned at the speed, quality and absence of mad paperwork to fix her broken arm.

But, you might say, that’s, that’s SOCIALISM! Well, yes, it is. And I’m not afraid to use the S-word: Socialized Medicine. Just like America’s Socialized Fire Departments. (Fun fact: socialized, i.e. publicly funded, fire departments were ‘invented’ by the revolutionary Ben Franklin.)

And Yes We Can get socialized medicine passed into law.

Really. It’s simple: we sneak it in with the kids.

We can learn from Lyndon Johnson’s sale of Socialist Medicare. Johnson knew that no one could argue that Granny do without a doctor. Can the “Pro-Life” Republicans now tell us that pregnant moms and children ages 0 to 3 should be denied care? Therefore, to the Medicare program for those 65-or-older, we simply add “Kiddie Care,” for those from Negative 9 months through age 3.

But instead of the wallet-busting Medicare system, in which doctors and hospitals are paid for each suture, bag of blood and pat on the head, Kiddie Care will be provided by Kiddie Care Service salaried doctors.

How do we get doctors (who now AVERAGE $240,575 a year) to take well-paid, but not pig-paid, posts? We grab’m while they’re young. We pay doctors the full cost of their medical education; and we treat them as humans during internship, not as in the current system where interns are treated as medi-slaves. In return for the public paying for their medical education, the public gets the young doctors’ ten-year commitment to work for the health service at a reasonable salary.

That’s not my invention. The free-education idea for staffing a national health service had long ago been proposed by that wily old dog Ted Kennedy. (Damn, we miss him.)

Once the first wave of three-year-olds are about to turn four and their families face having to buy them health insurance, these millions of parents will become an unstoppable army of lobbyists screaming for the extension of Kiddie Care to age four, then to age five, then to age six and so on. Get it?

Yes, Mr. Limbaugh, I am another bleeding heart trying to sneak socialized medicine into America. Yes, I am trying to rid us of the “free-market” insurers who are causing the bleeding. Health insurers are as useful to our health care system as a bicycle is useful to a goldfish.

Free-Market Fantasia

There ain’t no such thing as a “free market” in medical care, as there is a free market in food. You can eat peanut butter instead of dining at Maxime’s. But you can’t tell the surgeon, “No thanks, I can’t afford a new kidney this week – I’ll just have a broken arm.”

A free-market for-profit insurance system means that, when you need a new pancreas, your fate is left to an insurance company computer programmed by Franz Kafka, Dr. Kevorkian and his accountant. It’s you versus the Medical Loss Ratio. Good luck.

In olden days, doctors would attach leeches to suck a patient’s blood. Today, we have insurance companies’ Medical Loss Ratio. Both can kill you. If Obama and America want to end this sickness in the body politic, start with Dr. Kennedy’s sure-fire cure: a national health service for kids – and get rid of the bloodsuckers.

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I Quit: A Personal Note

I learned of the Kiddie Care solution during my brief and ill-starred tenure at the Center for Hospital Administration Studies at the University of Chicago “Billings” Hospital. I couldn’t make up that name. Years later, they hired Michelle Obama as their vice president for community affairs.

In my time, three decades ago, “Billings” handled the affairs of that poor community by shipping the uninsured, sometimes bleeding, to poor-folks hospitals. One wounded patient died on the poverty shuttle.

I quit, and swore that one day I’d write about it. I just did.

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Forensic economist Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” His investigations for BBC TV and Democracy Now! can be seen by subscribing to Palast’s reports at www.GregPalast.com. Hear Wendell Potter tell Greg Palast about health insurers’ dirty secret here.

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