Politicians Defying Stigma around the World (and an ecumenical surprise)

While listening public radio Thursday morning, I heard a fairly interesting segment on BBC Newshour. The segment began by describing an announcement from the campaign of Chilean presidential candidate Pablo Longueira that he would withdraw from the upcoming national election due to a depressive episode that began shortly after his primary election victory.

From personal experience, I know the decision to openly disclose a psychiatric diagnosis can be extremely difficult, and I've never lived in the political spotlight. I've read about candidates deciding to disclose their diagnosis in state and local political races, often to preempt the scandel of being “outed” by an opponent. Even so, national elections bring much greater attention. While I know nothing of Mr. Longueira's background or political platform—beyond the BBC's description of him him as a “conservative” candidate—I admire his willingness to be open about his condition.

I was also quite impressed by the BBC's sensitive coverage of this story. However, the segment didn't end with the news story. Instead, the piece went on to further explore the issue of depression in politics through a phone interview with former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, explaining that he made international news in 1998—during his first of two terms as prime minister—when he took a leave of absence to recover from an episode of depression.

That took a couple minutes to sink in. A politician… not just a politician, but a head of state(!) openly announced that he was suffering from depression, took time off to recover, and it didn't end his political career. I was definitely curious to know more about this man.

Long frustrated with spelling in my native language, I know better than to guess at spelling anything in others. Instead, I grabbed the audio for the program from the Newshour podcast to get his dates in office and headed to Wikipedia's “List of heads of government of Norway.”

I've developed a non-linear approach to reading Wikipedia in order to get a feel for the quality of the article before jumping in. I skim the introduction to be sure I've found what I was looking for, then jump to the references section to evaluate the sources If the sources are few in number and/or poorly documented, I proceed with caution. Time permitting, I'll mark unsourced statements and related problems. Sometimes, with a topic I'm particularly interested in, I'll locate information sources and fix broken links.

The article about the former Norwegian prime minister turns out to be one of these. My curiosity only increased when I read the first line of the introduction.

Kjell Magne Bondevik ([çɛlː mɑŋnə bunːəviːk]; born 3 September 1947) is a Norwegian Lutheran minister and politician…

A Norwegian what and politician??!

But the reference section was in sad shape. However, with the correct spelling of ‘Bondevik’ I could find other sources—both to satisfy my own interests and add references to the world's most popular wiki.

Back to my “ecumenical surprise”: sure enough, the bio-blurb at the beginning of a December 2011 interview in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization confirms it. Because of my interest in the connections between faith and mental health, it's always a treat to discover a clergy-person who is open about living with a psychiatric diagnosis, but to find one who is such a public figure… wow!

Linked references

BBC News. Chile Presidential Candidate Resigns. July 17, 2013.

BBC World Service. Newshour, 18/07/2013 (1300 GMT). Newshour. London, UK, July 18, 2013.

Dvorak, Petula. Doug Duncan’s Vocal Dealings with Depression Serve as Inspiration. The Washington Post, November 29, 2012.

Jones, Ben, and Kjell Magne Bondevik. Fighting Stigma with Openness. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 89, no. 12 (December 2011): 862–863. doi:10.2471/BLT.11.041211.

Self-Disclosure and Its Impact on Individuals Who Receive Mental Health Services. Monograph. Rockville, MD: Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, September 2008.

Sexton, Scott. ‘I Finally Knew What the Problem Was,’ Prosecutor Says. Winston-Salem Journal, March 6, 2012.

Wikipedia. Kjell Magne Bondevik.

Wikipedia. List of heads of government of Norway.

Abuse of AD/HD Medication: Sensational News vs. Important Information

The following post began as an email message about an article published in the New York Times the first weekend of February. Apparently, I saved the message draft, but forgot to finish and send it. Upon finding it this afternoon, I thought the content more appropriate as a blog post, and I have edited it accordingly.

Schwarz, Alan. “Drown in a Stream of Prescriptions.” New York Times. February 3, 2013.

---

As someone who takes stimulant medication for AD/HD, I am ambivalent about this kind of media attention. Each person reads such an article with preexistent bias. For some it reinforces the belief that these medications are dangerous. For others it serves as evidence of fear-mongering and the stigmatization of mental ill-health by news media.

Here the subject is the abuse of stimulant medications prescribed for AD/HD, or perhaps, more broadly, the responsibility of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals for the health and safety of those in their care. However, regardless of the topic, so long as it is contentious, the same pattern ensues.

Each side selects a few facts to justify its position and to defend against the opposition. These selections have little to do with the information's relevance to the wider population. The driving question is “Will people react to this information with emotion?” As a result, the information chosen tends to concern only a few specific individuals. Information lacking sufficient emotional “punch,” even if relevant to far more people, goes unmentioned.

The rift between sides grows larger. Meaningful conversations about the issue become less common. The information that is useful and relevant to the most people gets the least circulation.

Great Website! …with a not-so-great RSS Feed

In the last year, I've become a bit of an RSS junkie. I've also developed some rather strong opinions on the nature of feed content.

It isn't that I didn't use RSS feeds before, but — aside from iGoogle page widgets for Lifehacker's headlines and the release notes for the latest version of Calibre — I couldn't find a natural place in my life to use a newsreader application.What changed? I got a smart phone. (My phone and newsreader app of choice are topics for another time.)

However, upon becoming a regular user of RSS feeds, I quickly acquired a sense for both good and not-so-good feeds. I also discovered that the quality of the content on a website can be surprisingly unhelpful for predicting the quality of newsfeed content.

LD OnLine is a good illustration.

The website, ldonline.org is excellent! It's hands down one of my favorites on the topic of learning differences, and I highly recommend it. The content is well organized and addresses a fairly wide variety of audiences. The design is clean and professional, yet still friendly and approachable. Are there points that I would take issue with? Of course, but most are ubiquitous interface issues I've learned to tolerate (or hide).

In concept, the primary RSS feed "LD OnLine Daily News" is equally good — noteworthy headlines about learning differences and special education from a variety of Internet news sources. The problem is implementation. These were the three latest items in the feed when I started writing this post. I reformatted things to fit into a blog post and added the character counts in the left margin.

Content within this box is from LD OnLine Daily News http://feeds.feedburner.com/ldonline/news?format=xml (Accessed 26 Jan 2012).

Brain Scans Spot Early Signs of Dyslexia
January 26, 2012 09:00

192 charsInstead of waiting for a child to experience reading delays, scientists now say they can identify the reading problem even before children start school, long before they become labeled as poor…

496 charsStay current on the latest LD and ADHD news by signing up today for our free LD NewsLine service. Each week, you'll receive an e-mail with approximately three to seven of the top news headlines on learning disabilities, ADHD, special education, and other issues. LD Newsline is also available as an RSS Feed. A weekly version of LD NewsLine is also available. Each LD NewsLine includes direct links to the publication in which the headlines appeared and short excerpts from the original articles.

Special Educators Borrow from Brain Studies
January 26, 2012 09:00

195 charsWhile some educators remain skeptical, brain research is slowly migrating from the lab into the classroom, both in predicting which students may have learning difficulties and intervening to help…

496 charsStay current on the latest LD and ADHD news by signing up today for our free LD NewsLine service. Each week, you'll receive an e-mail with approximately three to seven of the top news headlines on learning disabilities, ADHD, special education, and other issues. LD Newsline is also available as an RSS Feed. A weekly version of LD NewsLine is also available. Each LD NewsLine includes direct links to the publication in which the headlines appeared and short excerpts from the original articles.

Apps for Children with Dyslexia
January 26, 2012 09:00

193 charsThe parent of a second grader newly diagnosed with dyslexia wrote me asking if I knew of any apps that might help her son with reading and math. She'd searched and come up with nothing — and so…

496 charsStay current on the latest LD and ADHD news by signing up today for our free LD NewsLine service. Each week, you'll receive an e-mail with approximately three to seven of the top news headlines on learning disabilities, ADHD, special education, and other issues. LD Newsline is also available as an RSS Feed. A weekly version of LD NewsLine is also available. Each LD NewsLine includes direct links to the publication in which the headlines appeared and short excerpts from the original articles.

Even without the character counts, two things are readily apparent about the second paragraph of each item: (1) it's considerably longer than the first, and (2) it's the same in all three items. The character counts show that the second paragraph isn't just longer, it's more than 2½ times longer!

On closer scrutiny, I noticed two more issues. While the longer second paragraph is promoting LD Online's LD NewsLine service and encouraging the reader to sign up for the service, it doesn't provide a link to the signup page. Additionally, the fourth sentence — the one beginning A weekly version… — is redundant. The reader already learned, in the second sentence, the service sends a weekly email.

I'm really disappointed that such a great website has so many problems in its RSS feed. If the feed content anywhere near the same quality as the website content, I'd have an RSS widget listing those headlines on this blog.

NPR's Confused Response

Earlier this week, NPR sent the following response to my comment about a segment from "All Things Considered" last Friday:

from	npr_response@npr.org <npr_response@npr.org>
date	Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 12:17 PM
subject	Re: Real health conditions, skeptics, and satire... not funny. – Message ID:217142

Response to Message #217142:
Dear Shelley,

Thank you for contacting NPR.

We appreciate you sharing your concerns with us. We strive to offer the highest quality of news and information available. Listener feedback helps us to accomplish this goal.

We welcome both criticism and praise, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration.

Thank you for listening, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/12/23/132281484/fake-pills-can-work-even-if-patients-know-it
Sincerely,
Alan
NPR Services
202-513-3232
www.npr.org

Nice form letter folks, but I think you missed the point. My comment was about a piece from "All Things Considered," not a health news segment.

I wrote 'em back yesterday, and this time I included the url for the subject of my comment.

Real health conditions, skeptics, and satire... not funny.

I just sent NPR's "All Things Considered" the following comment concerning the satirical commercial for 'Placebo' at the end of yesterday's segment "This 'Placebo' Could Be The Drug For You."

As I listened to the brief intro to your satirical commercial for 'Placebo,' I thought, "This should be good."

My expectation quickly changed to sadness... Rickets? You realize this serious vitamin deficiency is still all too common in many parts of the world, right?

And then to offense... Attention deficit disorder? Both the American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization recognize this condition. Still, parents of children with ADD and adults with the condition endure jokes and skepticism.

Would "All Things Considered" have aired a satirical commercial that suggested 'Placebo' for anemia and schizophrenia? I don't think so. I expect NPR to present facts about misunderstood medical conditions, not contribute to skepticism and stigma by mocking.