US - ADHD genes found, known to play roles in neurodevelopment... [2009-06-23 PhysOrg]

http://www.physorg.com/news164977021.htmlHome

Genetics

ADHD genes found, known to play roles in neurodevelopment

June 23rd, 2009

Pediatric researchers have identified hundreds of gene variations that occur more frequently in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than in children without ADHD. Many of those genes were already known to be important for learning, behavior, brain function and neurodevelopment, but had not been previously associated with ADHD.

"Because the gene alterations we found are involved in the development of the nervous system, they may eventually guide researchers to better targets in designing early intervention for children with ADHD," said lead author Josephine Elia, M.D., a psychiatrist and ADHD expert at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

The study appeared online today in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Unlike changes to single DNA bases, called SNPs or "snips," the alterations examined in the current study are broader changes in structure. Called copy number variations (CNVs), they are missing or repeated stretches of DNA. CNVs have recently been found to play significant roles in many diseases, including autism and schizophrenia Everyone has CNVs in their DNA, but not all of the variations occur in locations that affect the function of a gene. The current study is the first to investigate the role of CNVs in ADHD.

Individually, each CNV may be rare, but taken together, a combination of changes in crucial regions may interact to raise an individual's risk for a specific disease. "When we began this study in 2003, we expected to find a handful of genes that predispose a child to ADHD," said study co-leader Peter S. White, Ph.D., a molecular geneticist and director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Children's Hospital. "Instead, there may be hundreds of genes involved, only some of which are changed in each person. But if those genes act on similar pathways, you may end up with a similar result—ADHD. This may also help to explain why children with ADHD often present clinically with slightly different symptoms."

ADHD is the most common neuropsychiatric disorder in children, affecting an estimated 1 in 20 children worldwide. It may include hyperactive behavior, impulsivity and inattentive symptoms, with impaired skills in planning, organizing, and maintaining focus. Its cause is unknown, but it is known from family studies to be strongly influenced by genetics.

Drawing on DNA samples from the Children's Hospital pediatric network, the researchers analyzed genomes from 335 ADHD patients and their families, compared to more than 2,000 unrelated healthy children. The team used highly automated gene-analyzing technology at the Center for Applied Genomics at Children's Hospital, directed by Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., a co-leader of this study.

The study team found a similar quantity of CNVs in both groups. However, distinct patterns emerged. Among 222 inherited CNVs found in ADHD families but not in healthy subjects, a significant number were in genes previously identified in other neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome. The CNVs found in ADHD families also altered genes important in psychological and neurological functions such as learning, behavior, synaptic transmission and nervous system development.

"We took a systems biology approach, grouping genes into groups with common functions," said White. "We found that the sets of genes more likely to be changed in ADHD patients and families affected functions that made sense biologically." For instance, said White, the team found four deletions of DNA in a gene recently linked to restless legs syndrome, a type of sleep disorder common in adults with ADHD.

Another deletion occurred in a gene for a glutamate receptor. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter, a protein that carries signals in the brain. While ADHD medications act on dopamine and serotonin, which are also neurotransmitters, this new finding may suggest an important role for glutamate as well, at least for some ADHD patients.

"As we delve into the genetics of very complex diseases such as ADHD, we find many contributing genes, often differing from one family to another," added White. "Studying the functions of different genes allows us to identify biological pathways that may be involved in this neuropsychiatric disorder."

Some of the biological pathways involved in ADHD may also be common to other neurological conditions, say the researchers. Likewise, there is some overlap among the CNVs found in ADHD that also occur in autism, schizophrenia and other neurological disorders. This overlap was not surprising, said Elia, because ADHD patients frequently also have one of more of these disorders. However, as researchers learn more about specific genes in neurological conditions, the hope is that researchers might in the future personalize treatments to a patient's own genetic profile, to achieve more targeted, specific therapies.

Elia and White stressed that much further work must be done before genetic findings lead to ADHD treatments.

More information: Elia et al, "Rare Structural Variants Found in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder < http://www.physorg.com/tags/attention+deficit+hyperactivity+disorder/ > Are Preferentially Associated with Neurodevelopmental Genes < http://www.physorg.com/tags/genes/ >," Molecular Psychiatry, published online, June 23, 2009.

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Source: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (news < http://www.physorg.com/partners/children-s-hospital-of-philadelphia/ > : web < http://www.chop.edu/consumer/index.jsp >)

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© PhysOrg.com 2003-2009

US - New Protections for Transgender Federal Workers... [2009-06-24 NY Times]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/24transgender.html

POLITICS EDUCATION

New Protections for Transgender Federal Workers

By JIM RUTENBERG

June 23, 2009

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for President Obama are quietly drafting first-of-their kind guidelines barring workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees, officials said Tuesday.

The guidelines will be in an updated federal handbook for managers and supervisors to be distributed and posted online in the next couple of months, and they could also be included in other materials for managers. They will list transgender people — those who identify their gender differently from the information on their birth certificates — as among several groups protected by antidiscrimination laws.

Though transgender men and women are not believed to make up more than a fraction of a percent of the federal work force, their inclusion in the discrimination guidelines is seen as a breakthrough by transgender and gay rights advocates.

“The president is making a very clear statement that transgender people won’t be discriminated against,” said Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, a group that has been talking with the White House about the new provisions.

The provisions will help give transgender workers avenues within the federal government to protest a job action as discriminatory, though Ms. Keisling added, “There is also a very important symbolic value to that, from our point of view.”

The rules are almost certain to stoke criticism from cultural conservatives already displeased with Mr. Obama’s stand on gay rights, abortion and stem cell research.

The White House has not done much to advertise the provisions, which are being written along with the new same-sex domestic partnership benefits Mr. Obama announced last week for federal workers.

That announcement drew criticism from several organizations representing gay men and lesbians. The groups complained that the benefits — including some sick leave provisions and housing allocations for certain employees — were too limited and said that Mr. Obama was letting his desire to avoid battles over social issues trump campaign promises.

The administration’s plan to draft a policy explicitly warning federal supervisors about discrimination against transgender employees was lost in the criticism, and Mr. Obama did not outline it in last week’s announcement.

John Berry, the director of the federal agency in charge of such workplace issues, the Office of Personnel Management, said in an interview on Tuesday that the administration was not trying to hide its work on the new provisions. Mr. Berry noted that he had mentioned them last week at a news briefing about the president’s same-sex benefits plan, though it came up only briefly in a discussion that mostly focused on the complaints.

“There’s been no attempt to hide anything or be coy,” he said.

Mr. Berry, the administration’s highest-ranking openly gay official, said he had been an early advocate for the new protections for transgender workers.

“I was aware coming into this job that this was a class of people for whom it was not clear that they were protected from discrimination,” he said, “and I thought it was an opportunity to clarify that.”

The guidelines will further interpret a section of the civil service law that broadly bars federal supervisors from taking any action against an employee based on anything other than job performance.

Guidelines for federal supervisors already ban them from taking any job action “against an employee or applicant based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicapping condition, marital status or political affiliation.”

An executive order signed by President Bill Clinton in 1998 added sexual orientation to that list of categories. Mr. Berry said the new guidelines would add gender identity as well.

Mr. Berry said he had no estimate for just how many federal employees would consider themselves to be transgender. “In our own agency we have transgender individuals,” he said. “I know they are present in the federal work force, and they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.”

The Library of Congress recently lost a discrimination case after it rescinded its hiring of a former Army Special Forces commander, David Schroer, as a terrorism analyst upon learning he was undergoing a sex change. The library said it was concerned that the former commander — now Diane Schroer — would be unable to qualify for vital security clearances in a timely fashion. In April, a federal judge awarded Ms. Schroer nearly $500,000 in lost pay and damages.

While that case involved Congress, the new guidelines would presumably give any federal employee in a similar situation further recourse to file a formal complaint with the administration, and, potentially, give added weight to complaints filed with the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent arbiter.

Conservative groups were cautiously pessimistic about the new guidelines, which have yet to be completed.

Focus on the Family, a conservative evangelical group, released a statement Tuesday night saying that the law already prohibited managers from taking any job action not directly related to job performance, “making this review an unnecessary political action to appease a special interest group embedded in the Obama administration.”

The group also criticized the new policy as “government affirmation” of behavior it has defined as “one of many sexual sins that is outside God’s created intent and desire for us.”

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A version of this article appeared in print on June 24, 2009, on page A17 of the New York edition.

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Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Scotland - Neurological differences support dyslexia subtypes... [2009-06-25 PhysOrg]

http://www.physorg.com/news165125975.html

Neuroscience

Neurological differences support dyslexia subtypes

June 25th, 2009

Parts of the right hemisphere of the brains of people with dyslexia have been shown to differ from those of normal readers. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Neuroscience used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to compare the two groups, and were able to associate the neurological differences found with different language difficulties within the dyslexic group.

Cyril Pernet, from the University of Edinburgh, worked with a team of researchers to compare the brains of 38 people with dyslexia to a model 'typical brain' created by combining the scans of 39 normal readers. In all cases, differences could be seen in either the right cerebellar declive or the right lentiform nucleus. These were associated with varying performance in language tests.

It is increasingly accepted that dyslexia is not a unique entity, but might reflect different neuro-cognitive pathologies. Researchers have been looking for a way to distinguish between different types of dyslexia for several years, and this research is among the first to show a direct link between brain structure < http://www.physorg.com/tags/brain+structure/ > and symptom severity. According to Pernet, "These results provide evidence for the existence of various subtypes of dyslexia characterized by different brain phenotypes. In addition, behavioral analyses suggest that these brain phenotypes relate to different deficits of automatization of language-based processes such as grapheme/phoneme correspondence and/or rapid access to lexicon entries".

More information: Brain classification reveals the right cerebellum as the best biomarker < http://www.physorg.com/tags/biomarker/ > of dyslexia < http://www.physorg.com/tags/dyslexia/ >, Cyril R Pernet, Jean Baptiste Poline, Jean Francois Demonet and Guillaume A Rousselet, BMC Neuroscience (in press), http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcneurosci/

Source: BioMed Central (news http://www.physorg.com/partners/biomed-central/ : web http://www.biomedcentral.com/ )

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© PhysOrg.com 2003-2009

For BLS' archives...

Here's a typical example of my dyslexia...

Having 2009-06-26 just read many postings on Bermudian blog sites relating to Premier Ewart Brown's intention of doing away with Bermuda's historic Hamilton city & St Georges town councils... I dyslexicly misread:

"Turkey's sex workers seek to establish a union..."

as:

"Turkey's sex workers seek to abolish a union..."

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NB:  Courtesy of New Oxford American Dictionary...

"dyslexia" - a general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence.

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Brenda Lana Smith  R af D

Wales - Barmouth councillor Bill Pritchard disqualified for 12 months over gay remark... [2009-06-26 BBC News]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8121233.stm

15:05 GMT, Friday, 26 June 2009 16:05 UK

Councillor's ban over gay remark

A councillor has been disqualified for 12 months after referring to homosexuality as a "notorious disability".

Bill Pritchard, former town councillor in Barmouth, Gwynedd, wrote to an assembly government minister, referring to two men in a local development.

He described homosexuality as "a demon which can be driven out".


Bill Pritchard said he wanted to 'rescue' gay people into his church

An adjudication panel of the public service ombudsman for Wales found he breached the council's code of conduct.

After the hearing in Dolgellau, Mr Pritchard, an evangelical Methodist, said he was not sorry and stood by his views that homosexuality was a disability.

The hearing heard Mr Pritchard wrote to Leighton Andrews AM, deputy minister for regeneration, to voice concerns about a development project in Barmouth.

In the letter, he referred to two men with interests in the development as being in a relationship.
   
The hearing heard how he referred to homosexuality as "a notorious disability and that the modern culture is to defend these people from any form of discrimination. Hurray for diversity".

Hywel James, the tribunal chairman, said: "You also go on in the letter to state 'There may indeed be a cure for this disability as recently I found a book. It seems to suggest that homosexuality is a demon which can be driven out'."

The hearing was told that the complainant - referred to only as Mr Smith - had found the comments "grossly homophobic".

Giving evidence, Mr Pritchard said he did not like to "condemn" people but preferred to "rescue them into the church".


'Smoke screen'

Mr Pritchard cried as he quoted from the Bible.

He was asked by the panel whether he accepted homosexual people might be offended by the term disability.

He replied: "It is definitely a disability rather than a sin". He went on to add: "I respect them as someone who is struggling with a disability as I would with someone in a wheelchair."

Mr Pritchard told the panel the objections to his comments were "a smoke screen" to divert attention away from the controversial development.

Tribunal chairman Mr James told Mr Pritchard the panel had to consider whether referring to homosexuality as a disability was a breach of the council's code of conduct.

Mr Pritchard replied: "Well, I think it is. I would love to rescue them from it. Not just them, the whole lot."


'Serious breaches'

Mr Pritchard was judged to have breached the code of conduct on two counts - one that he brought the council into disrepute and the second that as a councillor he must show respect and consideration for others.

The panel found that there had been "serious breaches."

Mr James said: "A councillor cannot pick and choose which parts of the code of conduct they comply with."

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SEE ALSO:

JP quits over 'anti-gay' remarks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8009030.stm
20 Apr 09 |  Wales

Gay singer tells of 'nightmare'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7289306.stm
11 Mar 08 |  Wales

Tattoo gay men, clergyman writes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7655585.stm
06 Oct 08 |  London

Brunstrom's apology for gay slur
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/4343017.stm
12 Mar 05 |  North West Wales

END

Sweden - Rant - A Boy? A Girl? Parents Keep it a Secret... [2009-06-26 RANTRAVE]

http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/A-Boy-A-Girl-Parents-Keep-it-a-Secret.aspx

2009-06-26

Rant A Boy? A Girl? Parents Keep it a Secret
        
Written by
Rudi Stettner

A pair of Swedish parents have made an unprecedented decision in raising their child. They have decided to keep the child's gender a secret, giving it the name "Pop" which in Swedish is apparently an androgynous name. The Local, a Swedish news digest reports as follows.


In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.” Reimer's accounts of therapy

The child's parents said so long as they keep Pop’s gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female.

Pop's wardrobe includes everything from dresses to trousers and Pop's hairstyle changes on a regular basis. And Pop usually decides how Pop is going to dress on a given morning.

Although Pop knows that there are physical differences between a boy and a girl, Pop's parents never use personal pronouns when referring to the child – they just say Pop."


Central to the parent's decision is a strong decision on the "Nature vs. Nurture" debate. Proponents of the "Nature" theory believe that the core of a child'd personality, including gender identity is hard wired and that experiences and upbring are important yet limited in their effect upon the psychological development of a child.

Proponents of the "Nurture" theory believe that a child's personality is the product of his or her environment and upbringing. They tend to minimise or dismiss the effect of biologically determined traits.

Pop will be the first child known to have been raised in a "non directional" way. In a very real sense, Pop's childhood will be a prolonged experiment. Pop's parents seem to be very focused on gender identity and on theories of character development. The childhood they will be shaping will not be a typical one.

Although Pop's home environment will certainly be unique, it will not be the first time that a home has been set up as a social laboratory. The article in The Local referred as follows to a famous case in 1967, when a botched medical circumcision turned into a prolonged experiment.


"....a circumcision left one of two twin brothers without a ****. Dr. John Money, who asserted that gender was learned rather than innate, convinced the parents to raise 'David' as 'Brenda' and the child had cosmetic genitalia reconstruction surgery.

She was raised as a female, with girls’ clothes, games and codes of behaviour. The parents never told Brenda the secret until she was a teenager and rebelled against femininity. She then started receiving testosterone injections and underwent another genetic reconstruction process to become David again. David Reimer denounced the experiment as a crushing failure before committing suicide at the age of 38. "

Dr. Money was scathingly portrayed in a book written by Reimer, "As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl." Reimer's account of "therapy" with Dr. Money is at such marked variance with the case histories put out by Money at Johns Hopkins University that it almost suggests falsification. At the very least, it seems that Money's commitment to the success of gender reassignment left him deaf and blind in dealing with a child who was fundamentally opposed to his "experiment".

Although many in the psychiatric community are eagerly awaiting the results of Pop's upbringing, there are vocal critics who question the basic premises of the prolonged experiment that is Pop's upbringing. Toronto psychologist Susan Pinker was cited in the Swedish news article as follows.


“Ignoring children's natures simply doesn’t work,” says Susan Pinker, a psychologist and newspaper columnist from Toronto, Canada, who wrote the book The Sexual Paradox, which focuses on sex differences in the workplace.

“Child-rearing should not be about providing an opportunity to prove an ideological point, but about responding to each child’s needs as an individual,” Pinker tells The Local.

“It’s unlikely that they’ll be able to keep this a secret for long. Children are curious about their own identity, and are likely to gravitate towards others of the same sex during free play time in early childhood.”

Pinker says there are many ways that males and females differ from birth; even if gender is kept ‘secret,’ prenatal hormones developed in the second trimester of pregnancy already alter the way the child behaves and feels.

She says once children can speak, males tell aggressive stories 87 per cent of the time, while females only 17 per cent. In a study, children aged two to four were given a task to work together for a reward, and boys used physical tactics 50 times more than girls, she says. "

A proponent of the experiment made a stunning admission in an interview with the reporter from "The Local."


"But Swedish gender equality consultant Kristina Henkel says Pop’s parents' experiment might have positive results.

“If the parents are doing this because they want to create a discussion with other adults about why gender is important, then I think they can make a point of it,” Henkel says in a telephone interview with The Local. "

Sometimes the stupidity comes at you with such blinding speed that you need to put it on instant replay. What is a "gender equality consultant"? And what sort of parent raises a child to "create a discussion with other adults" ? How is Pop going to feel when he sees that his or her parents are too interested in philosophy and ideology to really listen to the child?

Voices of caution are also being sounded in the Swedish medical establishment. "The Local" reports as follows.


"Anna Nordenström, a paediatric endocrinologist at Karolinska Institutet, says it’s hard to know what effects the parents' decision will have on Pop.

“It will affect the child, but it’s hard to say if it will hurt the child,” says Nordenström, who studies hormonal influences on gender development.

“I don’t know what they are trying to achieve. It’s going to make the child different, make them very special.”

She says if Pop is still ‘genderless’ by the time he or she starts school, Pop will certainly receive a lot of attention from classmates. "

I am willing to bet that in Sweden Dr. Nordenstrom must be very subdued in voicing her reservations about Pop's upbringing. Very special? What does that mean? I can just imagine what "a lot of attention from classmates" means. What is Pop supposed to do when it's time to go to the bathroom? Flip a coin? The most annoying parents are those who have no recollection of what it was like to be a child. Pop's parents are running an experiment. How cute. How chic. How progressive. They should have bought a hamster.

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6 COMMENTS:

That sounds like child abuse at its finest.

That poor child is going to be SO confused growing up... not to mention as an adult. They are, and have, sentenced that child to a life of solitude.
howleanne


I view this as well-meaning but mistaken. Try as the parents might, Pop will start acting like and appearing to be a boy or a girl eventually, assuming the child is biologically typical and not transgendered. Men and women are different *physically*, not just culturally. If Pop is a boy, he will start growing broader shoulders, his hips will be less rounded, and he will likely not develop language skills as quickly as girls. If Pop is a girl, she will probably be slightly smaller than the boys around her, and she will likely develop math and language skills more quickly. There's nothing the parents can -- or should -- do about this. Posted 7 Hours Ago
HeyNoniNoni


Is 'Pop' defined in the U.S. as 'it'?
The Cypress Gang
Cypress, TX


Children should not be used as experiments. This kid will have a very hard time in school, and a very weird social life...if any at all. The parents probably aren't thinking about what is best for the child; they are trying to prove a point, weather they realize it or not. Girls and boys are just different. It is a scientific fact. Eventually this kid is going to grow up and will, undeniably, be either a boy, or a girl. Sadly, I don't think it will end well.
SugarPop


P.S. I don't know if you guys saw the picture of Michael Jackson on the post "Michael Jackson Murdered?", but that is what happens when children are gender confused!
SugarPop


I believe that nature and nurture should be balanced. People who believe that it is one or the other are poor observers of their environment. Little POP needs to know about his gender like he needs to know about his other body parts as well. Children can learn to appreciate the diverse gender roles without feeling pegged into either. Girls who play with dolls are no less tom boyish then those who play in the mud. The same goes with boys.

Pop does not need to be the experiment of pops parents in order to prove this to be so. I respect and admire a parent who has an inter-sexed child and decides to wait for puberty to develop the child’s gender more fully. In that case it is the right thing to do because all the facts are not yet in. But this is not the case with Pop.
Siempre Solo
Auburn, NY

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EXTERNAL LINKS
http://www.rudistettner.com/
http://www.thelocal.se/20232/2...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...


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©2009 RantRave

Jamaica - Proposal to deny post-operative M2F gender-variant women protection under the proposed Sexual Offences Bill... [2009-06-26 Go-Jamaica]

http://www.go-jamaica.com/news/read_article.php?id=10368

Parliament discusses sexual offences bill

2009-06-26

A member of the Senate wants men who cheat on their female partners by engaging in homosexuality to be punished under the proposed sexual offences law.

Opposition Senator Sandrea Falconer made the proposal today during the debate on the proposed Sexual Offences Bill.

Senator Sandrea Falconer charged that she had little regard for men homosexual, men who cover-up while engaging in heterosexual relationships.

Commenting on repeat sex offenders, the Opposition senator said they should be put away for life without parole.

She is also pushing for the proposed sentence of 15 years for a man who commits a sexual offence against a person with a mental disorder to be changed to life imprisonment.

Commending the move to establish a sexual offenders registry, the senator stressed that persons who committed heinous acts against women, children and sometimes men must, after conviction, be publicly identified and shamed.

Another parliamentarian is urging her colleagues to block every loophole to prevent a man who undergoes a sex change from seeking coverage under the definition of sexual intercourse in the proposed law.

Government Senator Hyacinth Bennett cautioned that care should be taken to state that the sexual organs of the vagina and the penis be stated as the natural sex organs as defined at birth.

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© Jamaica Gleaner 2009