Tag: criminality

Categories : Cardiovascular Disease GenderTags :

Low Resting Heart Rate in Women is Associated with Criminal Offending, Injuries

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Rodnae Productions on Pexels

In women, a low resting heart rate is associated with a slightly raised incidence of criminal offending as well as of unintentional injuries, in a large all-female study published March 27 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sofi Oskarsson of School of Behavioural, Social and Legal Sciences, Örebro University, Sweden, and colleagues. This is the first time such an association has been shown in women, although it is well established in studies of men.

Intervention efforts for crime tend to focus on structural and social factors as well as personality traits and behaviors. Less is known about biological factors, although there is an established association between the autonomic nervous system – a network of nerves that regulates unconscious body processes like breathing and heartbeat – and criminal offending in men. Sofi Oskarsson and colleagues from Örebro University, Sweden, wanted to see if the same is observed in women.

Using population registers, the team identified 12 500 Swedish women who volunteered for military service at around 18 years old, where physical assessments recorded resting heart rate and blood pressure. They also tracked records for violent and nonviolent criminal offences and unintentional injuries for up to 40 years.

Female conscripts with the lowest resting heart rates (under 69bpm) had 35% higher risk for any criminal conviction compared to those with rates above 83bpm. However, no significant associations were found for violent crime. Lower resting heart rate was associated with an increased risk of unintentional injuries, which in past research has been interpreted as potentially reflecting fearlessness and stimulation seeking tendencies. The team found a significant association between blood pressure and violent crime, but no significant association was found for non-violent crime. 

The authors state that low autonomic nervous system arousal might drive stimulation-seeking tendencies, but that their findings should be interpreted with caution. They saw lower rates of criminal offending compared to women who had not done military service, and a higher rate of unintentional injuries, so further work is needed to establish whether the same is seen in wider cohorts. If replicated by further research, this finding could have the potential to serve as a predictor of criminal offending, in women as well as men.

The authors add: “Our research reveals a compelling link between lower resting heart rate and an elevated risk of criminality and unintentional injuries among female conscripts. This association, previously underscored primarily in men, paves way for innovative strategies predicting crime risk among women.”

Categories : Ethics and Law PaediatricsTags :

Murder-accused Paediatric Surgeon Advised that Procedures Were Unnecessary

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

A state witness in the trial of murder accused Dr Peter Beale has testified that colleagues advised him against a procedure which led to the death of a three year old patient.

Paediatric surgeon Beale is charged with three counts of murder, as a result of deaths from unnecessary surgeries over 2012 to 2019. He is also charged with two counts of fraud. He was first arrested in 2019, with his trial date postponed multiple times and only getting underway this week Monday in Johannesburg. His co-accused, anaesthetist Dr Abdulhay Munshi, was shot dead in 2020. As a result of the case, some have voiced concerns over what could lead to criminalisation over deaths resulting from unavoidable errors and systemic failures.

Two of the three deaths stemmed from laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication, a complex and costly procedure that is usually used to treat GERD by tightening the junction of the oesophagus and stomach.

According to the indictment, Beale is accused of “unlawfully and intentionally” causing the deaths of a three-year-old boy in 2012, a 21-month-old girl in 2016 and a 10-year-old boy in 2019 after he had operated on the children.

The state contends that Beale performed these unnecessary procedures as he needed money to recover from heavy financial losses incurred in a failed investment in the 1990s.

News24 reports that, based on a rectal biopsy, Beale believed that the three year old boy had Hirschsprung’s Disease, requiring surgical intervention. As reported in Beeld, Beale said in his plea explanation that he “misread” the patient’s biopsy results and did not deliberately misrepresent the biopsy results to the parents.

The parents sought a second opinion, the state alleges, and the second doctor was hesitant about carrying out the procedure. Beale was able to convince the other doctor that the procedure was necessary based on the biopsy results. Beale also explained in his plea deal that there was a variant of the disease, and the treatment was the same. His counsel, Advocate Ian Greene, also pointed out that the pathologist testified at a disciplinary hearing that the biopsy did not exclude the variant even if it did not exclude Hirschsprung’s Disease.

According to News24, a state witness, who is another paediatric surgeon who remains anonymous at the court’s order, stated that Beale had tried to recruit him to a Ponzi scheme. The scheme had a joining fee of R1 million.

The witness, who had know Beale since 1996, said that in 2009, the accused had also confided in him at a conference that he had suffered significant losses in an investment. The witness was also on the committee at the Healthcare Practitioners’ Council of South Africa disciplinary hearing over the three-year-old’s death. Beale has since been struck from the HPCSA.

The South African Medical Association released a statement urging that, while tragic, the case highlights laws that criminalise and punish individuals instead of taking into account the various organisational failings that can lead to patient deaths and can in no way prevent “unavoidable errors”.

Note: this article has been updated to correct the number of laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication procedures and to add more information about the Hirschsprung’s Disease diagnosis.

Categories : Substance UseTags :

Performance Enhancers Linked to Criminality

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

A new study shows that both anabolic steroid use as well as legal performance-enhancing substances is longitudinally associated with criminal offending.

Although anabolic steroid use was known to be associated with criminal offending, the possibility of a similar link between use of legal performance-enhancing substances, such as creatine, and criminal offending remained unknown. 

To address this, researchers analysed a sample of over 9000 US participants from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The results show a need for more research on performance-enhancing substances to understand the complex social problems associated with their use.

“This is the first study to identify relationships between legal performance-enhancing substance use and criminal offending,” said lead author Kyle T. Ganson, PhD, MSW, assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. “This finding is acutely salient because these substances are easily accessible and commonly used, particularly among young people.”

The study highlights the importance of clinical professionals screening for performance-enhancing substance use and assessing patterns of criminal offending among young people.

“We need more research to identify effective prevention and intervention techniques to ensure that we reduce the use of these substances, as well as curtail any connection with criminal offending,” said co-author Jason M. Nagata, MD, MSc, assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Pediatrics.

“The associations found in this study are likely explained by an intersection of behavioral, psychological, and sociocultural influences,” says Ganson. “We therefore need to target this problem from a multitude of angles, including clinically and via public health and policy interventions.”

Source: EurekAlert!

Journal information: Ganson, K.T., et al. (2021) Performance-Enhancing Substance Use and Criminal Offending: A 15-Year Prospective Cohort Study. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2021.108832.