Generative AI Is Going To Shape The Mental Health Status Of Our Youths For Generations To Come
Teens and kids are able to use generic generative AI to secretly give them mental health advice.
In today’s column, I am continuing my ongoing series about the impact of generative AI in the health and medical realm. The focus this time is once again on the mental health domain and involves the startling realization that generative AI is indubitably aiming to shape the mental health of our current and future generations. Kids and teens today and in subsequent generations will be using generative AI as a normal part of their everyday lives, including using ordinary generative AI to be their 24×7 always-on mental health therapist.
Let that soak in for a moment.
It is a sobering thought.
I have previously examined numerous interleaving facets of generative AI and mental health, see my comprehensive overview at the link here. You might also find of notable interest a CBS 60 Minutes episode that recently examined crucial facets of this evolving topic, see the link here (I was interviewed and appeared in the episode).
Other useful background includes my coverage of mental health chatbots that have been bolstered by generative AI (see the link here) and the rapidly changing nature of the client-therapist relationship due to generative AI at the link here. I explored where things are headed regarding the levels of AI-based mental therapy autonomous guidance at the link here, and showcased the importance of the World Health Organization (WHO) report on global health and generative AI at the link here, and so on.
Let’s unpack today’s focus.
Slowing And Inextricably Rolling Forward In Plain Sight
Here’s the deal about existing and upcoming generations of our youths.
With the advent of seemingly fluent generative AI that gained widespread attention via the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, there are teens
In Canada’s mental health care crisis, prioritize access to medication
Opinion: First phase of proposed national pharmacare legislation doesn’t include medicines for mental illness. Will Canadians living with mental illness continue to be marginalized in future phases?
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In Canada, a country celebrated for its fair and universal health care system, a significant disparity exists today around the accessibility of medicines for mental illness. This inequity not only underscores a critical gap in our health care model, but it also highlights the need for an improved mental health approach in all Pan-Canadian initiatives, including future national universal pharmacare.
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Survey finds Canadians want modernized health care system
Canadians frustrated by lack on connectivity in healthcare system
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A new healthcare survey from Canada Health Infoway has found Canadians are growing more frustrated with the healthcare system’s lack of seamless communication and information.
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The Canadian Digital Health Survey, based on 2023 data, found that 42 per cent of Canadians experienced gaps in “care coordination and clinical communication.” The need to repeat information to different health care providers was a frustration expressed by many, according to the survey.
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Just one half of those Canadians surveyed said their healthcare providers had access to their health history prior to a visit. In Saskatchewan, 60 per cent of those surveyed said they have access to their Personal Health Information (PHI) electronically.
The data shows that Canadians are “overwhelmingly in favour” of modernized care, according to a Canada Health Infoway media release. The extensive survey points to the need for “Connected Care” – a more connected, collaborative and healthier system that enables “the seamless flow of health data across information systems.”
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Such a system would give patients the ability to access and manage their health information more efficiently, giving them a more active and informed role in their own care.
A more integrated system would also give doctors a more complete picture of a patient’s health history, and seamless communication and collaboration “at the point of care and across care teams.”
The data shows that four our of five Canadians surveyed agreed their health information should be electronically shared among all healthcare practitioners. Roughly the same number
Ice Age Fashion: The Murky Origins of Neanderthal Clothing
The Neanderthals had a good run. They were around from at least 200,000 years ago to about 42,000 years ago, only a couple millennia after they began to interbreed with modern humans. After that window, all physical traces of them disappeared
Throughout that period, though, Neanderthals would have certainly experienced some cold weather — so much that it’s unlikely they would have walked around completely naked. In fact, some research has shown that the temperatures were likely too cold in parts of Europe during certain eras for any inhabitants to have survived without wearing clothes or making use of shelter, like sleeping under fur bed covers.
The trouble is, clothing isn’t made from materials that typically last very long, even tens of thousands of years before the rise of fast fashion. And evidence like needles has yet to be found in association with Neanderthals.
“The archaeological record is very poor in this case,” says Abel Moclán, an archaeologist at the Regional Archaeological Museum in Madrid.
That record is so poor that some research suggests Neanderthals didn’t wear clothes at all. Scientists studying the DNA of body lice, which live in clothing but feed on humans, found that the insects only originated about 72,000 to 42,000 years ago, when modern humans migrated out of Africa. This may suggest clothing wasn’t around beforehand.
Still, despite the lack of much direct evidence of Neanderthal clothing, researchers have found some indirect signs that reveal what our near-hominid cousins may have worn to keep warm — or show off their own unique style.
Neanderthals May Have Hunted Carnivores for Their Furs
One major line of evidence involves the remains of carnivores, which are rarely associated with Neanderthal sites compared to the remains of herbivorous animals. Notably, hominids didn’t seem to consume much carnivore meat
Quebec Health Department reports 28 cases of eye damage linked to solar eclipse
What Is Earthing and Is It Beneficial?
Has anyone ever told you to go “touch grass”? If so, they were speaking figuratively — encouraging you to get offline and reconnect with the “real world.” It probably wasn’t intended as health advice or a recommendation to actually spend quality time in the dirt.
They might not have meant it that way, but fans of “earthing” do! In fact, they think that touching grass might be just what the doctor ordered.
Psychologist Susan Albers, PsyD, explains why earthing has become so popular, and the benefits and risks associated with the practice.
Spoiler alert: Earthing’s safe for most people and may have a positive impact on your physical or mental health. But until there’s more research on the topic, it should always be a complement to — not a replacement for — evidence-based medicine.
What is earthing?
“Earthing is about having direct skin contact with the surface of the Earth, whether it’s your bare feet, your hands or other parts of your body,” Dr. Albers explains. The theory is that when we physically connect with the ground, its electrical energy rebalances our own. Proponents believe that the rise in chronic illnesses can be attributed, in part, to our footwear.
“They point out that we’ve just recently started wearing shoes with rubber soles, which don’t conduct electricity,” she continues. “So, part of the argument is that we’ve removed that contact from the Earth, which is making us unwell.”
Modern earthing is a new(ish) twist on a widespread belief in the healing potential of the Earth. Practitioners of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapy of reflexology sometimes walk barefoot to stimulate the flow of energy (qi) throughout the body. Being barefoot is also a feature of many indigenous cultures around the world — and several religions require devotees to remove their
In Gaza, Palestinians with treatable injuries face amputations as medical supplies run out
Nurses in Bologna treat amputee Shaymaa Shady, 5, one of a group 16 young Palestinians airlifted to hospitals in Italy. Shaymaa had her first amputation in January after an explosion in Gaza, where her prospects for recovery are not good as war strains the health-care system.Nariman El-Mofty/The New York Times
First came the crushed bones, seared skin and soft tissue gouged by shrapnel from Israel’s intense bombing campaign in Gaza, which has injured many more than it has killed.
Then came the infections. For some, amputation has followed. Others have died.
Roughly a third of Gaza’s hospitals have continued to provide acute care through more than six months of war, with medical personnel working to provide life-saving interventions to those not killed by aerial attacks.
But doctors and aid workers say the often lengthy healing process has created a new set of medical difficulties, as the wounded struggle to secure proper medication and maintain hygiene in crowded camps.
Palestinian health authorities have counted nearly 34,000 dead but say more than 76,000 people have been injured.
Hospitals able to provide surgeries, set broken bones and stop bleeding have little space to keep patients after their initial care.
“Those that are lucky with lesser wounds might heal. But those who have serious wounds or untreated fractures – they can only worsen,” said Federico Dessi, a regional director for French aid group Humanity & Inclusion who recently returned from 12 days in Gaza. “That can lead to an amputation, or sometimes even to death if they get septicemia.”
Palestinian journalist Sami Shehada, wounded in an Israeli strike, lies on the floor at Deir Al-Balah’s Al-Aqsa hospital.Doaa Rouqa/Reuters
Some lose limbs because they are too badly damaged. For others, amputation is a
As national measles vaccine shortage extends another month, some travel to U.S.
A national shortage of measles vaccines will continue for at least another month.
That means most people born before 1970 won’t be able to follow public health advice and get a shot before travel outside Canada — unless they cross the border to get the shot.
Some New Brunswickers have been doing just that, according to Joleen Fowler, a pharmacy technician at Walgreens in Calais, Maine.
“We’ve had a few people come over and ask, you know, if they were able to get it from us, and we were able to oblige,” she said.
Merck, Canada’s supplier, had expected the shortage of its MMR II vaccine, for measles, mumps and rubella, for the private market such as travel clinics, to end by April 19, but now lists May 15 as the estimated end date on Health Canada’s Drug Shortages website.
Merck has also posted an anticipated shortage of its ProQuad vaccine from April 26 until Aug. 30. ProQuad is used for the prevention of measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox in children between 12 months and 12 years old.
An increase in demand for measles vaccines, due to a rise in cases and outbreaks across the country and the world, led to the shortage, Merck Canada said in an email to CBC News Friday.
Remaining doses of the company’s measles vaccines are being reserved for publicly funded childhood immunization programs.
Working to ensure consistent supply for public programs
Asked whether Merck still expects to be able to fully meet the demands of these public immunization programs, the company replied via email: “We continue to work diligently with all relevant stakeholders, including provincial and federal health authorities, to provide a consistent supply of MMR®II vaccines in a timely manner.
“Our priority remains firmly focused on ensuring the availability of this vaccine to
Women in Menopause Are Getting Short Shrift
After a decade working as an obstetrician-gynecologist, Marci Bowers thought she understood menopause. Whenever she saw a patient in her 40s or 50s, she knew to ask about things such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, mood swings, and memory problems. And no matter what a patient’s concern was, Bowers almost always ended up prescribing the same thing. “Our answer was always estrogen,” she told me.
Then, in the mid-2000s, Bowers took over a gender-affirmation surgical practice in Colorado. In her new role, she began consultations by asking each patient what they wanted from their body—a question she’d never been trained to ask menopausal women. Over time, she grew comfortable bringing up tricky topics such as pleasure, desire, and sexuality, and prescribing testosterone as well as estrogen. That’s when she realized: Women in menopause were getting short shrift.
Menopause is a body-wide hormonal transition that affects virtually every organ, from skin to bones to brain. The same can be said of gender transition, which, like menopause, is often referred to by doctors and transgender patients as “a second puberty”: a roller coaster of physical and emotional changes, incited by a dramatic shift in hormones. But medicine has only recently begun connecting the dots. In the past few years, some doctors who typically treat transgender patients—urologists, gender-affirmation surgeons, sexual-medicine specialists—have begun moving into menopause care and bringing with them a new set of tools.
“In many ways, trans care is light years ahead of women’s care,” Kelly Casperson, a urologist and certified menopause provider in Washington State, told me. Providers who do both are well versed in the effects of hormones, attuned to concerns about sexual function, and empathetic toward people who have had their symptoms dismissed by providers. If the goal of menopause care isn’t just to help women survive but
Database Collection of Death Information Not Public Record
State health department can limit cause of death information sought through public records requests.
State health department can limit cause of death information sought through public records requests.
A statewide database of dead Ohioans with the names and addresses associated with the causes of death is not available to the public via a public records request because it contains “protected health information,” the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today.
In a 5-2 decision, the Supreme Court rejected the claim of former Columbus Dispatch Reporter Randy Ludlow, who sought the cause-of-death information from the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The department provided Ludlow with requested spreadsheets with vital information from death certificates, including sex, age, and cause of death, but not the names and addresses of those who died.
Writing for the Court majority, Justice Patrick F. Fischer stated the department correctly determined that the names and addresses, when combined with the other medical information, would constitute protected health information. Under R.C. 3701.17, the department is prohibited from releasing that information.
The Court disagreed with Ludlow’s claim that R.C. 3701.17 protects the information of the living and that the health information of deceased Ohioans is not protected.
“However, we see no reason to limit the definition of ‘individual’ to ‘living individual’ when the statute does not make that distinction,” Justice Fischer wrote.
Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Justices R. Patrick DeWine, Melody Stewart, and Joseph T. Deters joined Justice Fischer’s opinion.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Jennifer Brunner wrote that information provided by local health departments to ODH’s database must be a public record, because under another state law, anyone can obtain the entire death record by visiting the local vital records department.
“In short, under R.C. 3705.231, all that is