NATION
Friday, September 13, 2013 THE NEW MEXICAN
A-5
Study finds lifelong effects of abuse on brain function cost an estimated $80 billion in both the direct costs of hospitalization, law enforcement and child welfare, and WASHINGTON — In the first major the indirect costs of special education, study of child abuse and neglect in juvenile and adult criminal justice 20 years, researchers with the National costs, adult homelessness and lost Academy of Sciences reported Thurs- work productivity. day that the damaging consequences of “Child abuse and neglect is a seriabuse not only reshape a child’s brain, ous public health problem which but also can last a lifetime. requires immediate, urgent attention,” Untreated, the effects of child abuse said Anne Petersen, a professor at the and neglect, the researchers found, can Center for Human Growth and Develprofoundly influence a child’s physiopment at the University of Michigan cal and mental health, their ability to who chaired the research commitcontrol emotions, their achievement in tee for the Institute of Medicine and school and the relationships they form the National Research Council of the as children and as adults. National Academies. The researchers recommend an The report, produced at the request “immediate, coordinated” national of the U.S. Department of Health and strategy to better understand, treat and Human Services, found that while rates prevent child abuse and neglect, notof physical and sexual child abuse have ing that each year, abuse and neglect declined in the past 20 years, rates of By Brigid Schulte
The Washington Post
emotional and psychological abuse, the kind that can produce the most serious long-lasting effects, have increased. Rates of neglect have held fairly steady. Researchers say they don’t know why. “That’s why we make that a research priority in our recommendations, said Lucy Berliner, a professor at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work and a committee member. Berliner said the committee is proposing a coordinated strategy because they found so much variation among states. “Some states had dramatic, 100 percent increases in cases of neglect,” she said. “And others had 100 percent decreases. That speaks to the complexity of the problem.” Every year, child protective services receives 3 million referrals for child abuse and neglect involving about 6 million children, the report found,
although the researchers say the actual number is likely much higher. About 80 percent of the children in investigated abuse and neglect cases are not removed from the home. Child victims are equally likely to be male or female, the report found. The majority are younger than 5. About 80 percent of the perpetrators are parents, the vast majority biological parents. More than half are female. Angela Diaz, director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center in New York and another committee member, said the report found three risk factors that increased the likelihood of abuse: parental depression, parental substance abuse and whether the parents had been abused or neglected as children. The researchers did not find an association between rates of abuse and times of economic hardship.
But while so much remains a mystery about the causes of abuse, the advances in brain science in the past 20 years shows just how devastating and long-lasting the effects of abuse can be on the structure and the function of the brain, particularly the amygdala, a part of the brain that regulates emotions. Abuse has also been shown to change how the prefrontal cortex functions, the part of the brain responsible for reasoning and decision-making. But there is hope, researchers said. “The effects seen on abused children’s brain and behavioral development are not static,” said committee member Mary Dozier, chairwoman of Child Development at the University of Delaware. “If we can intervene and change a child’s environment, we actually see plasticity in the brain. ... Interventions can be very effective.”
A new toll on drivers? Libertarian group proposes alternative to dwindling fuel tax for interstate revamp
those roads.” In some ways, they did. Starting in the 1950s, the highway trust fund was established to fund the construction of interstates, with revenue from the federal gasoline tax, which all motorists paid every time they By Curtis Tate filled their tanks. McClatchy Washington Bureau Now, the oldest parts of the WASHINGTON — With large system are reaching the end of portions of the 46,000-mile Inter- their design life, and the tank is almost empty. Congress hasn’t state Highway System wearing raised the federal gasoline tax out and needing replacement, of 18.4 cents a gallon in 20 years, but with few federal and state and the tax has lost a third of dollars do it, one possible solution goes back to how most roads its value to inflation. People are driving less and cars get better were originally built: tolls. mileage, further reducing the revFuel taxes aren’t keeping up enue collected at the gas pump. with growing highway mainteThe International Bridge, nance needs, forcing states and Tunnel and Turnpike Assothe federal government to look ciation estimates it would cost for alternatives, and tolls are from $1.3 trillion to $2.5 trillion part of the mix. to rebuild the entire interstate The libertarian Reason Foun- system over the next 50 years. dation released a study ThursThe highway trust fund has day that proposes tolling the been steadily paying out more entire interstate system, chargthan it takes in. The Congressioing 3.5 cents a mile for cars, nal Budget Office projects that 14 cents for trucks, adjusted it could go broke next year. every year for inflation. “The gas tax is clearly on its Under federal law, new inter- last legs,” said Bob Poole, direcstates can be tolled, but existing tor of transportation policy at ones can’t, and Congress would the Reason Foundation and the have to change it. But it could author of the tolling study. be a tough sell to a public long Under a pilot program, the U.S. accustomed to freeways. Department of Transportation is “Tolling is not something allowing three states to levy tolls that many motorists want,” said on existing interstates: Missouri, Michael Green, a spokesman for North Carolina and Virginia, AAA. “They feel, in their mind, although none of them do so. that they’ve already paid for Poole wants Congress to allow
Pa. judge halts marriage licenses for gay couples HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania judge on Thursday ordered a suburban Philadelphia court clerk to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and the clerk said he would comply but is considering an appeal. Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini said Montgomery County Register of Wills D. Bruce Hanes did not have the power to decide on his own whether Pennsylvania’s samesex marriage ban violates the state constitution. Hanes said he was disappointed. It was not clear what the decision will mean for the 174 couples who obtained licenses. The Associated Press
every state to have that right. Poole proposes the users of the interstate system pay for its rebuilding with electronic tolls collected on a per-mile basis. A driver of a two-axle passenger car who crosses Pennsylvania from the Delaware River to the Ohio border — roughly 350 miles — would pay about $12.25 for the trip. A truck driver would pay about $49. Compare that with the current cost of crossing the Keystone State on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, one of the country’s first superhighways and a forerunner of the interstate system. The car driver pays $30.77, while the driver of an 80,000-pound, five-axle truck pays $160.96. To address concerns of double taxation — having to pay a fuel tax and a toll — Poole proposes a fuel-tax rebate for interstate drivers, who would be reimbursed electronically through the same system that collects the tolls. Poole argues that the system is fair, because it charges only the people who use the road. Interstates cost a lot more to build and maintain than local roads and streets, and Poole’s system would put toll revenue directly into the interstates. Congress could require that toll revenues are spent to improve only the roads that generate them. But the plan runs up against public resistance to tolling existing highways. Proposals to add tolls to I-70 in Missouri and I-95
in North Carolina have gained little support, even though both roads need major improvements. Even proposals to use tolls to finance highway expansion have encountered opposition, including a plan for high-occupancy toll, or HOT lanes, on I-77 north of Charlotte, N.C. And one of the biggest users of the interstate system, the trucking industry, opposes tolling existing roads. “We are very much opposed to tolling interstates,” said Darrin Roth, director of highway operations for the American Trucking Associations, an industry group. Roth prefers the traditional method of funding highways through motor-fuel taxes. The industry has lobbied, so far unsuccessfully, for a fueltax increase. Poole said that as cars and trucks become more fuelefficient or use alternative energy, transportation policy will move away from the fuel tax and toward fees based on miles driven, whether on an interstate or a local road. “The country is going to be shifting from per-gallon gas taxes to mileagebased user fees,” he said.
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