Thursday, November 15, 2012

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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Volume 106, Issue 41

Roy removed from Western Shock therapy gets Activist ticketed for defying campus ban

magnetic makeover Jesica Hurst News Editor

Kaitlyn McGrath Associate Editor London activist and Occupy London member Mike Roy was arrested on campus Tuesday night for violating his year-long ban from university property. Roy, who was banned from campus after he attended an unauthorized demonstration in the University Community Centre on February 1, was attempting to attend the speaking event by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth. Woodworth was scheduled to speak about abortion, and given the controversy surrounding the talk, Elgin Austen, director of the Campus Community Police Service, said campus police made prior arrangements to ensure the event ran smoothly. Prior to the beginning of the talk, Roy was spotted by an officer and asked to step outside. Once escorted from the auditorium in the Spencer Engineering Building, he was handcuffed and held in a cruiser until London police arrived. Austen said although Roy wasn’t causing any difficulty, his presence on campus was enough to warrant an arrest. “He knew that he had a trespass notice that had been provided to him some period of time ago, and being on the property was in violation of a provincial statute. He didn’t deny any of that,” Austen said. Once London police arrived, Roy was transferred to their cruiser and taken to police headquarters downtown. He was issued a ticket and fined for trespassing. Given his ban, Roy said he was somewhat prepared for the possibility he would be asked to leave the event. However, he chose to attend anyway. “He’s a Member of Parliament, and it was a public event for him to

Corey Stanford GAZETTE

THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM? Mike Roy, a local activist, was banned from campus in February 2012 after participating in an unauthorized protest that interrupted an Israel on Campus event. Roy was forcibly removed from campus again Tuesday night while attending Stephen Woodworth’s speaking engagement.

speak on an issue that was galvanizing a lot of activists in the community,” Roy said. “I wanted to see what he had to say.” Roy admitted the order has been difficult to abide by given the number of events and activities that occur on Western’s campus. In fact, recently Roy was escorted off of King’s University College campus after he tried to attend the Yves Engler book release. However, this was the first time he received repercussions for violating the ban. With this most recent incident, Austen said campus police are contemplating whether they will extend Roy’s ban that, as of now, would expire in February 2013. “There is no decision on that,”

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Austen said about the possibility of lengthening the punishment. “We’ll probably wish to talk to Mr. Roy about it.” In the event his prohibition from campus does get extended, Roy said he would be extremely upset and, along with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, would be prepared to fight it. Even though Roy said he still disagrees with the validity of the original ban, with only a little over two months remaining, he is willing to avoid campus until it’s up. “I’m willing to bite the bullet now,” he said. “I’m not even going to bother going to campus for a couple months and hopefully we can get over this.”

In the past few decades, those suffering from depression had very limited options—psychotherapy, medication or electroconvulsive therapy. However, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, which opened this past Tuesday, is introducing a new method that could quickly replace existing treatments. Magnetic seizure therapy, or MST, is a procedure that involves stimulation to the brain through a magnetic field. CAMH is the first centre in Canada, and one of few worldwide, that offers this treatment. “[MST] repetitively activates the cortex of the brain, which causes a seizure,” Jeff Daskalakis, associate professor of psychiatry and director of the brain stimulation research and treatment program at CAMH, explained. “The activation is limited to the frontal lobes, which is the area that is responsible for depression.” “Because this remains [targeted], it causes positive therapeutic effects because it does not spread to other brain regions.” According to Daskalakis, this is a much different approach than ECT, where the electrical current spreads throughout the brain. Because of this, ECT can cause generalized activation throughout the brain—something that causes a lot of side effects as opposed to therapeutic benefits. But those patients with depression aren’t the only ones who can benefit from this cutting-edge treatment. “We’re also using [MST] in the context of schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder,” he said. “Patients right now are having treatment applied three times a week, and it can go up to six to eight weeks of treatment.”

Verinder Sharma, a professor of psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at Western, is excited to find out more information about the treatment. “I think this certainly seems like a good choice, but I would really like to see long-term data as to what this does,” Sharma said. “Because of the challenges that we face in treatment of depression, whenever a new treatment comes out, we kind of get excited, but then realize there may be some problems associated with it as well.” MST has been in development for the last 10 years, but only used

Because of the challenges that we face in treatment of depression, whenever a new treatment comes out, we kind of get excited, but then realize there may be some problems associated with it as well. —Verinder Sharma

A professor of psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at Western

clinically in the last five or six. Since the treatment has taken a while to catch on, it took a large initiative by CAMH to become one of the leading centres in the world. “We’re not talking about a small percentage of the population, and we’re not talking about an obscure illness that only affects 100,000 people—we’re talking about an illness that affects 10 to 20 per cent of the population. That’s a large number of people who are going to be treatment-resistant,” Daskalakis said. “Being able to offer these very new, cutting-edge treatments […] is tremendously rewarding.”

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Thursday, November 15, 2012 by Western Gazette - Issuu