Study findings should spur action
Mick Whittle asks what the implications are of recent findings from the Dunedin Study.
The latest findings of the Dunedin Longitudinal Study – that one-fifth of the population are responsible for up to 80 per cent of criminal convictions and two-thirds of welfare benefit claims – made the headlines last week, both here and around the world.
In Britain, for example, the story received prominence in wide-circulating newspapers, including the Daily Mail, The Telegraph and the Guardian.
And, as reflected in The Times‘ headline ’’Three-year-olds can be identified as criminals of the future’’, the news angle adopted was not so much that a small proportion of the population was disproportionately responsible for crime and social welfare costs, but that later life outcomes could be predicted in very young children.
This popular media slant raising fears about possible future criminals contrasted with the more subtle University of Otago press release, that ‘‘Childhood disadvantage strongly predicts costly adult life-course outcomes’’.
Here, the emphasis on the deprived background of future ‘‘high cost’’ adults mirrored that of the study itself, in which the authors repeatedly highlighted the detrimental effects of impoverished early-life environments.
Importantly, the researchers also acknowledged that their findings were open for misuse, especially ‘‘for stigmatising and stereotyping’’. They were wise to do so. It is now 10 years since another New Zealand-based study also made world headlines, when the so-called ‘‘warrior gene’’ was inappropriately linked to antisocial behaviour among Maori.
While this earlier study was roundly rejected, any medical research that similarly touches upon the underlying causes of social dysfunction is now, understandably, likely to raise political hackles.
However, the authors of this latest study are not apportioning blame for social inequities, rather they are seeking ways to ameliorate the effects of childhood deprivation. And their clear conclusion is that support for disadvantaged families and children can benefit all members of society.
And it is here that such longterm research, despite its potential to aggravate political sensitivities, is most valuable: to improve society, we need to openly and honestly examine all possible causes of social inequality. Ideologically-inspired intervention, for example, however well meaning, risks doing more harm than good.
And the detrimental impact of ideological beliefs is very real.
Only last month, the Journal of Neuroscience Research dedicated an entire issue to another highly politicised area of research – sex/ gender differences in the human brain.
Adopting the politically palatable position that there are no significant differences between male and female brains often results in a ‘‘one sex fits all’’ approach to medical care, despite the overwhelming evidence reported in the journal that men and women respond differently to treatments for brain illnesses or injuries. And those who suffered most were women prescribed drugs that had only been tested on ‘‘default’’ male subjects.
The latest Dunedin study similarly demonstrates that a one size fits all approach may miss those most at risk of failing in later life.
The study also shows that identifying those most in need of early intervention is straightforward: a simple neurological assessment of verbal comprehension, language development, motor skills and social behaviour at age three.
Yet this study raises further troublesome questions, those not addressed by its authors – in particular, why stop (or begin) at 3 years old? Why not younger, from birth, say, or even pre-birth?
Such questions, to which there seems no principled way of avoiding, clearly lead towards that most problematic of modern social debates – the influence of genes on individuals’ development and behaviour or, more correctly, of how genes and environment both interact.
Indeed, in 2002, the Dunedin Longitudinal Study was one of the first to indicate clear evidence of a genetic and environmental link to specific behaviours in later life.
Those individuals with a particular variant of the MAOA gene, who had also suffered childhood abuse, were found to be far more likely to display violent or antisocial behaviour in later life.
Of course, MAOA (or monoamine oxidase-a) is the very same allele at the centre of the ‘‘warrior gene’’ controversy that erupted only four years later.
But if we are to be open and honest about the causes of social inequalities, we cannot remain blind to modern genetic research. Instead, though, we seem to be floundering in misunderstanding and ignorance.
Earlier this year, for instance, two well-known British broadcasting personalities toured New Zealand. Clinical psychologist Oliver James was publicising his latest book, Not In Your Genes, which argued genetics was irrelevant to psychological traits, including mental illness.
BBC science presenter and geneticist Adam Rutherford, meanwhile, was chairing public presentations on genomics.
Rutherford had already openly criticised James for ‘‘wilfully’’ misrepresenting and distorting genetics, and he repeated these charges while in this country.
But how is anyone to discern the truth with so much misinformation and disinformation swirling about?
We cannot begin with what we want the facts to be and ignore them if they do not reflect our political prejudices. Instead, we should begin with what we desire for our society, and use the evidence to inform the policies that will get us there.
And we could start with what the Dunedin Longitudinal Study clearly indicates: by demanding more support for those that the evidence shows are most in need.
Mick Whittle is a regular contributor to Catalyst and has published on the political aspects of genetic research in the NZ Medical Journal and elsewhere.