A belief in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories may have significant and detrimental consequences for children’s health, new research from the University showed earlier this year.

Researchers Daniel Jolley and CISoR’s Professor Karen Douglas surveyed 89 parents about their
views on anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and then asked them to indicate their intention to have a fictional child vaccinated. It was found that stronger belief in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories was associated with lower intention to vaccinate.In a second study, 188 participants were exposed to information concerning anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. It was found that reading this material reduced their intention to have a fictional child vaccinated, relative to participants who were given refuting information or those in a control condition. Daniel Jolley said: ‘This research is timely in the face of declining vaccination rates and recent outbreaks of vaccinated-against diseases in the UK, such as measles. Our studies demonstrate that anti-vaccine conspiracy theories may present a barrier to vaccine uptake, which may potentially have significant and detrimental consequences for children’s health. ‘ Dr Douglas added: ‘It is easy to treat belief in conspiracy theories lightly, but our studies show that wariness about
conspiracy theories may be warranted. Ongoing investigations are needed to further identify the social consequences of conspiracism and to identify potential ways to combat the effects of an ever-increasing culture of conspiracism.’

Professor Karen Douglas

A study led by Jan Macvarish, in March of this year found that claims that children’s brains are irreversibly ‘sculpted’ by parental care are based on questionable evidence – yet have heavily influenced ‘early-years’ government policy-makers.

Dr Jan Macvarish

The study identified that although there is a lack of scientific foundation to many of the claims of ‘brain-based’ parenting, the idea that years 0-3 are neurologically critical is now repeated in policy documents abs has been integrated into professional training for early-years workers. Jan said: ‘What we found was that although the claims purporting to be based on neuroscience are very questionable, they are continually repeated in policy documents and are now integrated into the professional training of health visitors and other early years workers. “Brain claims” entered a policy environment that was already convinced that parents are to blame for numerous social problems, from poverty to mental illness.

“The idea that these entrenched problems will be solved by parents being more attentive to their children’s brains is risible. Although aimed at strengthening the parent-child relationships, these kind of policies risk undermining parents’ self-confidence by suggesting that “science” rather than the parent knows best.”

The study highlights that mothers, in particular, are told that if they are stressed while pregnant or suffer postnatal depression, they will harm their baby’s brain. ‘This dubious information is highly unlikely to alleviate stress or depression but rather more likely to increase parental anxiety,’ said Dr Macvarish. ‘Parents are also told they must cuddle, talk and sing to their babies to build better brains. But these are all things parents do, and have always done, because they love their babies. ‘Telling parents these acts of love are important because they are ‘brain-building’ inevitably raises the question of how much cuddling, talking and singing is enough? Such claims also put power in the hands of ‘parenting experts’ and ultimately risk making parenting a biologically important but emotionally joyless experience.’The study, titled The Uses and Abuses of Biology: Neuroscience, Parenting and Family Policy in Britain, was co-authored by Jan Macvarish and Ellie Lee and Dr Pam Lowe, of Aston University. It was funded by the Faraday Institute’s Uses and Abuses of Biology programme.

US philosopher, John Bruer spoke in March 2014 at a Kent University conference, The Uses and Abuses of Biology, about neuroscience, parenting and family policy in Britain. John believes that babies need somebody to care for them, but it doesn’t matter who that person is; early experiences are important but probably do not set your patterns for life; and young children do not need any special stimulation in order to develop normally.

John Bruer. Photograph: Frantzesco Kangaris for The Guardian

At a time when parent has become a verb, such views verge on the heretical. And certainly that is the way his book, The Myth of the First Three Years, was greeted in some circles. Published in 1999, it was his response to what he saw as the growing influence of neuroscience on parenting and family policy in the US, spearheaded by the Clintons during the 1990s. It dismantled what he describes as the myths behind the misuse of neuroscience by politicians and policymakers. It saw him branded a rightwing mouthpiece. “Where I come from they see me as somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun,” he jokes.

Bruer believes that his criticisms still stand, 15 years after the publication of the book. And they apply increasingly to the UK, where policymakers are drawing on what he sees as the flawed US reports to promote early intervention with disadvantaged families. One of the most popular figures quoted by early interventionists is that “the human brain has developed to 85% of its potential by age three”. But Bruer points out that the figure applies to the “volume or weight of the adult brain. It says nothing about brain capacity.

“But if such arguments are being used to support much-needed help for disadvantaged families, where is the harm? “Yes, people need help,” he says. “And we should do something to provide that help. But the basis for our claims should be reasonable. We have to avoid this implicit assumption that growing up in poverty damages your brain – irreversibly.” Bruer  says he is not arguing that experiences in early life do not have an impact, but says they are “probabilistic, not deterministic. And there are things that can have a considerable impact on changing whatever it was that occurred earlier in life.”

A simplistic focus may also skew public funding to the detriment of other priorities, he warns. “In the States there were people arguing (that) we might as well stop educational programmes in prison because there’s nothing we can do for these people, it’s too late”.

Bruer himself grew up in a working-class family in the then small town of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His father was a postal worker, his mother stayed at home to bring up Bruer and his younger brother. It is clear that his own background has made him question prevailing assumptions. “I think there are these generalisations made by academics who have very little experience of what it’s like to be from a working-class home or an impoverished background, and they are attempting to impose these middle-class views on everybody, and I’m not sure that’s warranted,” he says.

Attempts to reduce the high rate of teenage pregnancy and motherhood in the UK, which is also the highest in Western Europe, are unlikely to succeed if young women continue to face environmental risk and uncertainty.

This was one of the key findings of research from a team that included Sarah Johns. Together with colleagues from the universities of Middlesex and Portsmouth, Sarah investigated how an evolutionary framework might help move UK policy makers beyond an ‘intervention impasse’ on teenage pregnancy and motherhood. Among their conclusions, published in the Journal of Social, Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology, the team found that environmental risk, including factors such as crime and vandalism, is a clear predictor of early pregnancy.

Dr Sarah Johns

It is estimated that the Labour government of 1997- 2010 spent nearly £468 million on various public educational and health initiatives to try and convince teenage girls to delay becoming pregnant or giving birth. However, Sarah and colleagues suggest that, rather than investing in educational programmes, money would be better spent on ‘the maintenance of at-risk neighbourhoods’. This would mean public money being diverted from existing teenage pregnancy unit policies and applied as specifically targeted supplements to local authority council tax budgets in areas with high rates of teenage pregnancy. She said: ‘Government initiatives since 1999 have squandered vast amounts of money, producing only a marginal decrease in teenage pregnancy to just below 40 per thousand. Current approaches are clearly ineffective.’

‘Our view is that the well-established links in evolutionary biology between reproduction and the risk – and the perception of risk – of dying at a younger age, are likely to provide a more effective foundation for understanding and tackling teenage pregnancy. Putting it simply, delaying pregnancy increases the likelihood of never having children, particularly when there is an increased risk of dying young. So if women perceive their future prospects are poor, why should they wait? ‘For us, it is unsurprising that the UK has such high rates of teenage motherhood in comparison to other European countries: the UK is extremely unequal with little social mobility; life expectancy and risk varies greatly, even across a few miles; relative poverty is especially psychologically damaging. ‘Therefore risk and mortality perception will vary greatly between different groups of people. Evolutionary biology predicts that people should be sensitive to this variation when it comes to reproductive decision-making, and having children at a young age is an evolutionary rational decision when such risks are high.

In the most recent round of promotions CISoR is delighted to announce the awarding of personal chairs to Karen Douglas and Robbie Sutton who have just been appointed as Professors of Social Psychology.

Professor Douglas (Karen) is an authority on the psychology of conspiracy theories. Her research is based around the fact that many people are deeply suspicious of medical and scientific developments and the motives and actions of governments (often associated with belief in conspiracy theories). Karen is interested in how conspiracy theories influence health intentions such as those related to reproductive medicine and planned parenthood.

The research of Professor Sutton (Robbie – above) is based on issues surrounding sexism. He has shown that people who revere women as kinder, more moral, and more refined than men tend, ironically, to view women’s rights and welfare as less important than their children’s. This leads to a “maternal sacrifice” ideology where people endorse restrictions on women’s autonomy and their access to medical procedures during pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. Their simultaneous appointment generated especial celebration in their household as they also happen to be married with two children, Jamie (11) and Rose (10).

Many congratulations!

Ellie Lee recently commented in “Spiked online” about the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announcement that it was not going to bring criminal charges against two abortion doctors. The doctors had been secretly filmed by pregnant female journalists from the Telegraph who pretended they were seeking an abortion because they did not want to have a baby girl.

Dr Ellie Lee

The then secretary of state for health Andrew Lansley demanded action. This prompted the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to do spot checks on all abortion clinics in the country, (an unusual action for the CQC which not only whipped up an unhelpful discussion about procedures in clinics for signing the necessary forms to authorize abortion, but also cost around £1million).

Ellie said “The CPS’s decision not to bring charges against the abortion doctors is merely the latest installment in an 18-month-long saga, one in which abortion providers have been under incredible scrutiny. Throughout, we have been repeatedly told that abortion doctors are out of control and act as if they are above the law.”

“The CPS said that while it would be possible to prosecute the doctors, it was not going to do so, partly on legal grounds and partly on ‘public interest’ grounds. In response, those keen to see the abortion doctors charged have spent the week doing as much as they can to paint a picture of an abortion service that is doing Britain’s women, and the wider society, a disservice. They simply cannot believe the CPS dropped the case” Fanning the flames, health secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘We are clear that gender selection abortion is against the law and completely unacceptable… [The refusal of the CPS to bring charges] is a concerning development and I have written to the Attorney General to ask for urgent clarification on the grounds for this decision’.

Self-proclaimed feminists have taken Hunt’s side. Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman wrote: ‘The selective abortion of girls is a crime. Simple as. So why no criminal charges?’ Shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry wrote to the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, expressing her outrage at the decision on women’s behalf.

Ellie Lee became involved in the debate about the risks of drinking while pregnant and her comments were recorded in the Guardian on February 6th of this year. The remarks were in response to a court hearing to decide on the rights of a child to receive compensation because their mother drank while pregnant.

It has been suggested that this could be the start of a process that could ultimately lead to criminalisation of this behaviour in expectant mothers. The case rests on providing convincing evidence that a pregnant mother’s caused criminal harm to her unborn baby. Ellie commented “It is remarkable that these approaches have gained such a hold. What has come to count is not evidence about the effects of drinking, but rather the absence of it. Since it is not known whether drinking certain amounts of alcohol in pregnancy is harmful, it is seen as better to act as though it might be. What is known is that there is an association between drinking a great deal and a specific set of birth defects, but since not all babies born to alcoholic women have these defects there is more to it than alcohol as a substance – for example, nutrition and general health.”

The debate continues with Guardian columnist Rebecca Schiller also quoting the work of Margaret Attwood, Elizabeth Armstrong, and Lynn Paltrow (founder of National Advocates for Pregnant Women) who said ““what is being criminalised is not just the ‘action’ or ‘behaviour’ it is the pregnancy as well. In other words – but for being pregnant – there would be no criminal or civil liability.” She added “So-called pro-life measures are being used in ways that not only violate women’s reproductive rights, but create the basis for depriving them of their constitutional personhood and human rights.”

In December 2013, Dr Jan Macvarish from the, Mariella Frostrup and a panel of expert guests debated what to say to children about sex, when to say it and explore why it can be so tricky in a Radio 4 broadcast. Mariella (left) and her guests explored how adults’ attitudes to children and sexuality colour how they behave as parents. The programme asked if society is dangerously relaxed about the sexualised clothing, imagery and culture surrounding young people or if increased awareness of child sexual abuse in recent years made parents deeply uncomfortable with talking and thinking about children and sex at all.

The programme included Simon Blake, Chief Executive of Brook, a charity offering sexual health information, psychotherapist Viviane Green, Jan McVarish and columnist and writer Giles Coren.

The annual meeting of the Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis International Society (PGDIS) took place at Woolf College,Canterbury campus from 29 April to 2 May 2014. It was attended by more than 300 experts, including IVF pioneer and televisionpersonality Professor Lord Winston.His keynote address and other conference discussions, such as the impact of IVF on embryonic and long-term health, received media mentions across the globe, including the front cover of the Daily Mail, Guardian online, the i, the Washington Star, ITV and Nursing Times.

Professor Darren Griffin and Lord Robert Winston

The conference reunited many members of the original research team, led by Professor Winston and Professor Alan Handyside (currently an honorary member of Kent staff), which pioneered pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in the 1980s and 1990s. Darren Griffin, was one of that team. Darren, who was also the conference chair, gave a presentation entitled ‘Counting chromosomes: from sexing to Karyomapping’ as part of a session looking at early discoveries in the history of PGD and how they have led to more recent innovations. Alongside debate and discussion, the conference showcased announcements of advances in the science of PGD – which involves the genetic profiling of embryos prior to implantation and can be used for the diagnosis of specific disease. Darren said afterwards: “PGD continues to be an exciting, and sometimes controversial area of medicine. This conference addressed the past, present and future of this ever-evolving area of science. We have had a lot of good feedback from this meeting whose legacy will be the place in which a number of ”firsts” were announced.” He added: “I am grateful to all the team, particularly my lab and students on the MSc in Human Reproduction for making it happen”.