Montreal, Canada – Bell announced on August 21 it will be presenting the largest-ever fundraising event for mental health in Québec. Bal des Lumières, to be held March 20, 2013, at the Bell Centre in Montréal will raise funds for the Fondation de l’Hôpital Louis-H. Lafontaine, the Mental Illness Foundation, and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute Foundation.

“Bal des Lumières will set a new standard for mental health fundraising in Montréal and Québec,” said George Cope, President and CEO of BCE and Bell, and Chair of the event. “I’m very pleased to be joined by some of Québec’s most distinguished business leaders in building on the progress of the Bell Let’s Talk initiative and the fight against the stigma of mental illness.”

Joining Mr. Cope as co-chairs of Bal des Lumières are Serge Godin, Founder and Executive Chairman of the Board, CGI; Geoff Molson, Owner, President and Chief Executive Officer, Club de hockey Canadien, Bell Centre & evenko; and Louis Vachon, President and CEO, National Bank. These leaders of Québec industry and culture have joined to shine a spotlight on mental health and raise funds for three of Montréal’s most important mental health organizations.

“The last two years have seen major progress in highlighting mental health while breaking the stigma of mental illness,” said Mr. Godin. “Collectively we are committing to making the next leap in converting awareness of mental illness – which after all affects 1 in 5 of us – into much needed funding for these three leading organizations in Québec mental health.”

Bal des Lumières is the first external charitable gala to be held at the Bell Centre in over five years. Some 700 guests will enjoy an evening of exquisite dining and inspiring entertainment in this unique venue.

“We are very happy to make the Bell Centre available for Bal des Lumières, working together as a team to inspire hope and support the incredible work of Louis-H. Lafontaine, the Douglas and the Mental Illness Foundation,” said Mr. Molson. “This issue touches us all and there can be no better expression of the commitment of our four companies to dedication and commitment of those on the front lines of mental health care here in Québec.”

“National Bank is proud to join with Bell, CGI and the Canadiens to not only raise awareness of mental health but raise funds for those at the forefront of research and care in Québec,” said Mr. Vachon. “With mental health issues the leading cause of workplace disability, costing our economy $51 billion every year, I look forward to seeing every business leader in Québec on March 20.”

The Bell Let’s Talk mental health initiative is a $50-million charitable program based on 4 action pillars: Anti-stigma, care and access, research, and workplace best practices. To learn more about Bell Let’s Talk, please visit Bell.ca/LetsTalk.

Bell is honoured to be named the recipient of the 2012 Freeman Philanthropic Services Award for Outstanding Corporation for the Bell Let’s Talk mental health initiative. The prestigious international award by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) was presented to Bell in March in Vancouver.

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Washington, U.S.A. — The Consumer Council of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization, honored Marc Jacques of Texas and Howard Trachtman of Massachusetts with awards at NAMI’s national convention in Seattle, June 27-30.

Jacques received the Ken Steele Award, recognizing his efforts to empower individuals living with mental illness and improve their lives. He has fought to overcome the stigma associated with mental illness for over 25 years and has become a powerful advocate for the inclusion of recovery principles and language in state policies and service definitions.

Trachtman received the Gloria Huntley Award, recognizing his efforts to eliminate the use of restraints and seclusion in the treatment of individuals living with mental illness. He has chaired the Council’s Restraint and Seclusion Committee for 10 years.

The Consumer Council is an advisory body to the NAMI Board of Directors, consisting of individuals who have or have had a mental illness. Each state and the District of Columbia are represented on the Council.

The Ken Steele Award is named in honor of a national consumer leader who wrote The Day the Voices Stopped: A Memoir of Madness and Hope, about his battle with schizophrenia and advocacy career. He died in 2000.

The Gloria Huntley Award honors a woman who died after being constantly restrained at Central State.

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Toronto, Canada – Researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) led a study discovering a gene for a new form of intellectual disability, as well as how it likely affects cognitive development by disrupting neuron functioning.

CAMH Senior Scientist Dr. John Vincent and his team found a mutation in the gene NSUN2 among three sisters with intellectual disability, a finding to be published in the May issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The discovery was made after mapping genes in a Pakistani family, in which three of seven siblings had intellectual disability as well as muscle weakness and walking difficulties, says Dr. Vincent, who heads the Molecular Neuropsychiatry and Development Laboratory in the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at CAMH.

Intellectual disability is a condition in which individuals have limitations in their mental abilities and in functioning in daily life. It affects one to three per cent of the population, and is often caused by genetic mutations.

Another study in the same journal, submitted together with the CAMH-led research, also identified NSUN2 gene mutations in Iranian and Kurdish families with intellectual disability. As with the Pakistani family, first cousin marriages in these families carrying the mutations increased the likelihood of intellectual disability among their children, and enabled researchers to focus on areas to map genes.

“The combined results from these two studies mean that NSUN2 is among the most common causes of intellectual disability resulting from recessive genes,” says Dr. Vincent.

As a recessive disorder, a child must inherit one defective NSUN2 gene from each parent to develop intellectual disability. This gene, located on chromosome 5p, encodes a type of protein called an RNA methyltransferase.

At the cellular level, the researchers found that the mutated protein was prevented from reaching its target area within the nucleus of a cell. As a result, it was unable to perform its normal role in cell division and/or RNA methylation.

Collaborators from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research in Cambridge, U.K., showed which type of brain cells were likely to be most affected by this mutation. They are called Purkinje cells, a type of neuron that responds to the neurotransmitter GABA. Purkinje cells also control motor coordination, which were affected in the Pakistani family.

“We speculate that the muscle effects may result from the accumulation of the NSUN2 protein outside its target area in the nucleus,” says Dr. Vincent.

To date, Dr. Vincent’s lab has identified five genes causing different forms of recessive intellectual disability.

This research was supported by grants from Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is Canada’s largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital, as well as one of the world’s leading research centres in the area of addiction and mental health. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental health and addiction issues.

CAMH is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, and is a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre.

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Even when something goes horribly wrong, as it did that September day in Tucson, the mental health budget of states are the first to be slashed.  The mentally ill usually do not have large lobbying groups or funds to help direct the voting in Washington.  The mentally ill are not known to be a voting bloc that lawmakers have to fear, such as senior citizens.  The severely mentally ill are usually relying on state and federal funding to survive because their mental illness disabled them to the point of not being able to work.

According to a study from the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors’ Research Institute, states have cut $2.1 billion from their mental health budgets over the last three fiscal years.  And they are likely not done.  More spending cuts are expected in the coming weeks as states finalize their 2012 spending plans.  Another study from the National Alliance on Mental Illness finds that between fiscal years 2009 and 2011, 16 states and the District of Columbia cut their mental health budgets by more than 10 percent.

The reality is even worse than those numbers.  Up to now, federal stimulus money has helped soften the blow by sending in $103 billion to states through Medicaid since early 2009.  The money has helped to keep state-run health insurance program surviving for the past two years, but the money will end this summer.  Meanwhile, because of the economic crisis, the need for mental health services continues to grow.  With more and more unemployed and uninsured, more people are in line for public services—including mental health services.  “The safety net,” says Marylou Sudders, former Massachusetts commissioner for mental health, “is shredded.”

Mental illness is the leading cause of disability in the United States and Canada.  Nearly 6 percent of the U.S. population has a serious mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.  People with severe mental illnesses are more likely to have low incomes because their education was interrupted by the disease, says Elaine Alfano, deputy policy director for the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C. It is difficult for people with severe mental illness to get a job, but add the historic unemployment rates and employers are not going to hire someone with a mental illness.  Their unexplained behaviors can alienate friends and family. Their conditions can be expensive to treat, which puts a hefty burden on the government if they qualify for public support.

According to the state directors’ survey, in fiscal 2010 and 2011, roughly half the states reported reducing the number of hospital beds in state run psychiatric hospitals. They’ve limited the amount of money they pass on to out-patient providers and cut staff everywhere. A third of states say they’ve had to reduce the number of people their programs serve.  The numbers become even more distressing when you look at them state by state.

Mental illness has traditionally been unfunded.  Many of the psychiatric hospitals have closed, but money has not been redirected to community mental health centers in order to provide outpatient care.  We closed the hospitals and then closed our eyes and just pretended the mentally ill did not exist.  Community programs have done the best with what they have.  But, in the end, there is not enough staff to handle the outpatient demands.  This just leads to more hospitalizations, which is expensive.  If we put the money into funding mental illness in the first place, we would save money in the long run.  I know… a novel idea in Washington.  Sometimes you have to spend money to save in the long run.

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In the March edition of Archives of General Psychiatry, results from the first comprehensive global study on bipolar disorder, a serious psychiatric illness were published.  The United States ranked the highest in overall lifetime rates of bipolar disorder.

In the past, bipolar disorder was referred to as manic depression and many people still know it by that name.  Bipolar disorder is a mental illness characterized by cycles of depression and mania.  Manic periods are different for everyone but are often marked by feelings of euphoria, irritability, grandiose thinking, impulsive and risk taking behavior, and a decreased need for sleep.  People with bipolar disorder are at a higher risk for suicide and substance abuse.  They are also likely to be more creative and highly intelligent.  Many artists, comedians, and actors have admitted that they suffer from the disease.

The study, which looked at eleven nations, found that approximately 2.4 percent of people around the world have had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder at some point in their lifetime.  The United States ranked the highest with a lifetime prevalence rate of 4.4 percent.  The country with the lowest rate of bipolar was India with 0.1 percent.

Fewer than half of people with the disorder were treated by a mental health professional, according to the study,and only a quarter of those in lower-income countries sought treatment.  “It’s very important that we understand the scope and magnitude of this disorder so that we can plan appropriate treatments, facilitate recognition of diseases, and identify people at risk so we can bring them into treatment,” says the study’s lead author, Kathleen Merikangas, Ph.D., chief of the genetic epidemiology research branch at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Experts believe there could be several possible explanations for why the U.S. had such high rates of the disease. “It could be genetics; it could be environment. It also could be the way individuals in different cultures are willing to respond to this kind of an inquiry,” says Sara Bodner, M.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “Cultural awareness plays a very big role in psychiatry. Some cultures have a huge reluctance to speak about psychiatric things.”

With awareness, more people are diagnosed and there is less of a stigma to the disease.  “We’re pretty aware of [bipolar disorder],” Merikangas says.  Lower awareness in lower-income nations leads to higher levels of stigma. That means fewer people may be willing to talk about or get treatment for symptoms, which can lead to lower perceived rates of bipolar disorder.  “Rates of bipolar disorder were lower in countries with more stigma,” Merikangas says.

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A new longitudinal study, published on March 1 in BMJ,  suggests that early use of marijuana may trigger psychotic symptoms and prolonged use could increase the risk for psychotic disorders in later life.  There has been a well documented correlation between marijuana use and psychosis; it has been unclear if smoking marijuana preceded psychotic symptoms.

“There are indications that especially people who start using cannabis at an early age (<16 years) are likely to become chronic users and thereby increase their risk for mental health problems, such as psychotic symptoms,” Rebecca Kuepper, research psychologist and PhD student at Maastricht University in the Netherlands said.

This study was uniquely designed to look specifically at the sequential association between incident cannabis use and incident psychotic symptoms.  For 10 years, the researchers tracked 1,923 individuals from the general population of Germany, aged 14 to 24 years at baseline, who had no history of psychotic symptoms or cannabis use at the beginning of the study.  They found that those who started smoking cannabis during the study had nearly twice the chance of reporting psychotic symptoms during follow-up as those who remained cannabis free.  This was true even after accounting for potentially confounding factors, such as age, sex, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and other psychiatric diagnoses.  In addition, cannabis users who reported psychotic symptoms and continued to use cannabis were more apt to have their symptoms linger than those who stopped smoking it. The continued use of marijuana increased the risk for psychotic symptoms more than two-fold.

These results suggest that incident cannabis use increases the risk for the onset of psychotic symptoms “and, if used continuously, increases the risk that those symptoms will persist,” Ms. Kuepper said.  Wayne Hall, PhD, of University of Queensland, Australia, and coauthor of a linked commentary, stated that the pattern of results “makes it unlikely that cannabis use is a form of self-medication of psychotic symptoms and more likely to be a contributory cause of psychotic symptoms.” In the study, psychotic experiences did not predict later cannabis use. Given the current findings and those of earlier studies, “it is likely that cannabis use precipitates schizophrenia in people who are vulnerable because of a personal or family history of schizophrenia,” Dr. Hall and Dr. Louisa Degenhardt, co-authors of the commentary, note.

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The Australian Federal Government has begun to investigate how Australians with mental illnesses can overcome barriers to education, training and employment.

Charity organisations have expressed their support for the new inquiry, with Wesley Mission welcoming the research.
“From our experience and research there is a strong link between mental health issues and the degree of workforce engagement and participation,” the CEO of Wesley Mission, the Rev Dr Keith Garner said.

The committee’s inquiry will concentrate on:

•    Improving access to education and employment services through greater collaboration between government and health, education, training and employment service providers.
•    Strategies to improve the ability of people, families, community members and employers to respond to the needs of people with mental illnesses.

“This inquiry affords the Committee a unique opportunity to inform the Government’s ongoing commitment to mental health care reform and maximizing employment participation,” Committee Chair Amanda Rishworth said.

Dr Garner of Wesley Mission said that employers were often the first contact point for people with mental health issues.
“Employers, educators and employment providers need to be skilled in identifying mental health issues, reducing stigma and developing a knowledge base to refer people to appropriate services,” he said. “The earlier the intervention the greater probability of recovery or sustainable management of the problem.”

In 2010, Wesley Mission released a study showing that 77 percent of people surveyed have either suffered from mental health problems or know a sufferer.

The survey was conducted with more then 2000 people.

“A range of services and support already exist for students, job seekers and employees with mental illnesses. A key focus of our inquiry will be to examine how we can continue to enhance these in order to improve people’s participation in education, training and employment,” said Ms Rishworth in relation to the inquiry’s new aims.

Dr Garner of Wesley Missions said that the survey done by the Mission indicates that there are many sufferers of mental illness, particularly amongst young people, who do not seek formal care.

“One of the reasons is the stigma, the uninformed community attitudes which make sufferers ashamed to admit the way they feel. We need people to feel free enough to access help and access it early,” said Dr Garner.

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