Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Emily Huhman

Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Max Mittleman
Timothy Spurlin

Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White 

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ALANNA BERGER | COLUMN

Keep mental illness out of your criticism
E

arlier 
this 
month, 
Democratic 
presidential 
candidate 
Sen. 
Kamala 
Harris, 
D-Calif., 
found 
herself 
under criticism for laughing and 
responding “well said” to a voter’s 
question in which they referred to 
President Donald Trump’s actions 
as “mentally retarded.” Harris has 
since apologized, stating that she had 
not heard these specific comments 
and “that word and others like it 
aren’t acceptable. Ever.” Despite the 
apology, this moment reveals a larger 
societal issue at hand: the widespread 
use of terms relating to mental 
illness to discredit an opponent or to 
otherwise put others down. 
In their criticisms of Trump, 
many of his detractors have levied 
accusations 
of 
mental 
illness 
against 
him. 
The 
left-leaning 
political website Vox referred to 
him as “crazy” in a headline, while 
sports and political commentator 
Keith Olbermann has referred to 
the president as a “psychopath” on 
Twitter. Some have even gone as far 
as to diagnose him with different 
psychological disorders, including 
narcissistic 
personality 
disorder 
and dementia. These comments 
continue to be made, despite the 
absence of any legitimate medical 
diagnosis made public by the Trump 
administration. 
Criticism directed towards an 
individual’s actions on the basis of 
a mental illness is not unfounded. 
Indeed, Trump has engaged in 
many 
questionable, 
damaging 
and puzzling behaviors. However, 
unsubstantiated claims of mental 
illness are harmful to greater society 
as a whole. Regardless of how one 
feels about the president and his 
actions, allegations of mental illness 
and uninformed “diagnoses” of 
different disorders perpetuate the 
stigma of those living with legitimate 
mental illnesses. The use of terms like 
“crazy,” “insane” or “psychopath” 
to discredit someone’s professional 
capacities perpetuate the idea that 
people with mental illnesses are 
incompetent, dangerous, unstable 

or weak. This stigma is ubiquitous 
in American society. When typically 
well-respected 
figures 
such 
as 
politicians or journalists levy mental 
illness accusations to discredit an 
opponent, the stigma is just enabled 
to spread farther and become more 
deeply ingrained. Out of fear of being 
labeled as crazy, some mentally ill 
Americans do not seek treatment for 
their disorders. This trend goes on to 
worsen the suffering and persistence 
of symptoms associated with mental 
health.
Whenever a critic calls upon 
a mental diagnosis to invalidate 
President Trump’s actions, they 
are perpetuating the stigma that 
those with mental illnesses are 
individuals less capable of leading 
productive lives and are a threat to 
society. In fact, Dr. Allen Francis, 
the former head of Duke University’s 
Psychiatry Department, appeared 
on CNN to denounce the misuse of 
psychological terms as criticisms 
of behavior. He said that the 
combination 
of 
accusations 
of 
mental illness and politics can have 
dire consequences for the general 
public, mainly because it stigmatizes 
the mentally ill, who are often 
“well-behaved, well-mannered, and 
good people.” Moreover, he stated 
that “lumping the mentally ill with 
Trump is a terrible insult to the 
mentally ill and they have enough 
problems and stigma as it is.” In their 
efforts to criticize political strategies 
and policies they do not agree with, 
these individuals are unintentionally 
targeting the millions of Americans 
living with a mental illness.
The pejorative use of mental 
illnesses 
and 
terms 
associated 
with them extends far beyond the 
Trump administration. American 
psychiatrists are governed by The 
Goldwater 
Rule, 
barring 
them 
from providing their opinion on 
the mental state of individuals they 
have not personally evaluated under 
their own medical care. The rule 
itself stems from a 1964 libel suit 
by Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., 
against a magazine. The magazine 

had printed an opinion compiled 
by more than 1,000 psychiatrists 
stating that Senator Goldwater was 
mentally unfit for office. Though 
this particular case is over 50 years 
old, the American Psychiatric 
Association maintains it is still 
relevant today. This practice is not 
in place solely to avoid lawsuits. 
Psychiatrists worry that frequent 
unsubstantiated claims of mental 
illness 
without 
any 
physical 
evidence will undermine their 
profession, making clients with 
legitimate diagnoses of mental 
disorders less likely to trust them 
for medical treatment. The cavalier 
usage of medical terms pertaining 
to mental illness cheapens the daily 
struggle faced by the mentally 
ill and in turn delegitimizes the 
treatment process. By doing so, 
patients who already deal with the 
often isolating effects of mental 
illness furthermore feel as though 
they have no resources to help them 
deal with such issues. 
Beyond the realm of politics, 
the colloquial use of mental illness 
in vocabulary continues to have 
harmful effects. Many psychological 
disorders have entered the common 
vernacular as nouns to describe 
different unusual behaviors or 
idiosyncrasies 
in 
individuals. 
Instances such as referring to a 
propensity for neatness as “OCD,” 
changes in demeanor as “bipolar” or 
an occasional inability to concentrate 
as “ADHD” are very common. While 
it is unlikely that people use these 
terms to intentionally diminish the 
very real symptoms of mental illness, 
language is integral to shaping how 
we understand the world. Whether it 
is high-profile politicians seemingly 
condoning the use of slurs against 
people with disabilities, criticisms 
of the president or simple everyday 
conversation, using mental illnesses 
in a casual manner hurts everyone, 
most importantly those struggling 
with such disorders themselves.

Alanna Berger can be reached at 

balanna@umich.edu.

Justin Trudeau fights his biggest enemy: his own image

ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN

BRITTANY BOWMAN | COLUMN

Stop salivating your genetic privacy away
I 

was first exposed to the 
concept of genetic testing 
companies in a Biology 172 
lecture my freshman year. The 
professor at that time stated, 
“This was one of the things I fear 
most about revolutionary genetic 
technology.” 
Since the late 2000s, 23andMe 
has emerged in a brand new field of 
accessible genetic testing. Individuals 
can simply buy a $99 ancestry kit or 
$199 ancestry and health kit from 
the 
company’s 
website, 
deposit 
their saliva into a vial, send it in and 
wait for the results. The company 
can then look at thousands of 
microscopic regions of your DNA 
or sites in your genome. At first, this 
was for discovering quirky traits 
that indicated you were genetically 
predisposed to have flat feet, hair 
photobleaching, motion sickness, a 
unibrow, etc. There isn’t any inherent 
issue with this, but this phase of 
interest did not last long because there 
is much more intriguing information 
to extract from your DNA.
23andMe soon began including 
purchasable packages that would 
allow the consumer to know if they 
were a carrier of certain potentially 
life-changing traits. The “Health 
Predisposition report,” found on 
23andMe’s website, includes results 
for the BRCA1/BRCA2 gene, Celiac 
Disease, 
late-onset 
Alzheimer’s, 
Type II diabetes and more. The 
genomic regions up for analytics are 
often telltale signs of the impending 
onset of metabolic diseases or 
increased risks for breast cancer, 
among hundreds of other examples. 
However, 
any 
product 
that 
is intended by the company as a 
way of preventing or diagnosing 
a disease needs to be deemed safe 
and effective by the Food and Drug 
Administration. So when 23andMe 
shifted their marketing ploy closer 
to diagnoses and individual health 
knowledge, the FDA stepped in. 
In July 2012, the company finally 
began the process of obtaining 
clearance from the FDA to sell the 
kit they had been selling since 2007. 
Fast forward another six years 
to Oct. 31, 2018, when the FDA 
finally “authorize(d) first direct-to-
consumer test for detecting genetic 
variants that may be associated with 
medication metabolism.” The FDA 
recognized that consumers were 
increasingly interested in using 
genetic information to help make 
decisions about their health care, 
but they also pushed that these tests 
needed to be designed in a way that 

still heavily encouraged consumers 
to seek out medical care by a licensed 
physician or health care provider and 
to confirm problematic test results 
using 
clinical 
pharmacogenetic 
testing. 
However, the FDA is missing 
the point. The purchasable options 
23andMe provides are not primarily 
intended to be utilized as medical 
devices, which was the FDA’s cause 
of concern. The kits offered are 
façades for an immense gathering of 
personal information that is taking 
place directly under the noses of 
those who participate. Doesn’t sound 
like a big deal? Perhaps collecting 
the DNA of thousands of consumers, 
analyzing 
their 
genomes 
and 
learning what traits and diseases they 
are disposed to is not particularly 
scary. The problem arises when this 
information is stored within the 
company’s databases permanently. 
Once this information is gathered, it 
could potentially be made available 
to 
pharmaceutical 
companies, 
insurance brokers, employers or 
family 
members. 
Your 
genetic 
information could be used against 
you and is just another step towards 
the total infringement of privacy. 
Think 
about 
huge 
search 
engines like Google. The amount 
of 
information 
stored 
within 
their databases exceeds numbers 
comprehensible to a normal human 
being. Every search query entered 
into the Google search engine 
is stored, right along with the 
individually identifiable information 
oozing from everyone’s laptops and 
networks. This massive store of data 
has undoubtedly become Google’s 
best asset over time. Patrick Chung, 
a board member of 23andMe, 
stated, “Once you have the data, (the 
company) does actually become the 
Google of personalized health care.” 
Eerily analogous to Google’s growth, 
Chung also mentions that “the long 
game here is not to make money 
selling kits, although the kits are 
essential to get the base level data,” 
the goal of 23andMe is to create 
and sustain mass data-gathering 
operations.
There are many pros and cons to 
a database full of millions of human 
genomes. Co-founder of 23andMe 
Anne Wojcicki stated, “I want 25 
million people. Once you get 25 
million people, there’s just a huge 
power of what types of discoveries 
you can make. Big data is going to 
make us all healthier.” 
When you think about hospitals, 
pharmaceutical 
companies 
and 

even the government, genetic 
information on a monumentally 
accessible scale is very likely 
to be an excessively valuable 
commodity. Of course, you consent 
to give your genetic information 
away. You buy the kit, deposit 
your spit in the vial and mail it in 
for analysis. Maybe you read the 
privacy policies, stating that they 
implement measures to ensure 
confidentiality and integrity of 
23andMe data and they do not 
share customer data with any 
public 
databases. 
Specifically, 
23andMe states they “will not sell, 
lease, or rent your individual-level 
information to any third party 
without your explicit consent.” 
Revisiting the Google analogy, 
we’ve all heard 23andMe’s pledge 
before. In the online world of 
storing 
personal 
information, 
companies that strive to obtain 
individually identifying data do not 
deeply care about consent, whether 
it be explicit or implicit. While the 
FDA focuses on whether or not 
the kits produced by 23andMe are 
safe, they fail to address the issue 
looming over all of our heads: What 
are they doing with all the data? 
Think about your relatives: 
There is probably one aunt, uncle, 
cousin or grandparent who has 
sent in their vial of spit. Even if 
you haven’t, the company on the 
receiving end has valuable genetic 
information about you through 
the participation of blood relatives. 
You never consented to handing 
over your genomic information. 
You may be heavily uncomfortable 
with that idea. Things could be 
discovered that you didn’t want 
to know and this knowledge could 
add vast amounts of anxiety to your 
life. Someone could eventually use 
this data against you: insurance 
companies could deny you for a pre-
existing health condition, same with 
employers. Surprisingly, 23andMe’s 
terms of service even states if you 
are “asked by an insurance company 
whether you have learned Genetic 
Information about health conditions 
and you do not disclose this to them, 
this may be considered to be fraud.” 
Ironically enough, they also 
include that “Genetic Information 
you share with others could be used 
against your interests. You should be 
careful about sharing your genetic 
information with others.” 
Except for them, naturally.

Brittany Bowman can be reached 

at babowman@umich.edu.

O

n Dec. 7, 2015, Justin 
Trudeau stood in front of 
the Canadian Parliament 
and 
delivered 
his 
first speech as Prime 
Minister of Canada. 
For Trudeau, the sky 
seemed to be the limit: 
At the young age of 
43, he had helped the 
Liberal 
Party 
win 
back the government 
for the first time in 
nearly a decade, come 
into office with an 
impressive 63 percent 
approval rating and 
promised ambitious government 
reforms, 
including 
more 
transparency and accountability. 
However, 
fast-forward 
to 
today, and things look radically 
different for Trudeau. In a political 
system where incumbent prime 
ministers are strong favorites, 
Trudeau finds himself struggling. 
His Liberals are neck-and-neck 
with 
the 
rival 
Conservative 
Party, and his approval rating 
has dropped into the 20s. As 
with 
most 
political 
issues, 
there is no single component of 
Trudeau’s government to blame. 
Instead, 
Trudeau’s 
struggles 
can be attributed to a multitude 
of factors, most importantly 
his inability to live up to his 
self-created 
political 
brand, 
combined with his vacillating 
positions on climate change.
To begin, it is important 
to 
acknowledge 
that 
while 
Trudeau’s 
government 
is 
obviously far from perfect, it 
has still accomplished a great 
deal in certain areas. One of 
Trudeau’s 
campaign 
pledges 
was to create a gender-balanced 
cabinet comprised of 15 men 
and 15 women, a promise he 
ultimately 
followed 
through 
with. Additionally, while his 
environmental record is far from 
perfect, he has still shown some 
effort to improve environmental 
policy.
Outside 
of 
pure 
politics, 
Trudeau 
has 
also 
been 
enormously effective at crafting 
his personal image, something 
which plays to his strengths. 
Similar to former President 
Barack Obama in the U.S., 
Trudeau worked hard to brand 
himself as a liberal politician 
for the modern era: hip, cool 
and charismatic, with a strong 
social media presence and a 
focus on political values held by 
young people, like diversity and 
environmentalism. For Trudeau, 
this branding was enormously 
effective. His aforementioned 
gender-balanced 
ministerial 
cabinet, his Bhangra-dancing 
and sari-wearing when he visited 
India and his consistent presence 
at 
Canadian 
Pride 
festivals 
are just some examples of how 
well he’s marketed himself as a 
charismatic liberal figure. 
Additionally, 
America’s 
election 
of 
Donald 
Trump 
in 2016 turned Trudeau into 
something of a liberal icon, with 
his good looks, sharp dressing 
and eloquent speeches making 
him a natural foil to America’s 
president. 

Unfortunately for Trudeau, his 
strong personal image is actually 
at the heart of his struggles. 
In 
many 
ways, 
Trudeau’s image has 
actually 
been 
too 
effective, ultimately 
hindering 
him 
once 
real 
political 
concerns are present. 
While 
Trudeau’s 
brand 
represents 
ambitious 
ideas 
and liberal values, 
government politics, 
gridlock and electoral 
concerns have often 
forced him to deviate from his 
stated goals, most likely leaving 
progressive 
Canadian 
voters 
frustrated and disappointed.

Trudeau’s failure to live up to 
his own political hype has been 
apparent in his environmental 
policies. Throughout his tenure 
as 
prime 
minister, 
Trudeau 
has laid out ambitious and far-
reaching 
plans 
for 
fighting 
climate change, and he received 
worldwide 
attention 
for 
his 
proactive role in the negotiation 
of the Paris climate accord. After 
President Trump pulled the U.S. 
out of the Paris climate accord 
in 2017, Trudeau even issued a 
thinly-veiled rebuke, saying, “for 
our part, Canada will continue to 
fight for the global plan that has 
a realistic chance of countering 
it. We have a responsibility to 
future generations and we will 
uphold it.”
However, in contrast with his 
stated goals, Trudeau’s actual 
environmental measures have 
been subdued and disappointing. 
The most glaring example of 
this came in spring 2018, when 
Trudeau’s government decided to 
nationalize the Trans Mountain 
Pipeline for $4.5 billion CSD 
to ensure it was expanded. 
The pipeline, originally built 
in the 1950s, carries oil from 
tar sands in northern Alberta 
to Canada’s west coast, and is 
seen by liberals as an inhibitor 
of Canada’s efforts to become a 
leader in renewable energy and 
environmental activism. Despite 
those issues, and protests from 
First Nations groups over the 
potential concern of oil spills 
on their land, Trudeau went 
ahead 
with 
the 
purchase. 
Though Trudeau’s (somewhat 
convoluted) 
explanation 
for 
nationalizing the pipeline is that 
if Canada can produce more oil, 
it can make more money and 
therefore invest more heavily 
in renewables, it is also likely 

a political move. The pipeline 
provides a number of jobs in 
Alberta, a place where Trudeau 
is historically quite unpopular 
but would like to garner more 
support. Just last week, Trudeau 
skipped a ministerial debate to 
hold the second rally of his 2019 
campaign in Edmonton. 
Unfortunately for Trudeau, 
issues like his environmental 
policies and his mishandling of 
the SNC-Lavalin scandal, which 
ended with the resignation of 
one of his government ministers, 
have emboldened a swath of 
leftist voters who believe he is 
not sufficiently dedicated to his 
stated goals. Both of Canada’s 
other influential leftist parties, 
the 
New 
Democratic 
Party 
(polling around 13 percent for 
the upcoming election) and the 
Green Party (polling around 
10 
percent) 
have 
released 
statements 
demanding 
the 
Canadian government take a 
more aggressive position in the 
fight against climate change. 
The NDP even called Trudeau 
out by name over his proposed 
carbon tax reforms, saying in 
an April 2019 press release, 
“Unfortunately, Justin Trudeau’s 
Liberals have failed to bring the 
provinces together in support 
of a federal carbon tax. At the 
same time, they are asking 
everyday Canadians to do more, 
while practically eliminating the 
carbon tax for some of our biggest 
polluters.”
Ultimately, Trudeau’s problem 
is not that he’s been a bad prime 
minister. Instead, his issue is 
actually that he branded himself 
too effectively, creating hype 
around 
ambitious 
proposals 
which he was ultimately unable 
to follow through on. Thanks 
to this predicament, Trudeau 
has faced attacks from the right 
(he is still a Liberal PM, after 
all) and left, with many liberal 
voters feeling disenchanted with 
Trudeau’s inability to implement 
his lofty goals. 
Trudeau’s image crisis has 
been compounded in recent days 
by a series of revelations about 
his usage of blackface in his 
younger years, something which 
points to a similar problem, but 
on a larger scale: While carefully 
working to portray himself in 
one way, Trudeau has covered 
up or failed to take responsibility 
for actions which go against his 
self-created brand. In regard 
to his incidents with blackface, 
they undercut his strong rhetoric 
on racial equality and call into 
question his devotion to looking 
good versus taking action, much 
the 
way 
his 
environmental 
rhetoric has been undercut by 
his policies in that sphere. 
Ultimately, 
while 
Trudeau 
is still the narrow favorite in 
Canada’s 
upcoming 
election, 
he finds himself in a radically 
different position than he did four 
years ago, with an onerous tenure 
as prime minister shattering the 
golden boy persona he had so 
carefully cultivated in years prior.

Zack Blumberg can be reached at 

zblumber@umich.edu.

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ZACK
BLUMBERG

In many ways, 
Trudeau’s image 
has actually 
been too 
effective

