Various mental illnesses share genetic similarities, study shows

By HealthDay News

More than half of people with mental illness have two or three conditions, and about one-third have four or more, which can make identification and treatment difficult. 

Photo by tiyowprasetyo/Pixabay

Many people who get a diagnosis for one mental illness may find they have additional psychiatric conditions, and new genetic research offers an explanation why.

A number of mental illnesses share genetic similarities, researchers found. This discovery helps explain why multiple conditions are common among people with psychiatric disorders, the investigators pointed out in a new study.

More than half of people with mental illness have two or three conditions, and about one-third have four or more, which can make identification and treatment difficult.

However, the new findings could lead to new ways of diagnosing mental illness and new therapies for a number of disorders at one time, according to the study authors.

"If you had a cold, you wouldn't want to be diagnosed with coughing disorder, sneezing disorder and aching joints disorder," said study lead author Andrew Grotzinger. He is an assistant professor in the department of psychology and neuroscience at University of Colorado at Boulder.

"This study is a stepping stone toward creating a diagnostic manual that better maps on to what is actually happening biologically," Grotzinger said in a university news release.

Using genetic material donated by hundreds of thousands of people to large datasets, the researchers conducted a genetic analysis of 11 major mental illnesses: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, anorexia nervosa, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, problematic alcohol use, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism.

There is no gene or set of genes associated with all 11 disorders, but the researchers found that a number of subsets have genetic similarities. Those subsets include bipolar disorder and schizophrenia anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder and major depression and anxiety.

For example, 70% of the genetic signal associated with schizophrenia is also associated with bipolar disorder. But under current diagnostic guidelines, people aren't typically diagnosed with both disorders, the study team noted.

The researchers also found strong shared genetics between anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and that people genetically predisposed to a smaller body type or low body mass index also tend to have a genetic predisposition to these disorders.

In total, the researchers identified 152 genetic variants shared across multiple mental health disorders, including variants already known to affect certain types of brain cells.

Much more research is needed to pinpoint the exact effects of the gene variants identified in the study, but just understanding the genetics underlying their disorders may provide comfort to some patients with multiple mental health disorders, Grotzinger said.

"It's important for people to know that they didn't just get a terrible roll of the dice in life - that they are not facing multiple different issues but rather one set of risk factors bleeding into them all," he added.

The results were published recently in the journal Nature Genetics.

More information

Mental Health America has more on mental health conditions.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Study: Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine saved 110,000 lives in United States in 2021

By HealthDay News

Use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine prevented more than 110,000 deaths and 690,000 hospitalizations in the United States in 2021, researchers report.

 File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

As the United States mourns 1 million deaths from COVID-19, a new study indicates the grim tally could have been worse. Use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine prevented more than 110,000 deaths and 690,000 hospitalizations in the country in 2021, researchers report.

The vaccine also prevented 8.7 million symptomatic cases of infection and saved more than $30 billion in health care costs and more than $40 billion in lost productivity, the study authors noted.

"The analyses show that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine contributed substantial public health impact in the U.S. in 2021, and had a deep effect on the trajectory of the pandemic," said Manuela Di Fusco, of Pfizer's health economics and outcomes research team.

The Pfizer vaccine was the first COVID-19 shot available in the United States. It was given to nearly six in 10 people nationwide who were fully vaccinated in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The findings were published online Sunday in the Journal of Medical Economics. All of the study authors received funding from Pfizer either as employees, consultants or employees of firms paid by Pfizer.

Despite the use of COVID-19 vaccines, the U.S. death toll during the pandemic neared one million last week.

"We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible," Biden said.

In this study, researchers estimated the impact of the Pfizer vaccine using a model, real-world data and clinical trial data.

The model used data on the number of people vaccinated, the effectiveness of the vaccine in various age groups, and the chances of being infected, developing symptoms and being hospitalized.

It also included the effects of long COVID, the number of working days likely lost due to short-term illness and the economic impact of premature deaths from the disease.

The model did not include the impact of the more transmissible Omicron variant that became the dominant coronavirus strain at the end of the study period.

The vaccine "was estimated to prevent millions of COVID-19 symptomatic cases, thousands of hospitalizations and deaths, and generated billions in societal economic value in the U.S. in 2021," Di Fusco said in a journal news release.

The findings "highlight the opportunity to continue widespread vaccination uptake to prevent COVID-19-related disease and generate societal benefits," she added.

A number of limitations could have resulted in the numbers in the study being underestimates, according to Di Fusco and colleagues. These include not factoring in the vaccine's potential to reduce transmission of the coronavirus, the severity of cases and the overall impact of long COVID .

The researchers also noted that their findings can't be applied to other COVID-19 vaccines or groups of people not specifically analyzed in the study.

More information

There's more on COVID-19 vaccines at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

New Zealand announces 'landmark' 15-year climate change action plan

Part of New Zealand's plan to combat climate change includes the clean car upgrade program, which allows families to swap their old vehicles for electric or hybrid upgrades, including assistance to pay for the new vehicles. 

Photo by Sarah Silbiger/UPI | License Photo

May 16 (UPI) -- In a major step forward for New Zealand's commitment to climate change action, the country's government announced Monday its 15-year plan to end fossil-fuel reliance, reduce landfill-bound waste and assist some drivers with buying electric vehicles.

The comprehensive plan to tackle climate emissions includes a cap on how much greenhouse gas New Zealand can emit, allowing the nation to meet its goals of helping limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

About $4.5 billion from the country's emissions trading scheme went toward establishing the climate fund.

In a statement, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called the announcement a "landmark day" in her country's transition to lower emissions, the New Zealand Herald reported.

"The emissions reduction plan delivers the greatest opportunity we've had in decades to address climate change," Ardern said. "We can't opt out of the effects of climate change, so we can't opt out of taking action."

Climate change minister James Shaw said the action plan would put New Zealand on a path toward a net-zero future where the transport infrastructure would improve, more people could purchase electric vehicles and farmers could grow crops using more sustainable practices, according to the Guardian.

The clean car upgrade program included in the plan seeks to transform 30% of the light vehicles on New Zealand roads -- including cars and vans -- into zero-emissions vehicles.

The program, targeted at lower- and middle-income families, will offer a "scrap and replace" trial of trading in their vehicles while receiving cheaper-to-operate electric or hybrid vehicles in return.

Transport minister Michael Wood anticipates the program, toward which $1.2 billion has already been allocated, will lower emissions to an equivalent of taking 181,000 cars off the road through 2035.

Study: Children living in poverty face higher risk for intensive care admission, death

A new study suggests children of color and those living in poverty are at higher risk for death after hospitalization. 

Photo by skeeze/Pixabay

May 16 (UPI) -- Children living in under-served neighborhoods in the United States who are hospitalized for any reason are at higher risk for being admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit and dying while there, a study presented Monday found.

Black children treated in hospital pediatric intensive care units nationally are also more likely to die than those of other races and ethnicities, the analysis of Medicaid data presented during the American Thoracic Society's international conference in San Francisco showed.

Children covered by Medicaid from households with the lowest income levels were 21% more likely to be admitted to hospital pediatric intensive care units compared to those living in higher-income households still receiving Medicaid, the data showed.

Once in the pediatric intensive care unit, or PICU, they were 12% more likely to die, the researchers said.

Compared with White children on Medicaid, Black children who receive the government-funded health insurance for people with low incomes were 15% more likely to be admitted to the PICU and 18% more likely to die there, according to the researchers.

"It is clear that children living in underserved areas and racial or ethnic minority groups are at higher risk of death in intensive care," study co-author Dr. Hannah Mitchell said in a press release.


"It is important that doctors working in this field understand this and investigate why this is happening," said Mitchell, a fellow in critical care medicine at Evelina Children's Hospital in London.

RELATED 1 in 3 U.S. children lack adequate health insurance, study finds

The findings are based on an analysis of Medicaid claims data collected between 2007 to 2014 from 12 states nationally, the researchers said.

The researchers used patient ZIP codes to pinpoint areas of "local socioeconomic deprivation," based on the percentage of the population living below 150% the federal poverty line, they said.

Among more than 4 million patients age 21 years and younger included in the study, nearly 275,000 were admitted to a hospital PICU and 2.5% of them ultimately died there, the data showed.

RELATED Low-income children receive sub-par care for brain injuries, study says

Of those treated in hospital PICUs, 44% were White and 32% were Black, the researchers said.

Previous studies have suggested that children from low-income families receive worse medical care for everything from appendicitis to brain injuries.

"Children coming from underserved areas might be more likely to receive care in lower quality hospitals [and] once in the hospital, certain children might be more likely to be treated differently by doctors," Mitchell said.

"More research is needed to understand which of these is the main driver of disparate outcomes, so that targeted interventions can be developed to try to help deal with the problem," she said.

CAPITALI$M KILLS
COPD risk higher among people exposed to pesticides at work

By HealthDay News

A recent study found that workplace exposure to pesticides at any point was associated with a 13% increased risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Photo by ernestoeslava/Pixabay

Workplace exposure to pesticides may boost a person's risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a new study finds.

COPD is a group of lung diseases that cause airflow blockage and breathing problems. Emphysema and chronic bronchitis are the two main types of COPD. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control 


"In a large population-based study, occupational exposure to pesticides was associated with risk of COPD," the study authors conclude. Efforts to reduce workplace exposures "can prevent the associated COPD burden," the team concluded in their report published online recently in the journal Thorax.

This added risk is separate from smoking and asthma, two major risk factors for COPD, the researchers noted in a journal news release.

Workplace exposures are important preventable causes of COPD, and an estimated 14% of COPD cases are work-related, the researchers explained.

But it can be challenging to pinpoint which jobs and work exposure levels might pose the greatest risk, according to the team led by Sara De Matteis of the National Heart & Lung Institute at Imperial College London, in England.

To learn more, her team looked at more than 94,500 40- to 69-year-olds in the United Kingdom. Most had never smoked (59%) and just 5.5% were current smokers. About 11% had been diagnosed with asthma.

Overall, 8% had COPD. That included 17% of current smokers, 9% of former smokers and 7% of never-smokers.

Just over 4% of those with COPD and 3.5% of those without COPD had been exposed to pesticides at work. But 48% of those with COPD and 47% of those without COPD had been exposed to several agents, including biological dusts, mineral dusts, gases and fumes, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, aromatic solvents, chlorinated solvents, other solvents and metals.

Most study participants had low levels of exposures to these agents at work, the study authors noted.

After accounting for potentially significant factors, the investigators concluded that workplace exposure to pesticides at any point was associated with a 13% increased risk of COPD. A combination of long-term and high level of exposure was associated with a 32% increased risk.

No significantly increased risk of COPD was observed for any of the other workplace agents included in the study, including dusts and metals, the team reported.

The researchers noted that because this was an observational study, it doesn't prove cause and effect. They also said they couldn't pinpoint the effects that particular pesticides had on COPD risk.

More information

To learn more about COPD, visit the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM
Common lung function test often misses emphysema in Black men

By HealthDay News

Investigators found that many Black men who were considered to have normal results after race-specific interpretations of a common lung function test called spirometry actually had emphysema when assessed using computed tomography (CT). Photo by Hosse/Wikimedia Commons



Emphysema is missed more often in Black Americans than in White Americans, and now researchers report they have figured out why.

The investigators found that many Black men who were considered to have normal results after race-specific interpretations of a common lung function test called spirometry actually had emphysema when assessed using computed tomography (CT).

Emphysema involves the gradual destruction of lung tissue and is often associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Spirometry measures how much air a person can exhale and inhale. It's standard practice to interpret spirometry results using race-specific norms, resulting in a predicted lower limit of normal for FEV1 and FVC for Black patients, the study authors explained. FEV1 (forced expiratory volume in the first second) is the maximum amount of air a person can exhale in one second and FVC (forced vital capacity) is the maximum amount exhaled after breathing in deeply.

Race-based correction of spirometry has no biological basis and comes from an old mistaken belief that Black people have smaller lungs, the study authors pointed out.

For the study, the researchers examined the results from more than 2,600 Black and White men who had lung CT scans at an average age of 50 and spirometry at an average age of 55.

The study showed that nearly 15% of the Black men with above-normal spirometry results based on race-based adjustments were found to have emphysema on CT scans, compared with just under 2% of White men.

"We found that significant racial disparities in emphysema prevalence occur predominantly among those with FEV1 between 80% and 120% of that predicted," said study author Dr. Gabrielle Liu. She is a pulmonary and critical care fellow at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

"This suggests that the greatest potential for misclassification using race-specific equations occurs among Black adults who are at risk for disease and who could potentially benefit from risk factor modification," said Liu, who was scheduled to present the findings May 15 at the American Thoracic Society annual meeting in San Francisco. Such findings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

"We feel these findings support reconsidering the use of race-specific spirometry reference equations in favor of race-neutral reference equations, and support further research into the utility and implications of incorporating CT imaging into the evaluation of those with suspected impaired respiratory health and normal spirometry," Liu said in a meeting news release.

More information

There's more on emphysema at the American Lung Association.

Eliminating air pollution would save 50,000 lives annually in US, study estimates

Eliminating air pollution could save more than 50,000 lives in the United States annually, a new study estimates. File photo by akiyoko/Shutterstock.

May 16 (UPI) -- Completely eliminating air pollution from energy production in the United States could prevent more than 50,000 early deaths each year, a study published Monday estimates.

It would also save the country more than $600 billion annually, thanks to fewer pollution-related illnesses and deaths, the data published Monday by the journal GeoHealth showed.

About 70% of the benefits sustained by bringing air pollution levels to zero remain in the region in which this has been accomplished, the researchers said.

The findings suggest that shifting to clean energy sources would potentially benefit public health while also helping to mitigate the effects of climate change, they said.

RELATED Improved air quality slows brain function decline in women, study finds

"Transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner sources of energy production can produce health benefits from improved air quality in the near-term while also providing climate benefits in the longer term," study co-author Dr. Jonathan Patz told UPI in an email.

"My hope is that our research findings might spur decision-makers grappling with the necessary move away from fossil fuels, to shift their thinking from burdens to benefits," said Patz, who is director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

The findings are based on the removal of fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, which is a mixture of microscopic solid substances and liquid droplets found in the air, including dust, dirt, soot and smoke, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

These pollutants are generated by electricity generation, transportation, industrial activities and building functions such heating and cooking, all of which rely on burning fossil fuels, including coal, oil and natural gas, Patz and his colleagues said.

The researchers derived their estimates from national data on emissions, chemical processes, weather patterns and population health, using a tool developed by the EPA that can predict air pollution at the county level, they said.

Previous studies have linked air pollution in cities with 1.8 million deaths globally each year.

RELATED Air pollution in cities causes 1.8 million deaths globally each year, studies find

Exposure to high levels of air pollution may increase a person's risk for heart and lung diseases as well as dementia and arthritis, research suggests.

About 99% of the worldwide population live in regions with poor air quality, according to the World Health Organization.

Based on the estimates from this study, complete removal of PM2.5 pollutants would save about 53,200 lives and $608 billion in healthcare costs and loss of life annually, the data showed.

"Decarbonizing the U.S. energy system would provide enormous health benefits from improved air quality," study co-author Nick Mailloux told UPI in an email.

"There are clear pathways to a nearly emission-free electricity sector, for example, but emissions from other sources such as aviation will be harder to abate," said Mailloux, a graduate student at the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment at the University of Wisconsin.

Study: Survivors of wildfires face greater risk of cancer
By Denise Mann, HealthDay News

"We saw a consistent signal for lung and brain cancer risk among people who live near wildfires," study author Scott Weichenthal said. 

File Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI | License Photo

Wildfires, like the one raging in New Mexico, are known to cause upticks in breathing issues and heart attacks in their immediate wake for folks who live nearby.

Now, new Canadian research shows that these fires may also increase the risk for lung and brain cancer over time.

People who lived within about 30 miles of wildfires over the prior 10 years were 10% more likely to develop brain cancer and had a 5% higher risk for lung cancer, compared to folks living further away from these fires.

"We saw a consistent signal for lung and brain cancer risk among people who live near wildfires," said study author Scott Weichenthal, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University in Montreal.

"We know that a whole range of carcinogens are released during wildfires that may increase the risk for these cancers."

Wildfires typically begin in forests, grassland or prairies, and are often caused by campfires left unattended, still-lit discarded cigarette butts, sparks from power lines, or arson.

These fires tend to occur in similar parts of the country, so people living in these areas can be continuously exposed to the potentially cancer-causing wildfire pollutants, the study authors noted.

RELATED Worsening drought fuels 'catastrophic' wildfires in New Mexico

Making matters worse, "wildfires are occurring more frequently, covering larger parts of the country, and wildfire season is starting earlier," Weichenthal said. These changes are likely due to global warming and climate change, he believes.

For the study, Weichenthal and his colleagues (including doctoral student Jill Korsiak, who led the analysis), tracked 20 years of data on more than 2 million Canadians to learn more about how wildfires affect people's risk for certain cancers.

The study wasn't designed to look at specific toxins in smoke that may increase cancer risks. "There's still a lot to learn about the kind of pollution that sticks around after the fire," Weichenthal said.

RELATED New Mexico wildfire exceeds 176,000 acres officials urge residents to evacuate

It's not just about outdoor air pollution: "Wildfires also pollute water, soil and indoor air," he noted.

Dr. Mary Prunicki, who reviewed the new study, stressed that "we know more about the short-term effects of wildfires than we do about their long-term impact." She directs air pollution and health research at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

On the day of and days immediately following a wildfire, there's an uptick in hospital visits for asthma attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations, and other lung conditions, Prunicki said.

"There is a strong literature showing an increase in heart attacks, cardiac arrests and strokes among people who have been exposed to wildfire smoke, especially those who have a pre-existing condition," she explained.

Anyone living near wildfire smoke may have burning eyes, a runny nose, cough and/or difficulty breathing.

Exactly what's in the smoke depends on what is burning, Prunicki said, but "in general, wildfires contain small particulate matter that can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause health problems.

"There are various toxins that could be in the smoke that have already been associated independently with increases in lung cancer, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs]," she added.

There are steps you can take to protect your health if you live in a part of the country where wildfires are common.

According to Prunicki, these including understanding your indoor air quality, and if it's poor, using an air purifier or a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter in your central air conditioning or heating unit. These filters can help remove pollutants from the air you breathe.

Also, "if you have underlying heart or lung conditions, make sure you have your medication at the ready, too," Prunicki said.

It's important as well to reduce the risk of wildfires when you're enjoying the great outdoors, including dousing your campfire with water until it's cold to make sure it is really out.

The study was published in the May 2022 issue of The Lancet Planetary Health.

More information

Sign up for local air quality notices via the Environmental Protection Agency.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Buffalo shooting: Police say 18-year-old gunman planned longer rampage


A man writes in the street on Monday near the site of Saturday's mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. Ten people were killed and three were injured. 

Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI | License Photo

May 16 (UPI) -- The 18-year-old man who was arrested over the weekend for killing 10 people in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., would have continued his rampage if he hadn't been stopped by authorities, the city's police commissioner said on Monday.

The accused shooter, Payton Gendron, has been charged with murder in the attack Saturday that police say was "racially motivated." Eleven of the 13 victims were Black.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told Good Morning America on Monday that Gendron was planning to continue the gunfire at another store nearby.

"It appeared that his plans were to drive out of here and continue driving down Jefferson Avenue looking to shoot more Black people as he could and possibly go to another store location," Gramaglia said.

Officials have said that Gendron traveled about 200 miles to Buffalo on Friday and "did some reconnaissance on the area and the store" before committing the "absolute racist hate crime."

In a lengthy manifesto that's been attributed to Gendron, he details plans for the attack and makes numerous racist and anti-immigrant remarks. Some outlets have reported that Gendron was fueled by a far-right conspiracy theory known as the "Great Replacement" -- which claims that American leaders are seeking to replace White people with communities of color.

The Tops Grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., is seen on Sunday -- one day after a mass shooting there killed 10 people. The accused shooter is an 18-year-old White man who police believe specifically targeted Black victims.

 Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI

Gramaglia told reporters Sunday that Gendron had contact with police last year after he'd made "generalized threats" at his high school in Conklin, N.Y.

Students at Susquehanna Valley High School also told The New York Times that he'd exhibited odd behavior before graduation last year, which included wearing a full Hazmat suit when in-person classes resumed -- which was interpreted as a dramatic display against COVID-19 safety measures and restrictions.

One described Gendron as intelligent, but said he'd become increasingly less social since elementary school.

"He was always very quiet and never much said anything," Cassaundra Williams said according to the Times.

Other students described Gendron as a loner who sometimes made them feel "uncomfortable" -- while another said she was close to the accused shooter and described him as "sweet" and "kind."

Since the attack on Saturday, relatives have since started to come forward to identify victims.

Of those killed in the attack, six were shoppers and four were employees of the grocery store -- including Aaron Salter Jr., a retired Buffalo police officer who worked there as a security guard.

The family of an autistic employee who was injured, Zaire Goodman, told The Buffalo News that he was shot at close range before Gendron killed a woman he was helping with her cart.

"A couple inches to the left or the right and he wouldn't be here," said Goodman's mom, Zeneta Everhart, according to the News.

"I know his life was spared for a reason, and he has to find out what that reason is."

A Buffalo SWAT team member stands guard at the site of a mass shooting on Saturday at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. 

Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI

Everhart, director of diversity and inclusion in state Sen. Tim Kennedy's office, said her son has returned home after he was treated at a hospital.

The family of 86-year-old victim Ruth Elizabeth Whitfield has retained renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump in anticipation of a possible lawsuit, he said in a statement posted to Twitter.

"We witnessed the deadliest mass shooting of 2022, perpetrated by a self-proclaimed white supremacist who set out to do one thing: kill Black people," Crump wrote.

Crump said he's partnered with other attorneys to thoroughly investigate the shooting.

"These grieving families deserve to know how a white supremacist, so vocal about his hatred, was able to carry out a premeditated and targeted act of terrorism against Black people - all while armed with an assault rifle fitted with a high-capacity magazine," he added.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement after the shooting that the Justice Department would investigate the shooting as a hate crime and an "act of racially-motivated violent extremism."

President Joe Biden condemned the attack after it occurred Saturday and will travel to Buffalo with first lady Jill Biden on Tuesday to meet with families of the victims and the community, the White House said.

Officials with Tops Markets told The Buffalo News that the site of the shooting will remain closed, but will reopen when investigators are finished and the company has provided counseling and support to employees.

The store's closure means that some residents might have difficulty getting groceries, as they don't have any way to get to a store that's farther away. Tops Markets told the News that it's working to arrange a free bus shuttle to help those residents


Buffalo mourns mass shooting at grocery store

A group prays in the street on Sunday near the site of the mass shooting on Saturday at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y.

 Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI | License Photo 

ALL PHOTOS 

Buffalo shooting: Police say 18-year-old Payton Gendron planned longer rampage - UPI.com

Livestreamed carnage: Tech’s hard lessons from mass killings'

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, HALELUYA HADERO and MATT O'BRIEN


1 of 5

A person pays his respects outside the scene of a shooting at a supermarket, in Buffalo, N.Y., Sunday, May 15, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

These days, mass shooters like the one now held in the Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket attack don’t stop with planning out their brutal attacks. They also create marketing plans while arranging to livestream their massacres on social platforms in hopes of fomenting more violence.

Sites like Twitter, Facebook and now the game-streaming platform Twitch have learned painful lessons from dealing with the violent videos that now often accompany such shootings. But experts are calling for a broader discussion around livestreams, including whether they should exist at all, since once such videos go online, they’re almost impossible to erase completely.

The self-described white supremacist gunman who police say killed 10 people, most of them Black, at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday had mounted a GoPro camera to his helmet to stream his assault live on Twitch, the video game streaming platform used by another shooter in 2019 who killed two people at a synagogue in Halle, Germany.

He had previously outlined his plan in a detailed but rambling set of online diary entries that were apparently posted publicly ahead of the attack, although it’s not clear how may people might have seen them. His goal: to inspire copycats and spread his racist beliefs. After all, he was a copycat himself.

He decided against streaming on Facebook, as yet another mass shooter did when he killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, three years ago. Unlike Twitch, Facebook requires users to sign up for an account in order to watch livestreams.

Still, not everything went according to plan. By most accounts the platforms responded more quickly to halt the spread of the Buffalo video than they did after the 2019 Christchurch shooting, said Megan Squire, a senior fellow and technology expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Another Twitch user watching the live video likely flagged it to the attention of Twitch’s content moderators, she said, which would have helped Twitch pull down the stream less than two minutes after the first gunshots per a company spokesperson. Twitch has not said how the video was flagged.

“In this case, they did pretty well,” Squire said. “The fact that the video is so hard to find right now is proof of that.”

In 2019, the Christchurch shooting was streamed live on Facebook for 17 minutes and quickly spread to other platforms. This time, the platforms generally seemed to coordinate better, particularly by sharing digital “signatures” of the video used to detect and remove copies.

But platform algorithms can have a harder time identifying a copycat video if someone has edited it. That’s created problems, such as when some internet forums users remade the Buffalo video with twisted attempts at humor. Tech companies would have needed to use “more fancy algorithms” to detect those partial matches, Squire said.

“It seems darker and more cynical,” she said of the attempts to spread the shooting video in recent days.

Twitch has more than 2.5 million viewers at any given moment; roughly 8 million content creators stream video on the platform each month, according to the company. The site uses a combination of user reports, algorithms and moderators to detect and remove any violence that occurs on the platform. The company said that it quickly removed the gunman’s stream, but hasn’t shared many details about what happened on Saturday — including whether the stream was reported or how many people watched the rampage live.

A Twitch spokesperson said the company shared the livestream with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a nonprofit group set up by tech companies to help others monitor their own platforms for rebroadcasts. But clips from the video still made their way to other platforms, including the site Streamable, where it was available for millions to view. A spokesperson for Hopin, the company that owns Streamable, said Monday that it’s working to remove the videos and terminate the accounts of those who uploaded them.

Looking ahead, platforms may face future moderation complications from a Texas law — reinstated by an appellate court last week — that bans big social media companies from “censoring” users’ viewpoints. The shooter “had a very specific viewpoint” and the law is unclear enough to create a risk for platforms that moderate people like him, said Jeff Kosseff, an associate professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy. “It really puts the finger on the scale of keeping up harmful content,” he said.

Alexa Koenig, executive director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, said there’s been a shift in how tech companies are responding to such events. In particular, Koenig said, coordination between the companies to create fingerprint repositories for extremist videos so they can’t be re-uploaded to other platforms “has been an incredibly important development.”

A Twitch spokesperson said the company will review how it responded to the gunman’s livestream.

Experts suggest that sites such as Twitch could exercise more control over who can livestream and when — for instance, by building in delays or whitelisting valid users while banning rules violators. More broadly, Koenig said, “there’s also a general societal conversation that needs to happen around the utility of livestreaming and when it’s valuable, when it’s not, and how we put safe norms around how it’s used and what happens if you use it.”

Another option, of course, would be to end livestreaming altogether. But that’s almost impossible to imagine given how much tech companies rely on livestreams to attract and keep users engaged in order to bring in money.

Free speech, Koenig said, is often the reason tech platforms give for allowing this form of technology — beyond the unspoken profit component. But that should be balanced “with rights to privacy and some of the other issues that arise in this instance,” Koenig said.

BUFFALO SUPERMARKET SHOOTING


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