June 25, 2018
Daniel Keating Wrote an Op-Ed for CNN on the Psychological & Biological Impact of Separating Kids from Parents
Daniel Keating’s op-ed at CNN.com, Why separating kids from parents is a form of torture, discusses the long-lasting physical and mental damage inflicted on children when they experience toxic stress and trauma:
But the trauma of forced separation from one’s loving family and its lifelong consequences are hard to overstate. The biological impacts are scientifically irrefutable. Toxic stress and trauma quite literally “get under the skin.” They alter brain circuitry and functioning, as well as the way that genes work, through a process known as “epigenetic methylation” that can turn genes on and off. Researchers have only begun to document the many ways that these changes to gene function can wreak havoc on the developing child, including even fetuses. But what we already know is striking.