Query, re Re: Fwd: Contraception - Birth control for drug addicts

[John Thornton]

The first 'crack baby' reporting that I am aware of was Dr. Ira Chasnoff's
article in the New England Journal of Medicine in the Mid Eighties. It was a
small sampling (less than 25) of women and did not control for other factors
like ALL the women drank alcohol and smoked pot and cigarettes during their
pregnancy. This report has since been discredited by Chasnoff himself. The
Lancet analyzed all the 'crack baby' stories submitted to the Society of
Pediatric Research in the Eighties and found few or no harms associated with
cocaine during pregnancy and that studies that reported negligible effects
of cocaine use were better controlled for other factors than studies that
reported serious effects. Cocaine has never been 'proven' to damage a fetus
but urine tests done on newborns born to cocaine users also test positive so
cocaine has to cross through the placenta.

                                        Later -  John T.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > [from the icky Negative Population Growth folks - I think they approve
of this]
> >
> > Washington Post - June 26, 2000
> >
> > Group to Pay Addicts to Take Birth Control
>
> There is such a condition as fetal alcolhol syndrome -- but *is* there any
> such result from cocaine. I once read that this was an urban legend
because
> cocaine cannot pass through the placenta lining. Does anyone know? I mean
> *know*: New York Times, Time Magazine, etc. not accepted as source.
>
> Carrol
>
>