From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: crack babies: not quite a retraction
Date: 13 Oct 1998 07:42:52 GMT

In <19981013023600.17274.00000535@ng112.aol.com> sulacco@aol.com
(Sulacco) writes:

>some time ago i posted a message saying that my professor at school said
>there was no scientific evidence that crack or alcohol caused fetal
>damage. i misquoted him. i spoke with him today and he clarified his
>position.
>
>it is stated that there is damage to a fetus from crack, but not like
>what is alleged to occur. there is not solid evidence that crack causes
>damage to fetuses to the extent that it is portrayed in the media.
>oftentimes the fetus is damaged not only by ingestion of the drug but
>also by poor lifestyle choices made by the mother.


   It's rather the same for alcohol.  People have a fit if a 7 months
gone pregant woman has a glass of champaign, but the truth of the
matter is that fetal alcohol syndrome is a syndrome seen in children of
horribly malnurished lower class women who drink like fish and usually
smoke.  In those cases it's very hard to separate drug effects from
nutritional ones.


>thanks to everyone who responded. could someone please tell me what
>medlines is?


   Medline.  One of the databases in MEDLARS, perhaps the first
computer database service ever to be made available to the general
public.  It dates from about 1971, and is a service of the National
Library of Medicine (NLM), which is an institution (not an institute)
within the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Recently MEDLARS has
been made available "free" to internet users via the National Center
for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), which is a taxpayer funded
coalition of biotech databases in the NLM.  You'll now recognize all
the initials in the internet address for this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed.

                                    Steve Harris, M.D.