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  • Did The CDC Overestimate The Number Of Alcohol-Exposed Pregnancies?

    Did The CDC Overestimate The Number Of Alcohol-Exposed Pregnancies?

    A new study suggests that CDC may have inflated the number of pregnancies affected by alcohol use. 

    In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caused a stir by saying that women of childbearing age who aren’t on birth control should abstain from drinking so that they didn’t unintentionally have pregnancies affected by alcohol.

    The CDC said at the time that 3.3 million women were at risk of having alcohol-exposed pregnancies each month. 

    However, a new study finds that the CDC vastly overestimated the number of pregnancies that might be affected by alcohol. 

    “We estimate 731,000 U.S. women had [alcohol-exposed pregnancies] and 481,000 resulted in [alcohol-exposed births],” researchers wrote. “Under our assumptions, the estimated expected actual number of [alcohol-exposed pregnancies] is 2.5 million less than the CDC estimate of the number at risk of an [alcohol-exposed pregnancies].” 

    The study, published in the January edition of the journal Women’s Health Issues, was led by researchers Sarah Roberts and Kristen Thompson from the University of California San Francisco’s Department of Gynecology. They used the same data set that the CDC did, but they adjusted how the number of alcohol-affected pregnancies were calculated. They also considered that because of miscarriage and abortion, not all pregnancies lead to births. 

    In the original calculations, the CDC assumed that any woman who both had an alcoholic drink and who had unprotected sex in the previous month could have a pregnancy affected by alcohol. However, this inflated the number of pregnancies affected, Roberts told Quartz. 

    “That’s not the right way to do this,” she said. 

    The calculations gave the maximum number of alcohol-exposed pregnancies that could possibly occur, rather than a more realistic, likely estimate, Roberts explained. 

    In the new calculations, researchers raised the number of drinks a woman had to have to be considered “at risk” from one to seven. Roberts said this reflects the CDC’s classification of what level of drinking is considered potentially harmful. They tempered the likelihood of pregnancy resulting from unprotected sex using national data that shows that just 38% of unprotected sex leads to pregnancy, and 64% of those pregnancies lead to births. As a result, the study estimated the amount of pregnancies actually affected by alcohol as less than 25% of the original CDC estimate.  

    The high number the CDC put out “contributed to a sense of moral panic around the topic,” Roberts said. In the future, it’s important that the agency take a more wholistic and realistic picture of the risk of drinking and unprotected pregnancy. 

    “It would be great if future efforts could take into account this method,” she said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Steven Tyler, Jason Isbell & Other Sober Musicians Share Their Stories

    Steven Tyler, Jason Isbell & Other Sober Musicians Share Their Stories

    A group of famous sober musicians discussed their past addictions and getting sober for a new GQ profile.

    Famous musicians aren’t known for being a sober bunch, and yet many successful musicians are in recovery. Recently a group of sober musicians spoke with GQ about how they are surviving and thriving in recovery.

    Joe Walsh, 71, guitarist for The Eagles, said that even after decades of Alcoholics Anonymous he still lives day by day.  

    “I have 25 years of sobriety,” he said. “But the important thing is, I haven’t had a drink today.”

    Aerosmith’s frontman Steven Tyler, 70, said that his experience with drugs started with marijuana. 

    “I grew up in the woods listening to the wind. It was just the silence and Mother Nature, no one around—it was an awful lot of magic there,” he said. When I started smoking weed, in ’65, ’66, it kind of enhanced those magic feelings.”

    Walsh said he turned to drugs to help him ease symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder and Asperger’s. The relief was instant, he said.

    “I felt like Superman onstage, and I played that way. I thought cocaine and alcohol was the combination, and it was just a kid trying to feel better. And I chased that initial solution to my problems for 30 years or so,” he said. 

    Tyler said that living the rockstar lifestyle made drugs feel like a natural part of life. 

    “You have a shot of Jack Daniel’s and you play Madison Square Garden and you get offstage and you go clubbing with Jimmy Page—come on,” he said. “After two encores in Madison Square Garden, you don’t go and play shuffleboard. Or Yahtzee, you know? You go and rock the fuck out. You’ve done something that you never thought you could, and you actually think that you are a super-being.”

    Over time, however, the drug use came to interfere with the art, Tyler said. 

    “It absolutely works for a while. But then things go wrong. You become addicted, it’s something you do all the time, and suddenly it starts influencing your greatness,” he said. 

    Still, Tyler was afraid that getting sober would affect his work. 

    “I thought I would lose my creativity,” he said. 

    Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell, 39, said that before he got sober he told himself he was afraid he would lose his art. However, he realized afterward that he was making excuses. 

    “Now I know what was really scaring me was just the thought of getting sober,” he said. “The addiction in your brain, that’s a tricky son of a bitch. It had me convinced for a long time that I wasn’t going to enjoy my life, that nobody was going to enjoy being around me if I wasn’t raising hell all the time.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Artie Lange’s Celeb Friends Beg Him To Get Sober

    Artie Lange’s Celeb Friends Beg Him To Get Sober

    A group of sober comedians and actors took to Twitter to ask Lange to get help for his addictions.

    Artie Lange became well-known for his long-running gig as a sidekick and comedian on the infamous Howard Stern Show. Lange is now in the spotlight for his long-running struggle with addiction as his famous pals plead with him to go to a rehabilitation center and accept help.

    Comedians are understood to often have a dark side, and many famous comedians have succumbed to the disease of addiction, including John Belushi, Chris Farley, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Hedberg and Greg Giraldo.

    In December, Lange narrowly escaped jail time after testing positive for cocaine and amphetamine. In June 2018, Lange was given four years’ probation after pleading guilty to heroin possession found during a 2017 traffic stop.

    In December 2018, Lange shared on Instagram a photo of his self-proclaimed “hideously deformed” nose, which, according to Fox News, is the end product of accidentally snorting broken glass mixed into Oxycontin as well as almost 30 years of drug abuse.

    Lange’s friends and colleagues were quick to respond.

    Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Richard Lewis, who has been sober since 1994, tweeted out to Lange, “Artie, this is my 1000th request over decades to beg you to surrender to your addictions. We had the most laughs sober. I love you. You’re beloved and a magnificent comedian cursed with self loathing and fear. Give it up and live.”

    Comic Jackie Martling added, “coming up to 18 years [sober] in May. in early 2001 I’d have laughed at the idea of not drinking for 18 *days.* Art, I know you know the laughs are just as hearty on this side. I love you and am of course 100% in your very crowded corner.”

    Patton Oswalt, a famous comedian who had roles in The King of Queens and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. followed up with support: “What Richard said. Come ON, Artie.”

    Final Destination actor Devon Sawa added his experience, “Sober for 12 years. My life changed. Things just keep getting better and better and better…..”

    Maurice LaMarche joined the chorus, saying, “I’m echoing @TheRichardLewis. Artie, it CAN be done. Richard’s living proof.”

    He added, “And now I’m echoing @markschiff. While we’re on the subject, I too stopped trying the desperate experiment of the first drink or drug on 1/20/89. (This is sounding like a show @JerrySeinfeld might create: Comedians In Meetings Getting Sober) C’mon, Artie. Join us. You can do it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Mass Overdose In California Leaves One Dead, 12 Hospitalized

    Mass Overdose In California Leaves One Dead, 12 Hospitalized

    “Every indication is that this mass overdose incident was caused from the ingestion of some form of fentanyl in combination with another substance,” said a police chief at the scene.

    The synthetic opioid fentanyl is most likely responsible for a cluster of overdoses in one Chico, California house. One person died after overdosing and four are in critical condition; a total of 12 people were taken to the hospital. 

    According to NPR, Chico police are fairly sure the mass overdose was caused by the use of fentanyl, in combination with another substance.

    “Every indication is that this mass overdose incident was caused from the ingestion of some form of fentanyl in combination with another substance. That is yet to be confirmed, but we do anticipate confirmation in the coming days,” Chico Police Chief Michael O’Brien said.

    According to Anna Lembke, MD, fentanyl (a synthetic opioid pain reliever) can be 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin. Lembke gives this chilling example: “If you ingest a ‘bag of heroin,’ which is typically 100 mg of heroin, and that bag contains 20% pure fentanyl in place of heroin, you will be ingesting the rough equivalent of 2,000 mg of heroin, enough to kill even a highly tolerant user.”

    Chico Fire Department Division Chief Jesse Alexander said it was the largest mass casualty incident he had seen in years, with six people receiving CPR simultaneously.

    Chief O’Brien reported on the crime scene. “Upon arrival, Chico police officers found multiple individuals in what appeared to be life-threatening, overdose conditions. . . . Officers began to both administer CPR and also naloxone to those individuals. . . . Unfortunately one male individual was pronounced dead at the scene.”

    Chico officers began carrying naloxone on their person one year ago, according to CNN, and in this case lives were saved with the opioid-reversing drug. Police Chief O’Brien reported that officers administered CPR and six doses of naloxone.

    After working the crime scene, two officers reported feeling fentanyl-like symptoms from possible exposure and were treated and later released from a local hospital.

    The Chico Enterprise-Record reported that all of the people hospitalized were over the age of 18, with most of them appearing to be in their 20s. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that in 2017 there were more than 72,000 drug overdose deaths, with the sharpest increase seen among deaths related to fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (synthetic opioids) for a staggering total of nearly 30,000 overdose deaths. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Smoking, Alcohol Use Linked To Different Brain Areas

    Smoking, Alcohol Use Linked To Different Brain Areas

    A new study suggests that individuals who smoke may do so in order to increase their brain connectivity with nicotine.

    Connectivity in certain areas of the brain may affect smokers’ and drinkers’ tendencies to continue the behavior, new research has found. 

    The study, done by researchers in the department of computer science at the University of Warwick, looked at the neural mechanisms connected to two types of substance use: drinking alcohol and smoking. 

    Researchers studied 2,000 study participants, according to Science Daily. In doing so, they discovered that those who smoked had low connectivity, particularly in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, which is a brain region that is connected with impulsivity.

    This suggests, according to researchers, that individuals who smoke may do so in order to increase their brain connectivity with nicotine, which has a stimulating effect. It also suggests that being impulsive may play a role in beginning and continuing to smoke. 

    In drinkers, researchers noted that there was high overall connectivity in the brain, particularly in the brain region associated with reward, which is the medial orbitofrontal cortex. The stimulation in this reward center, according to researchers, may be what leads some individuals to drink. 

    “Importantly the extent of these functional connectivity changes in the brains of drinkers and smokers correlated with the amount of alcohol and nicotine being consumed,” Science Daily stated. “Critically they were even detectable in individuals smoking only a few cigarettes or drinking one unit of alcohol every day.”

    Researchers also noted that it may be possible to study an individual’s connectivity at age 14 to predict whether they would smoke or drink at age 19. 

    “These discoveries help to show that there are different neural bases of different types of addiction, and that the orbitofrontal cortex, a key brain region in emotion, is implicated in these two types of addiction,” said Professor Edmund Rolls from the University of Warwick. 

    According to Professor Jianfeng Feng, also from the University of Warwick, the findings of this study could be vital when it comes to public health implications. Feng cited a World Health Organization study which states there are 1.1 billion people in the world who smoke and 2.3 billion who drink. He also noted that more than 3 million people die annually due to alcohol use disorder.

    “These are key discoveries that advance our understanding of the neurological bases of smoking and drinking and also provide new evidence on the different neurological mechanisms that are related to these two types of human addictive behavior, smoking and drinking, and these advances have implications for prevention and treatment of these two substance use,” Feng noted. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • US, Canada Issue Travel Advisory For China After Controversial Drug Smuggling Case

    US, Canada Issue Travel Advisory For China After Controversial Drug Smuggling Case

    China has shot back by issuing a travel advisory warning of their own against Canada.

    Canada has warned its citizens to “exercise caution” while in or visiting China after a Chinese court sentenced a Canadian citizen to death for allegedly smuggling drugs.

    The travel advisory, issued on January 14, came on the heels of a similar warning to US citizens from the Department of State on January 3. Both actions have been linked in the media, though not by any of the three countries, to the arrest of a Chinese business executive in Canada on alleged fraud related to US sanctions on Iran, which was followed by the detainment of two high-profile Canadians in China amidst angry salvos and fraying diplomatic relations between all three countries.

    China has shot back by issuing a travel advisory warning of their own against Canada, advising Chinese citizens to “fully evaluate risks” of traveling to the north American country.

    Seemingly at the center of this flurry of activity is Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a 36-year-old Canadian who had been sentenced in 2016 to 15 years in prison for his alleged role in a methamphetamine smuggling operation.

    Schellenberg, who claimed that he was a tourist who had been framed by Chinese criminals, earned a retrial from an appeals court in December 2018. But in a one-day trial on January 14, 2019, the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court declared him a “principal culprit” in the smuggling scheme and imposed the death penalty. Schellenberg is expected to appeal the ruling.

    Canada’s Global Affairs noted that approximately 200 Canadians are currently being held in China for a “variety of alleged infractions.” That number has largely remained stable, according to the department, until the arrest of Sabrina Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on December 1.

    Meng, who is the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, was apprehended at the request of the United States for her alleged role in fraudulent activity related to violation of US sanctions against Iran.

    President Donald Trump has said that he would intervene in the case in the name of preserving US relations with China.

    Nine days after Meng’s arrest, former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor were arrested in China on allegations of “endangering national security,” which the South China Morning Post said was a term used by China to allege espionage. 

    As both The New York Times and Business Insider noted, the ruling has been viewed by foreign policy experts as an attempt to influence Canada’s decision to extradite Meng to the United States.

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on January 14 that Schellenberg’s sentence was “of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply [the] death penalty.”

    Hours after Schellenberg’s sentencing, Canada’s Global Affairs issued the travel warning – the second such advisory from a world power against China in less than a month.

    The United States warned citizens, and in particular, US-Chinese or Americans of Chinese heritage to be aware of “exit bans,” which Beijing can use to “compel US citizens to participate in government investigations, to lure individuals back to China from abroad and to aid Chinese authorities in resolving civil disputes in favor of Chinese parties.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Soulja Boy Denies Drug Use After Fan Accusation

    Soulja Boy Denies Drug Use After Fan Accusation

    The “Crank That” rapper shot back at a Twitter user who accused him of using crack cocaine. 

    People across social media are comparing their photos today with pictures from 10 years ago as part of the viral “how hard did aging hit you” challenge. After a fan used the challenge to compare two photos of Soulja Boy and suggest he was using drugs, the rapper reacted angrily this week. 

    The mashup included an old headshot of the rapper alongside a more recent selfie where Soulja Boy was looking haggard. 

    “I said Soulja Boy looking mad cracky now,” the fan wrote on Twitter. “DIS IS CRACK.”

    Soulja Boy wasted no time responding to the allegations, saying that he is not doing cocaine and that he looked rough in the picture because he was recently in a serious car accident, Vibe reported.  

    “First of all, I want to say, for everybody that’s saying, ‘Soulja Boy look like he’s on drugs. Soulja Boy look bad. Soulja Boy look like he’s on crack, on powder.’ Bitch, don’t play with me like that!” the rapper said in a live video posted to social media. “I ain’t never did crack in my life, bitch. I’m worth muthafucking $30 million… I never did cocaine in my life.”

    He seemed personally offended by the suggestion that he might be doing drugs. 

    “Don’t be making fun of my fucking appearance and my fucking looks,” he said. “I’m worth 30 million, google that shit. Y’all got me fucked up.” 

    Soulja Boy posted on January 6 that he had been in a car accident during mudslides in California and said that could explain the difference between the two pictures that the fan posted. 

    “I was just in a bad car accident two days ago, bitch, I almost lost my life,” he said. “I hit my fucking face on the fucking dashboard on the car, bitch, and my shit swollen and my teeth, I need surgery and shit.”

    Soulja Boy, who is 28, became a household name back in 2007 when his song “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” topped the charts. Although his name was out of the press for years, he claimed on Twitter that he was the biggest comeback story of 2018, Billboard reported. 

    “I had the biggest come back of 2018 big facts,” Soulja Boy tweeted. “Signed a record deal. Did four new tv shows and signed an endorsement deal with Fashion Nova release my own smart watch and video game console n—az thought it was over for me after all that beef shit. Never count a real one out!”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Attorney General Nom William Barr Says He Won’t Go After Legal Pot

    Attorney General Nom William Barr Says He Won’t Go After Legal Pot

    Despite the fact that Barr would respect state laws in regards to marijuana, some drug policy advocates argued that he should not be made attorney general.

    As the Senate conducted confirmation hearings with President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, most questions were focused on how William Barr would steer investigations into possible collusion between the administration and Russia.

    However, during the confirmation hearings, Barr discussed the need for changing marijuana laws and said that he would not go after states that allow the legal sale of cannabis, a marked change in policy from that of previous Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 

    “I’m not going to go after companies that have relied on the Cole memoranda,” Barr said during the hearings, according to Rolling Stone. “My approach to this would be not to upset settled expectations.”

    The Cole Memorandum was signed in 2013 under President Obama. In it, United States Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole directed federal attorneys not to prosecute marijuana crimes in states that had legalized use. In essence, the memo meant that the federal ban on marijuana would not be enforced in states that had laws legalizing cannabis. However, the memo was rescinded last year by Sessions, who took a hardline stance on cannabis and wanted to stop recreational use in the states. 

    During his hearing, Barr said that it is time for the country to have a more consistent marijuana policy. 

    “I think the current situation is untenable,” he said. It’s almost like a “backdoor nullification of federal law. . . . We should either have a federal law that prohibits marijuana, everywhere, which I would support, myself. . . . If we want states to have their own laws, then let’s get there. And lets get there the right way.”

    Despite the fact that Barr would respect state laws in regards to marijuana, some drug policy advocates argued that he should not be made attorney general. Barr, in the past, has made statements against criminal justice reform and in favor of mandatory minimums that can hurt people with substance use disorder, the Drug Policy Alliance said in a press release. 

    “Trump is appointing someone who has long been a cheerleader for mass incarceration and the war on drugs. It shows the Administration’s true colors and undermines any recent criminal justice reforms,” Michael Collins, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, said. “Senators from both parties should take Barr to task for his appalling views on drug policy and criminal justice, instead of giving him an easy ride like they did with Jeff Sessions.”  

    During the hearings, Barr did acknowledge that strict enforcement of policies, like those he previously supported, “harmed the black community,” according to USA Today. 

    No matter what the outcome of the confirmation hearings, it seems likely that Barr’s policy on drug enforcement and cannabis will be overshadowed by his perspectives on the Mueller investigation, however. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Meth Resurgence Highlights The Limits Of Addiction Meds

    Meth Resurgence Highlights The Limits Of Addiction Meds

    As the rates of use for methamphetamine and other street drugs rise, providers are realizing the limitations of medication-assisted treatment. 

    Medication-assisted treatment has been heralded as the most effective way to treat opioid use disorder, and the opioid-overdose reversal drug naloxone has been credited with helping to control the rate of fatal overdoses in the country.

    However, while public health officials praise the importance of the pharmaceutical response to the opioid crisis, they are also calling attention to the lack of medical options for treating other types of addiction. 

    Psychiatrist Margaret Jarvis, a distinguished fellow for the American Society of Addiction Medicine, told ABC News that as the rates of use for methamphetamine and other street drugs rise, providers are realizing the limitations of medication-assisted treatment. 

    “We’re realizing that we don’t have everything we might wish we had to address these different kinds of drugs,” she said.

    Dr. David Persse, who directs emergency medical services in Houston, said that while opioid overdose reversal drugs are an important life-saving tool, actually using them on the scene of an overdose can be complicated, since people often have more than one type of drug in their systems, all of which act differently.

    For example, an opioid overdose is characterized by slowed breathing, whereas during a meth overdose the cardiovascular system speeds up, putting people at risk for heart attack and seizures. 

    Even if there were a similar drug to naloxone that could be used to reverse meth use, emergency medical responders would struggle to know which to use, Persse said. 

    “If we had five or six miracle drugs, it’s still gonna be difficult to know which one that patient needs,” he said. 

    Researchers are working on developing medications to treat the use and abuse of drugs other than opioids.

    Last May, the National Institute on Drug Abuse noted that researchers at the Universities of Kentucky and Arkansas developed a molecule that blocks the effects of meth, in a similar fashion to how medications like Vivitrol block the brain’s opioid receptors. 

    However, without addressing the root causes of addiction, these medications can have unintended consequences. Last year, a recovery counselor in Ohio told NPR that she believes the Vivitrol program in her community was contributing to meth addiction. People who were treated with Vivitrol could no longer get high with opioids, so they turned to other means of self-medication, she said. 

    “The Vivitrol injection does not cover receptors in the brain for methamphetamines, so they can still get high on meth,” she said. “So they are using methamphetamines on top of the Vivitrol injection.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Opioid Overdose Deaths Surpass Vehicle Crash Deaths For First Time

    Opioid Overdose Deaths Surpass Vehicle Crash Deaths For First Time

    According to a new report from the National Safety Council, Americans are more likely to die from an opioid overdoses than a car crash.

    An opioid overdose is now a more likely cause of death than even vehicle crashes, according to a recent report. 

    The report on preventable deaths from the National Safety Council found that Americans have a 1 in 96 chance of death due to an opioid overdose, based on 2017 accidental death data. 

    “Drug poisoning is now the No. 1 cause of unintentional death in the United States,” the report reads. “Every day, more than 100 people die from opioid drugs –  37,814 people every year – and many of these overdoses are from prescription opioid medicine.”

    In comparison, NPR states, the chance of death in a motor vehicle crash is 1 in 103. 

    “We’ve made significant strides in overall longevity in the United States, but we are dying from things typically called accidents at rates we haven’t seen in half a century,” Ken Kolosh, manager of statistics at the National Safety Council, said, according to PR Newswire. “We cannot be complacent about 466 lives lost every day. This new analysis reinforces that we must consistently prioritize safety at work, at home and on the road to prevent these dire outcomes.”

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the drug at the forefront of overdose deaths is now fentanyl, which the council addressed in a statement. 

    “The nation’s opioid crisis is fueling the Council’s grim probabilities, and that crisis is worsening with an influx of illicit fentanyl,” the statement read. 

    Causes of death such as motor vehicle crashes and overdoses are different from heart disease and cancer deaths in that they are considered “a preventable, unintentional injury” — a statistic that has increased in the last 15 years, according to NPR. Falls also top the list of preventable causes of death, at 1 in 114, compared to 1 in 119 a year ago. 

    “It is impacting our workforce, it is impacting our fathers and mothers who are still raising their children,” Kolosh said. 

    He added that such deaths often impact people in the “core of their life.”

    “As human beings, we’re terrible at assessing our own risk,” Kolosh said. “We typically focus on the unusual or scary events … and assume that those are the riskiest.”

    Though everyone will die at some point, Kolosh says, action can still be taken to prevent unnecessary deaths. 

    “Your odds of dying are 1 in 1,” Kolosh added. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something. If, as a society, we put the appropriate rules and regulations in place we can prevent all accidental deaths in the future.”

    View the original article at thefix.com