USA – Over five hundred babies saved from abortion in Arizona
Nepal – The scary advance of gendercide in Nepal
USA – Planned Parenthood to stop receiving payments for fetal tissue
China – government to end one-child policy and allow two children
South Africa – Proposed new bill to better manage medication backlogs
USA – ‘Health’ supplements send 23,000 to emergency rooms
Swaziland – Missing man found mutilated and stuffed in bags
USA – FDA Issues Warnings on Homeopathy for ADHD Patients
California – Assisted Suicide and Suicide Contagion
Netherlands – Euthanasia on the Rise
Australia – ‘Dr Death’ forced to stop promoting suicide
Belgium – Not enough doctors to staff Belgium’s euthanasia commission
No news today
South Africa – Dutch Reformed Church to recognize same sex marriage
USA – More LGBT Americans come out on Facebook than last year
Canada – IVF success rates improved with stem cells
UK/USA – Novel DNA test could more than double success rates
USA- Baby farming business is exploding
India – New Delhi moves toward banning surrogacy in India
France – UN panel calls for moratorium on editing human genome
USA – Gene editing technique makes pig organ transplants possible
USA – 23andMe to resume supplying health data
USA – A fine way to give blood
Indonesia – Government to use chemical castration for pedophiles
USA – Playboy magazine to stop publishing nude images
South Africa – South Africans’ secret porn viewing habits
Germany – Porn may reduce your brain size
South Africa – Violent porn may be to blame for sexual coercion
USA – Legalizing prostitution is prison for the exploited
UK – Family jailed for trafficking Hungarian women for prostitution
USA – What Amnesty Did Wrong Regarding Prostitution
Australia – Researchers grow organ in Petri-dish
UK – Use of Legal Highs on the Increase
USA – Promising new target for addiction treatment
Switzerland – Study: THC doesn’t reduce postoperative nausea or vomiting
Scotland – Massive rise in heroin and methadone drug problems
USA – New study on the use of “Novel Psychoactive Substances”
Abortion
USA – Over five hundred babies saved from abortion in Arizona
Abortions in Arizona dropped 3.7 percent in 2014, according to a report from the state Department of Health Services. There were 12,900 abortions reported last year, compared to 13,401 in 2013. In between 2009 and 2014, Governer Jan Brewer signed into law 24 life-saving measures that have directly contributed to the drop in abortions. Existing law prohibits partial-birth abortion, late-term abortion, and sex-selection abortions. Arizona also requires a 24-hour waiting period with an ultrasound, informed consent about abortion risks and fetal development, parental consent for minors’ abortions, and medical standards for abortion mills. The state also places a variety of prohibitions on taxpayer funding for elective abortions.
Nepal – The scary advance of gendercide in Nepal
Sex-selective abortion in Nepal is incredibly high, even though the practice is technically prohibited and hardly ever mentioned in Western media. University of Oxford demographer Melanie Dawn Frost was the lead author of a paper in BMJ Open about widespread sex-selective abortion in Nepal since abortion was legalized in 2002. “Nepal has seen one of the most dramatic fertility declines in history, with the total fertility rate falling from 4.1 to 2.6 in just 10 years,” she observed. In the late 2000s (2007-2010) the sex-ratio for second-order births was drastically skewed, with just 742 girls being born per 1000 boys. Prior to legalization of abortion (1998-2000), that ratio was 1021 to 1000.
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/the-scary-advance-of-gendercide-in-nepal/11611#sthash.9veK4aor.dpuf
USA – Planned Parenthood to stop receiving payments for fetal tissue
Planned Parenthood has announced that it will no longer accept any form of reimbursement for supplying fetal tissue, says president Cecile Richards in an open letter to National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis S. Collins. “Planned Parenthood’s policies on fetal tissue donation already exceed the legal requirements,” Ms. Richards wrote. “Now we’re going even further in order to take away any basis for attacking Planned Parenthood to advance an anti-abortion political agenda.” The organization’s critics are far from convinced. David Deleiden of the Center for Medical Progress depicted Planned Parenthood’s shift as “an admission of guilt”. “If the money Planned Parenthood has been receiving for baby body parts were truly legitimate ‘reimbursement,’ why cancel it?” he asked.
China – government to end one-child policy and allow two children
The one child policy introduced nationally in 1979, is estimated to have prevented about 400 million births. Couples who violated the one-child policy faced a variety of punishments, from fines and the loss of employment to forced abortions. The decision to allow families to have two children was designed “to improve the balanced development of population” and to deal with an aging population, according to the statement from the Community Party’s Central Committee. Currently about 30{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} of China’s population is over the age of 50. The total population of the country is around 1.36 billion. “As long as the quotas and system of surveillance remains, women still do not enjoy reproductive rights,” said Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34665539
Alternative Medicine
South Africa – Proposed new bill to better manage medication backlogs
Opposition parties have rallied around the proposal of a new bill that will better manage backlogs in medication and ensure its quality. DA MPL Dr Imram Keeka said the Medicines and Related Amendments Bill looks to rectify the shortcomings of Act 101 from 1965. Keeka said the bill seeks to establish new authority, called the South African Health Product Regulatory Authority, which would deal with the medication backlog and regulate alternative and prepared traditional medicines. Keeka said although the natural, alternative and complimentary medication sectors would be affected by following a regulatory process for selling medicines, it was “only fair”. “At the end of the day, it is the public’s safety that is the main concern,” Keeka said.
USA – ‘Health’ supplements send 23,000 to emergency rooms
Dietary supplements – those “all natural” products people consume for weight loss, extra energy or to self-treat various conditions send +-23,000 people, many of them children, to the emergency room in the U.S. each year. Just over 9{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} require hospitalization. Many patients report heart symptoms. Supplements include herbal products, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and other “complementary” nutrition products hawked for a wide range of uses, often with little or no testing to back up claims. The new study “illustrates that something that’s ‘natural’ is not necessarily safe, and these products do not come without risk,” said Curtis Haas, director of pharmacy for the University of Rochester Medical Center and a past-president of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/14/us-health-supplements-toxicity-idUSKCN0S82QN20151014
Swaziland – Missing man found mutilated and stuffed in bags
Magidi Mlambo, a man from the Mambane area who was reported missing has been found dead, with his body mutilated. The recovery of the deceased’s body comes only a day after police took in two traditional healers for questioning concerning the disappearance of the man. The witch doctors led the police to the mountains on Monday evening, where the body was found with some parts missing. Mlambo went missing after he went to the forest to collect some herbs with a well known traditional healer from the area. Traditional healers then led police to the indvuna who is said to have assisted in transporting some of the parts which were eventually sold to another traditional healer at Hosea.
http://www.observer.org.sz/news/76608-missing-man-mutilated-stuffed-in-bags.html
USA – FDA Issues Warnings on Homeopathy for ADHD Patients
Recent reports say the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken measures on the widespread use of homeopathic treatments, especially in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Reports have reached the FDA in which children diagnosed with ADHD turn out to be victims of quackery or fraudulent treatments. The FDA has issued warnings about side effects such as stunted growth and psychiatric problems and has tightened their regulations on such treatments.
http://qna.mortgagenewsdaily.com/questions/fda-issues-warnings-on-homeopathy-on-adhd-patients
Euthanasia
California – Assisted Suicide and Suicide Contagion
Ten percent of Americans now have access to assisted suicide after Jerry Brown, governor of California, approved Assembly Bill 15. Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) is now legal in California, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont, as well as throughout Canada. Will California’s new assisted suicide law actually result in fewer people committing suicide as its supporters have promised? Dramatic new findings about the Oregon experience with PAS have been published in the Southern Medical Journal which suggest that this is not true. In a fine-grained statistical analysis of the experience in the 4 American states where PAS is currently legal, British academics David Albert Jones and David Paton show that the introduction of PAS induces more self-inflicted deaths than it inhibits.
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/assisted-suicide-now-legal-in-california/11601#sthash.dV2nBbdi.dpuf
Netherlands – Euthanasia on the Rise
Deaths by euthanasia in the Netherlands have increased by 10{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} in 2014 according to a new report released by the regional euthanasia review committee of Holland. A total of 5306 cases of assisted dying were reported to the regional committees in 2014, including 5033 cases of euthanasia (a 10{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} increase on the 4501 cases reported in 2013). The overall number of reported cases has doubled since 2009.
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/euthanasia-on-the-rise-in-netherlands/11605#sthash.FDF2wtH9.dpuf
https://www.euthanasiecommissie.nl/overdetoetsingscommissies/jaarverslag/
Australia – ‘Dr Death’ forced to stop promoting suicide
The world’s foremost promoter of assisted suicide and euthanasia, Australia’s Dr Philip Nitschke, has agreed to cease his advocacy in exchange for retaining his medical registration. The Medical Board of Australia (MBA) said that these measures were necessary “to protect the public”. The agreement puts “an end to his involvement in providing any advice or information to any patient or member of the public about how to commit suicide. This includes workshops, the Peaceful Pill Handbook, videos or on-line information”. An immediate consequence of the MBA’s decision is that Dr Nitschke has been forced to resign as director of Exit International, the organization he founded to promote methods of committing suicide.
http://www.mercatornet.com/careful/view/australias-dr-death-forced-to-stop-promoting-suicide/17085
Belgium – Not enough doctors to staff Belgium’s euthanasia commission
Belgium’s Federal Evaluation and Control Commission for Euthanasia have lost its mandate after failing to find replacements for vacancies on its executive committee. The minister for Health, Maggie De Block, gave her word in Parliament that the wheels were turning smoothly and that Belgians had nothing to fear from illegal euthanasia – even though news of the vacancies had already emerged in the press. This does not inspire much confidence that anyone really knows what is going on.
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/not-enough-doctors-to-staff-belgiums-euthanasia-commission/11625
HIV/AIDS & STI’s
No news today
Homosexuality
South Africa – Dutch Reformed Church to recognize same sex marriage
A landmark vote means same sex relationships will now be recognized by the Dutch Reformed Church. With a 64 percent majority the church voted in favor of acknowledging same sex unions and allowing same sex ministers to be ordained without the need for them to be celibate. Dutch Reform Church moderator Nelis Janse van Rensburg said, it is historical because with this decision we actually are at a point where there can be no doubt that the Dutch Reformed Church is serious about human dignity. The church will also help ministers to get the necessary legal documentation to ratify civil unions.
https://www.enca.com/south-africa/dutch-reformed-church-recognise-gay-marriage
USA – More LGBT Americans come out on Facebook than last year
A new study out of Facebook’s research and data science division indicates that people in the US who identify as LGBT are now saying so on the social network at a rapidly increasing pace. 6 million of US users identify as LGBT, 800,000 of which came out last year. The number of users coming out per day has tripled since then. Since June’s Supreme Court ruling which legalized same sex marriage, one out of every five people come out on Facebook. LGBT pages have increased by 25 percent this year and the top 300 most popular LGBT people get support from 5.7million Americans.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/15/9541431/facebook-social-research-LGBT-study
IVF &Surrogacy
Canada – IVF success rates improved with stem cells
Doctors in Canada have begun a new chapter in medical history, delivering the first in a wave of babies expected to be born through a technique some experts think can dramatically improve the success rate of IVF. This is a possible solution to infertility caused by poor egg quality by using pristine stem cells of healthy, yet-to-be developed eggs that can help make a woman’s older eggs act young again. Unlike other kinds of stem cells, which have the ability to develop into any kind of cell in the body these precursor cells can only form eggs. It’s not available in the U.S., since the Food and Drug Administration considers the process of introducing mitochondria a form of gene therapy.
http://time.com/3849127/baby-stem-cells-augment-ivf/
UK/USA – Novel DNA test could more than double success rates
In the US, the majority of women undergoing IVF have a success rate of 20-35{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4}. Now, researchers have created a test that they say could boost success rates to as much as 80{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4}. The test, called MitoGrade, works by measuring the levels of abnormal mitochondrial DNA present in embryos, allowing doctors to determine which embryos are most viable for a successful pregnancy. It emerged in recent years that the number of chromosomes in an embryo can influence the outcomes of IVF. More recently, researchers from the University of Oxford and genetics laboratory Reprogenetics, both in the UK, found that the levels of mitochondrial DNA in embryos are a key factor in IVF success.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/301257.php
USA – Baby-farming business is exploding
“American women are being paid to put themselves at significant physical risk every day in this country to produce babies for others,” said Jennifer Lahlof the Centre for Bioethics and Culture Network. These women are injected with powerful hormones and other drugs to maximize chances of pregnancy, virtually without government oversight. Surrogacy is booming following the legalisation of same-sex marriage, as same sex couples look to have families. Celebrities and wealthy American women are increasingly using surrogates to carry their own children, to avoid the body changes that come with pregnancy. Idaho has become a hotspot for surrogacy because of its permissive legislation and lower costs. Parents from all over the world are coming to Idaho to have children.
India – New Delhi moves toward banning surrogacy in India
New legislation proposed by the Indian Health Ministry aims to regulate and supervise clinics performing IVF and surrogacy in India, as well as to ensure the safe and ethical practice of fertility services. The bill also includes provisions that would ban surrogacy for all foreign couples. According to a 2012 study, the estimated value of the commercial surrogacy business in the country was pegged at more than $400 million a year, with more than 3,000 practicing clinics. In 2012 the country added restrictions to the practice, allowing surrogacy only for married, heterosexual couples from countries where surrogacy was allowed by law. Other than India, only a select number of countries allow surrogacy; USA, UK, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Russia, and Ukraine.
http://www.sensiblesurrogacy.com/law-would-ban-surrogacy-in-india/
Medical Ethics
France – UN panel calls for moratorium on editing human genome
A United Nations panel has called for a moratorium on “editing” the human genome, pending wider public debate lest changes in DNA be transmitted to future generations or foster eugenics. While acknowledging the therapeutic value of genetic interventions, the panel stressed that the process raises serious concerns, especially if editing the human genome be applied to the germline, thereby introducing hereditary modifications. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said in a report by its International Bioethics Committee, that “Interventions on the human genome should be admitted only for preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic reasons and without enacting modifications for descendants.” The alternative would “jeopardize the inherent and therefore equal dignity of all human beings and renew eugenics.”
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/un-panel-calls-for-moratorium-on-editing-human-genome/11597
USA – Gene editing technique makes pig organ transplants possible
A team led by George Church, of Harvard, has used the CRISPR gene editing technique to remove all 62 copies of a pig retrovirus which is dangerous for humans. This is a significant step on the road to generating pig organs for possible xenotransplantation. Worldwide, human organs for transplant are in short supply. While pig organs have long been considered a viable option, porcine endogenous retroviruses in all pigs’ DNA can be transmitted to humans and cause disease. This has resulted in a worldwide moratorium on these transplants. In an article in Science, the researchers reported that they had managed to modify more than 60 genes in pig embryos – ten times more than have been edited in any other animal.
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/gene-editing-technique-makes-pig-organ-transplants-possible/11612
USA – 23andMe to resume supplying health data
After some operations of genetic company 23andMe were suspended in 2013 CEO Anne Wojcicki reports the FDA has authorized tests for inherited diseases and profiling customer ancestry and personal traits. Customers will receive reports on 36 inherited conditions like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia, a breakdown of genetic predispositions including non-medical inherited traits like lactose intolerance, and cosmetic characteristics like dimples or curly hair. The test will not screen for conditions that last raised concerns like heart attack, asthma and hip fractures. “The new product focuses on carrier mutations, or specific gene changes, known to cause health issues when children receive them from both parents,” Brian Zikmund-Fisher at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, told New Scientist.
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/23andme-to-resume-supplying-health-data/11624
USA – A fine way to give blood
Judge Marvin Wiggins told a courtroom crowded with people to be fined for offences ranging from hunting after dark to drug possession that they would get a US$100 credit toward their fines if they donated blood. Apart from concern about the legality and even constitutionality of the unusual option, there is an obvious bioethical angle. The offenders were effectively being forced to participate in donating an organ, something which must always be voluntary, even if donating blood is the least onerous of all organs. “What happened is wrong in about 3,000 ways,” said bioethicist Art Caplan, of NYU Langone Medical Center. “You’re basically sentencing someone to an invasive procedure that doesn’t benefit them and isn’t protecting the public health.”
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/a-fine-way-to-give-blood/11621
Pedophilia
Indonesia – Government to use chemical castration for pedophiles
President Joko Widodo has voiced approval for a law that provides for chemical castration for convicted pedophiles. Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa said the president supported castration in addition to jail terms for child sex offenders. The chemical castration could involve injecting a female hormone to reduce the sex drive of the offender. Indonesia will join a small group of nations that allows such punishment, including Poland, Russia, and Estonia, as well as some U.S. states. In 2011, South Korea became the first Asian country to use chemical castration as a punishment.
http://www.news24.com/World/News/Child-sex-offenders-to-be-chemically-castrated-20151021
Pornography
USA – Playboy magazine to stop publishing nude images
Playboy will no longer publish nude photographs of women, the New York Times reported in an article quoting Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. Founder and Editor-in-chief Hugh Hefner, 89, who in his trademark silk pajamas has embodied the Playboy lifestyle, agreed last month with a suggestion by top editor Cory Jones to stop publishing images of naked women, the Times said. At a time when every teenage boy has an internet connected phone and the web is rife with pornography, the magazine has opted to continue featuring women in provocative poses, just not completely nude.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/150662698a08e9ed
South Africa – South Africans’ secret porn viewing habits
South Africa is not one of the top 20 countries in the world who spend their time watching porn online, but they do watch. On average, South Africans spend 10 minutes and 14 seconds per visit. This is 21 seconds less compared to 2013 but still higher than the world average of 9 minutes and 16 seconds of which 71{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} is watched on mobile devices, according to research done by Pornhub on their website. But there are consequences. There is the risk of losing a partner, an increase in marital or relationship problems, feelings of spiritual emptiness, feelings of hopelessness and despair, failed efforts to control your sexual behavior, acting against your own values and beliefs, and a decrease in work productivity.
http://www.health24.com/Sex/News/Kim-Kardashian-what-SA-looks-for-when-watching-porn-20150121
Germany – Porn may reduce your brain size
Men who report watching a lot of pornography tend to have less volume and activity in regions of the brain linked to rewards and motivation, according a new German study published in JAMA Psychiatry. The results provide the first evidence for a link between pornography consumption and reductions in brain size and activity. The researchers found that the volume of the striatum, a brain region that has been associated with reward processing and motivated behaviour was smaller the more pornography consumption the participants reported. Another brain region that is also part of the striatum and is active when people see sexual stimuli shows less activation the more pornography participants consume.
http://www.health24.com/Medical/Vaginal-discharge/News/Porn-may-reduce-your-brain-size-20140602
South Africa – Violent porn may be to blame for sexual coercion
Nearly one in 10 teenagers and young adults has coerced or forced a peer to engage in some form of sexual activity, and violent pornography is partly to blame, according to a new study.
The study of more than 1 000 young people aged 14 to 21 found that 9{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} reported forcing or pressuring a peer to engage in sexual activity. Perpetrators were five times more likely to have been exposed to X-rated media that showed a person being physically hurt during sex, the study found, according to study co-author Michele Ybarra, president and research director of the Centre for Innovative Public Health Research in San Clemente, California. The young people also recounted a disturbing lack of consequences for their actions.
http://www.health24.com/Sex/News/Violent-porn-to-blame-for-sexual-coercion-20131008
Prostitution & Trafficking
USA – Legalizing prostitution is prison for the exploited
Lisa Thompson of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation says,” oppose Amnesty International’s proposal to decriminalize prostitution worldwide for people over 18. It is a bad idea. No Amnesty for Pimps”. Prostitution is where people are supplied as public sexual commodities and it is rife with violence and crime. When suggesting that sex is work you’re also suggesting sexual exploitation is part of the job. In countries that have decriminalized prostitution violence is not reduced and sexually transmitted infections still prevail. Decriminalization increases demand giving full license when criminal penalties are removed. If there is more demand there will be a need for more supply. That supply, will come from poor countries, exploited women and children.
UK – Family jailed for trafficking Hungarian women for prostitution
A family who trafficked and enslaved two Hungarian women and forced them into prostitution have been jailed. Police rescued the women aged 30 and 21 from a home in Manchester. Four family members pleaded guilty to sex trafficking offences and were jailed for between three and six years each. Judge Peter Davies, passing sentence, described the victims’ ordeal, which lasted for more than six months, as a life “characterized by fear”. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-34358630
USA – What Amnesty Did Wrong Regarding Prostitution
In an extended document by Anna Djinn from a feminist blog, thirteen points are addressed and expanded on regarding Amnesty Internationals mistakes regarding their decision to support the legalization of prostitution. What we found particularly interesting was the fact that the first version of the policy was written by Douglas Fox, a very successful pimp. In “The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Women and Men Today”, Kat Banyard identifies Douglas Fox as “founder and business partner of Christony Companions – one of the UK’s largest escort agencies.”
http://prostitutionresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/What-Amnesty-did-wrong.pdf
Stem Cells & Cloning
Australia – Researchers grow organ in Petri-dish
A team of researchers from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute at the University of Queensland have grown a mini-kidney in a laboratory, opening the possibility for powerful non-human clinical drug and therapy trials. The kidney was grown from human induced pluripotent stem cells. The researchers reported in Nature they had generated kidney organoids which “represent powerful models of the human organ for future applications, including nephrotoxicity screening, disease modeling and a source of cells for therapy”. Stem cell biologist Melissa Little said the approach could be used for drug screening in two years, potentially saving drug developers hundreds of millions of dollars. The kidney is one of the organs typically poisoned by drugs, along with the liver and heart.
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/researchers-grow-organ-in-petri-dish/11610
Substance Abuse
UK – Use of Legal Highs on the Increase
Incidents involving legal highs have more than doubled in 2 years from 1,431 in 2013 to 3,807 incidents in 2014, according to data compiled by the Centre for Social Justice. Ms Harrison, an advanced paramedic said health workers are also seeing a surge in the number of people overdosing after taking legal highs. Biochemists from Liverpool’s John Moore University analysed 5 separate brands of legal high, marketed as Ching, Cherry Bomb, Pandora’s Box Unleashed, Gogaine and Exodus Damnation. In three of the products they discovered a mismatch between the ingredients listed on the packet and what the substance actually contained. The chemicals are made in countries like China and India and then packaged and distributed throughout Europe.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-34603665
USA – Promising new target for addiction treatment
The latest issue of Biological Psychiatry presents the results of three studies implicating metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 (mGluR2) as a new molecular target for the treatment of addiction. These three studies were conducted using different addictive substances. All the studies suggest that the use of compounds that selectively target mGluR2 have the potential to successfully treat addiction. Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, summarized, “It is unusual to have three papers supporting a new treatment mechanism emerge at the same time. Enhancing mGluR2 function may hold promise for the treatment of addiction.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150914110551.htm
http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(15)00126-2/abstract
http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(15)00083-9/abstract
http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(15)00129-8/abstract
Switzerland – Study: THC doesn’t reduce postoperative nausea or vomiting
Intravenous THC had a “negligible” effect on postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV), as well as having “unpredictable psychotropic and sedative side effects,” according to a clinical trial by Dr. Lorenz G. Theiler and colleagues of University of Bern, Switzerland. At a time of growing interest in the uses of medical marijuana, the results suggest that marijuana compounds (cannabinoids) aren’t a good option to prevent PONV.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151006124001.htm
Scotland – Massive rise in heroin and methadone drug problems
Massive rises in heroin and methadone-related drug problems amongst over-40s have driven drug-related hospital stays to a record high, official figures show. The number of hospital stays linked to opioids, have risen fivefold from 791 in 1996/97 to 4,511 in 2014/15. The rate of opioid-related admissions per head of population has risen even faster, from around 10 per 100,000 population to almost 90, figures from NHS Scotland’s Information Services Division (ISD Scotland) show. There were almost as many hospital stays linked to opioid use as there were for alcohol dependence (4,747) in 2014/15. Scotland’s controversial methadone substitution therapy for heroin addicts is fuelling the drug problem and is of major concern to many politicians and academics.
USA – New study on the use of “Novel Psychoactive Substances”
In recent years, there has been an increase in emergence and use of a variety of new drugs, so-called “novel psychoactive substances” (NPS) in the US and worldwide. A new study, published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence by researchers affiliated with New York University’s Centre for Drug Use and HIV Research, examined self-reported use of 57 different new. The researchers found that almost all (95{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4}) subjects who reported use of a new drug also reported lifetime use of alcohol, marijuana, or cigarettes, and lifetime use of ecstasy (79.4{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4}), opioids (79.1{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4}), cocaine (74.3{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4}), and LSD (73.7{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4}).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150915105940.htm
http://www.drugandalcoholdependence.com/article/S0376-8716(15)01622-1/abstract
Disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily reflect those of Doctors for Life International
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