truesee's Blog

Officials fear for infants born to prescription drug addicts

 

Two-month-old Casey got a clean bill of health after her mother, Jessica, stopped using drugs late in her pregnancy.

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Hundreds of Florida babies have been born addicted to drugs
• Infants "go through withdrawal symptoms," nurse says
• Government says prescription drug abuse is nation's fastest-growing drug problem
• Mothers are often reluctant to seek help

 

(CNN)-- According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prescription drug overdose deaths in Florida are up a staggering 265% since 2003. But it's not just the deaths that have Florida officials worried; it's the births.

"We saw the number of crack babies that died, and this is just another version of that," Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti said. "We all need to be concerned."

According to state health records, 635 Florida babies were born addicted to prescription drugs in the first half of 2010 alone. South Florida doctors and intensive care nurses report an dramatic uptick in babies born hooked on pills that their mothers abused while pregnant.

"They go through withdrawal symptoms," said Mary Osuch, the head nurse at Broward General Medical Center's neonatal intensive care unit. "They're crampy, miserable. They sweat. They can have rapid breathing. Sometimes, they can even have seizures."

According to the White House Office on Drug Control Policy, prescription drug abuse is the nation's fastest-growing drug problem.

Marsha Currant, who runs the Susan B. Anthony Recovery Center near Fort Lauderdale, says prescription drug addiction overtook crack in 2009 as the main problem afflicting the pregnant women who are treated there.

"In the very beginning, it was really 100% crack cocaine," said Currant, who started keeping track of drug trends in 1995. "We see a lot more prescription drugs now."

Currant says new mothers who are hooked on prescription drugs are often reluctant to seek help for fear the authorities will take their babies from them.

"We wanted to have a place where women didn't have to chose between getting treatment and having their children go into foster care," she said.

Compounding the problem, women who are addicted to prescription drugs and find themselves pregnant cannot safely go off the drugs without medical supervision. They need to be weaned off slowly, or the baby will go into withdrawal in the womb.

At the Susan B. Anthony Center, one mother who became hooked on prescription drugs after her husband died says she felt her baby suffering while she was getting clean.

"I know that I'm going through stuff getting off the pills. So what's she going through? She can't talk. She's just a baby," Jessica said.

Thanks to the center, Jessica was weaned off oxycodone before her baby, Casey, was born. But she fears the long-term effects of her drug abuse on her daughter, who has been suffering from respiratory problems.

"I want to make sure that she doesn't hurt anymore," Jessica said. "She doesn't deserve that, because she's a princess."

Jessica graduated from the center's recovery program last week.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/126298093.html

http://abcnews.go.com/US/student-sues-school-barred-sole-valedictorian/story?id=14164431

LINK TO VIDEO:

http://www.azcentral.com/video/1081506553001

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/business/help-wanted-ads-exclude-the-long-term-jobless.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43900945/ns/us_news-environment/

Thanks to pumpi76 for the tip.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/07/26/business/100000000967340/the-history-of-the-debt-limit.html

 

Jefferson Siegel for News

 

Times Square's "weed man" Joshua Long, 30, filed a federal suit to protect his right to beg for money to buy marijuana Tuesday.

The "Weed Man" of Times Square demands his constitutional right to beg.

Joshua Long - who carries a sign saying "Help! I need money for weed" - filed a federal suit Tuesday complaining that his First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights have been violated by repeated arrests.

"Though the First Amendment protects Mr. Long's right to stand on the sidewalk with his sign, he has been, and continues to be, regularly and wrongfully, arrested, charged and harassed by police officers," the suit says.

"These arrests and other harassment have diminished Mr. Long's ability to lawfully beg in Times Square."

Long, 30, has been issued multiple summonses, arrested at least six times, pepper sprayed and harassed by cops, according to court papers in Manhattan Federal Court.

"He certainly has the right to stand on the sidewalk and ask for money," said Long's lawyer, Matthew Brinckerhoff. "I can only conclude that the police don't like his message."

Long is seeking a court order protecting Long's right to beg and unspecified damages and lawyer fees.

City officials declined comment pending receipt of the suit.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/really-cancer-survivor-humiliated-by-tsa-last-fall-subjected-to-another-offensive-search/

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/07/26/2011-07-26_conservative_pundit_glenn_beck_defends_his_right_to_use_nazis_hitler_for_compari.html

 

The wealth disparity between whites and minorities is at 25-year high, according to a new study.

The median net worth of white households is 18 times that of Hispanic households and 20 times that of black households - the widest disparity between whites and minorities in a quarter-century, according a study released Tuesday.

The median wealth of a white U.S. household in 2009 - for which numbers recently became available - was $113,149, compared with $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks, according to the analysis by the Pew Research Center.

The gap is the widest its been since the census began tracking such data in 1984. The ratio then was roughly 12 to 1.

In 1995, the gap grew smaller, with a ratio of 7 to 1. That was during a period when the nation's economic expansion propelled many low-income groups into the middle class.

During that period of economic prosperity, the median white household had a net worth of $134,992 for white families. The number was $18,359 for Hispanic families and $12,124 for black families.

Then the Great Recession - which cratered home values and destroyed millions of jobs - widened the gap again.

Many white families garner their wealth from stocks and corporate savings. Minority families, on the other hand, are more invested in their homes, and purchased residences during the housing boom of the early to mid-2000s, especially in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona.

"What's pushing the wealth of whites is the rebound in the stock market and corporate savings, while younger Hispanics and African-Americans who bought homes in the last decade - because that was the American dream - are seeing big declines," said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who studies income inequality.

Other findings:

*Asians lost their top ranking to whites. Median household income for Asians dropped from $168,103 in 2005 to $78,066 in 2009.

*Across all race and ethnic groups, the wealth gap between the rich and poor grew.

*About 35% of black households, 31% of Hispanic households and 15% of white households had zero or negative worth in 2009. In 2005, that number was 29% for blacks, 23% for Hispanics and 11% for whites.

With News Wire Services

Getty - FILE PHOTO

 

His cries for help terrified employees at the mortuary in the Eastern Cape province of Libode.

"Two workers heard screaming from the refrigerators," Sizwe Kupelo, a spokesperson for the Eastern Cape Health Department, told ABC News. "They thought it was a ghost and they ran for their lives."

The man, who did not want his name released but is described as a grandfather in his 60s, had apparently suffered an asthma attack and fell unconscious.

"The family called a private undertaker who took what they thought was a dead body to the morgue," Kupelo said, according to South Africa's News24.

Relatives did not call paramedics, but instead phoned the mortuary, assuming he was dead. The morgue's owner told The Associated Press that the worker who picked up the supposedly dead man "examined the body, checked his pulse, looked for a heartbeat, but there was nothing."

Ayanda Maqolo was there when the elderly man woke up and started screaming after having been in the refrigerator with other corpses for at least 21 hours.

"He asked, 'How did I get here?'" the owner recalled the man saying. The owner added that the chilling experience even gave him "nightmares."

"I couldn't sleep last night," he told AP. "But today I'm much better."

Kupelo said the health department wanted to publicize the incident because it exposes a real problem.

"This is why we're saying as a health department that people should call health services to have their relatives declared and certified dead, and not these private mortuaries," he told ABC News. "Those guys aren't trained paramedics. They're about business."

The "dead" man, who suffered from dehydration, was hospitalized briefly after the incident. He has since returned home to his family, Kupelo said.

The South African man was fortunate. Last month a woman in Russia was mistakenly declared dead and woke up at her own funeral. The shock caused her to suffer a heart attack, which officially killed her.

Elected official arrested for assaulting disabled person

Fairhaven Police Department

Elected town official Joseph Morra is arrested for assaulting a disabled person.