Social Policy
|
Drug-Related Cases Burden Hospital Emergency Rooms
|
According to a recent study from the Department of Health and Human Services'
Drug Abuse Warning Network, drugs are placing an increasing burden on the
nation's hospital emergency rooms. Congressional critics blame inaction
on the part of the Clinton administration as part of the problem in a losing
war against drugs.
From the first half of 1994 to the first half of 1995:
- Total drug related episodes were up 10 percent -- and they grew 30
percent from the first half of 1992.
- Cocaine-related episodes increased 12 percent -- up 33 percent --
since early 1992.
- Heroin-related episodes were up 27 percent -- and increased 77 percent
from 1992 to 1995.
- Methamphetamine (speed) episodes rose 35 percent -- and 308 percent
since early 1992.
According to the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future study, use
of marijuana, hallucinogens, cocaine and heroin are all up among 8th, 10th
and 12th graders. The study found that teens don't believe drug use is
as dangerous as they did during the 1980s.
Critics of the President's antidrug program cite the fact that antidrug
military personnel have been cut back, as have positions in the Drug Enforcement
Agency. And interdictions of drug trafficking have fallen since the Coast
Guard was forced to mothball a cutter, five patrol boats, three other ships
and seven aircraft.
In 1992, 25,033 individuals were prosecuted by the federal government for
drug violations -- which number fell 8.4 percent to 22,926 in 1995.
Source Matthew Robinson, "C1inton's Losing War on Drugs," Investor's
Business Daily, June 26, 1996.
|
Aids Population Smaller Than Government Estimates
|
A new study by National Cancer Institute statistician Philip Rosenberg,
published in Science magazine, says that the AIDS epidemic is considerably
smaller than official government estimates claim.
- Rather than the 1 million current infections claimed by the federal
government, the study finds a range of 630,000 to 897,000 Americans living
with HIV.
- As of January 1993, HIV infections were one in 2,000 for white American
females age 18 to 59 and one in 204 for white males.
- The rate was one in 135 for black females and one in 44 for black
males.
AIDS cases have not developed as fast as the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention first feared, and it has lowered its earlier estimate of
1 million to 1.5 million in favor of the current flat one million figure.
Source: Michael Fumento (Reason Magazine), "AIDS: The Truth at Last?"
Investor's Business Daily, December 11, 1995.
|
Marketplace Finds New Sources of Anti-Cancer Drug
|
In the late 1980s, scientists found that taxol, from the bark
of the Pacific yew tree, is effective in treating ovarian cancer.
Since ovarian cancer kills more than 12,000 women annually in
the United States, demand for the Pacific yew exploded, creating
a seemingly unsolvable conflict between the needs of cancer patients
and the concerns of environmentalists.
- The Pacific yews were sprinkled throughout the old-growth
forests of the Northwest, the home of the northern spotted owl.
- The bark had to be stripped from three 100-year-old trees
to treat a single patient.
- Environmentalists, fearful that pristine forests would be
mowed down, lobbied against harvesting.
However, market forces -- specifically people's desire to make
money -- helped solve the problem.
- Drugmakers found that a hybrid of European and Japanese yews
(a common ornamental in front yards) could produce a semisynthetic
version of taxol.
- They discovered that they didn't need trees that were 100
years old and that the drug could be extracted from the whole
tree, not just the bark.
- In 1993, the lumber company Weyerhaeuser began harvesting
nursery-grown yews, and in late 1995 harvested 12 million of the
two-foot high trees.
Taxol is one of the most expensive anti-cancer drugs; but next
year, when the Bristol-Myers Squibb monopoly expires, anyone will
be able to manufacture and sell it. This will unleash the full
force of the market as firms compete to satisfy the $1 billion
a year worldwide demand. The result could be lower costs and
improved versions of the drug.
A Squibb competitor, Rhone-Poulence Rorer, is seeking approval
for a related drug known as taxotere. Drug companies are investigating
other plants, biotech firms are trying to extract it from a fungus
found on yew trees and scientists are working on a synthetic taxol.
New uses are also being found for the drug, which has shown promise
in treating breast cancer and lung cancer.
Typically, the debate over harvesting Pacific yews made front
page headlines and the solution didn't. But it was proof, once
again, that the market will help find a supply to satisfy a demand,
and an unforeseen solution to a puzzling problem.
Source: Rob Norton, "Owls, Trees, and Ovarian Cancer,"
Fortune, February 5, 1996.
|
The Link Between Abortion and Breast Cancer
|
Medical researchers generally agree that a full-term pregnancy
reduces the risk of breast cancer. However, there is controversy
over a number of studies indicating that women who have induced
abortions face an increased risk of developing breast cancer.
One recent study reported in the Journal of the American Medical
Association found "a weak positive association" between
abortion and breast cancer, indicating an increased risk of between
10 percent and 50 percent. It also found a smaller increased
risk from miscarriage.
Other studies have found a similar link between breast cancer
and abortion. However, these studies have been criticized because
the women surveyed may have underreported abortions.
In the past, the safety of abortion has been favorably compared
to childbearing. However, legislation addressing the breast cancer
link, such as requiring disclosure of risks as part of informed
consent for an abortion, has been introduced in at least 10 states.
- The American Medical Association has long maintained that
the risk of dying in childbirth, which is less than 5 in 100,000,
is 12 times greater than the risk of dying from an abortion.
- It is estimated that breast cancer will strike 12 percent
of American women.
- If the overall increased breast cancer risk due to abortion
is 50 percent, that would raise the lifetime risk of breast cancer
to 18 percent, yielding an increased incidence of 6,000 per 100,000
to women who have had any abortions.
- Even with a breast cancer cure rate of 75 percent, the increase
in breast cancer deaths linked to induced abortion would make
abortion 300 times more likely to result in death than childbirth.
One expert has suggested that the increased risk may come from
estrogen, a known breast cancer risk, released into a woman's
system early in pregnancy, while the protective effect of a full-term
pregnancy may be due to hormones released later in pregnancy which
enable the breasts to produce milk. Spontaneous abortions, however,
may not present the same risk, since miscarriages are most often
the result of an abnormally low secretion of estrogen by the ovaries.
Sources: Polly A. Newcomb, et al., "Pregnancy Termination
in Relation to Risk of Breast Cancer," and Marilie D. Gammon,
et al., "Abortion and the Risk of Breast Cancer: Is There
a Believable Association?" Journal of the American Medical
Association, Vol. 275, No. 4, January 24-31, 1996; and Joel
Brind, "May Cause Cancer," National Review, December
25, 1995.
|
Animal Rights Activism Delay Aids Research
|
Certain Hollywood celebrities like to wear red AIDS ribbons while also supporting
militant animal rights groups. However, research for cures to diseases
like AIDS, breast cancer or diabetes requires animal testing.
Animal rights extremists use distortion, intimidation, harassment and in
some cases violence and have effectively delayed significant AIDS research.
For example:
- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has announced it
will oppose any cure for AIDS that comes from research with animals.
- AIDS patient Jeff Getty reports he received death wishes from so-called
animal lovers while he was hospitalized for an experimental bone marrow
transplant from a baboon.
- AIDS researchers at Stanford University were forced to build labs
and complexes underground following attacks on university property by animal
rights terrorists.
- Excessively restrictive animal rights laws prohibit follow-up biopsies
on any of the animals used in AIDS research transplanting thymus tissue
from infant to adult animals, which at least one Northeastern immunologist
says delayed his research.
- The Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) shut down research for
a time involving mother-to-child transmission of simian immunodeficiency
virus among macaque monkeys -- which led to AZT treatment of human newborns
to block HIV.
Animal rights advocates claim computer simulations can replace animals in
drug safety testing and research, but scientists emphatically disagree.
It's been suggested that if PETA had been active 50 years ago, today we
would be talking about hundreds of thousands of people dying from polio
as well as AIDS.
Source: Jeff Getty, "The Tragic Hypocrisy of 'Animal Rights',"Wall
Street Journal, June 13, 1996.
|
