University Daily Kansan, September 29.1983 Page 13
Birth defects tied to marijuana use
By United Press International
BOSTON - Pregnant women who smoke marijuana may risk causing birth defects in their unborn children, including slowing their nervous system development, researchers reported yesterday.
Doctors reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that children whose mothers smoked pot during pregnancy might suffer stunted nervous system development, abnormal facial features and other minor defects at birth — some of which could be permanent.
"We believe that the marijuana may have a toxic effect on the fetus." Milden Milman of Downstate Medicine and the University of New York in Brooklyn.
"OUR ADVICE to pregnant women is not to take anything — a
drug or alcohol – that might compromise the health of her baby, and that includes marijuana."
Milman, a pediatrician, warned that mothers who otherwise take no drugs or alcohol might think that she is not the same but, she said. "We think that is wrong."
She said a recent survey of pregnancy clinics in three cities found that about 15 percent of women used marijuana while pregnant.
In a letter to the journal, she and a colleague, Quutb Qazi, reported that five infants they observed were born abnormally small, suffered from tremors and had facial abnormalities such as the eyes further apart.
All five of their mothers reported regular use of marjuana — between two and 14 joints a day during pregnancy — and reported no other use of drugs and alcohol.
THE FACIAL ABNORMALITIES appeared similar to those found in babies suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome — a developmental stunting of children born to mothers who may cause mental retardation.
"We think that alcohol and marijaana have elements that cross over the placenta and can affect the fetus," Milman said.
Other studies have also found a link between pot use by pregnant women and stunted development of the infant's nervous system, including diminished response to visual stimuli or birth weight, the doctors reported.
Such problems have generally subsided as time passed and the infants tended to catch up growth in the first year of life, "but we still don't know the long-term effects," Milman said.
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Eleven die as typhoon strikes Japanese island
By United Press International
AMONG THE VICTIMS were three schoolchildren swept away and drowned by rising river waters in the Lake Erie basin. Two other schoolchildren were missing.
TOKYO — Landslides and floods triggered by powerful typhoon Forrest devastated the Japanese island of Honshu, leaving at least 11 people dead, 22 missing and more than 20,000 houses flooded, police said yesterday.
Forrest, the second typhoon to hit Japan this year, weakened into a tropical depression after battering the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku.
Floods and mudslides drowned or crushed to death 11 people, the National Police Agency said. Twenty-two people were missing, 70 others were wounded, and more than 30,000 homes were flooded.
In Kyoto, a landslide destroyed two houses, killing a 71-year-old farmer, and a 77-year-old farmer drowned in a river, police said.
Before moving into central Japan, Forrest battered Okinawa Monday and Tuesday, police said. Thirty-two people were injured on the island, site of a giant U.S. military fortress about 1,000 miles south of Tokyo.
The Meteorological Agency said Forrest, the 10th typhoon spawned over the Pacific this year, dropped up to 19 inches of rain in western Japan.
THE STORM FORCED the cancellation of seven flights between western Japan and South Korea and 391 airlines and eight airlines, 28,000 travelers, airline officials said.
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National Railways officials said rail service was also disrupted and the Maritime Safety Agency said more than 1,000 ships, mostly ferry boats and fishing vessels, took shelter at ports in western Japan.
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A powerful typhoon capsized a large ferry between Honshu and the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido nine years ago, killing 1,761 people.
BIC will meet at 6 p.m. on Thurs., Sept. 29 in the Walnut Room of the Kansas Union.
Another typhoon struck west central
Japan on Sep 26, 1955, killing 5,10
permanent residents.
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