>If you decide to ignore those in your study because you want to study something specific then you should make it very, very clear.
There are a lot of things researchers want. They write grant proposals to study things which they can, at the beginning of the study demonstrate the possibility of obtaining a useful unambiguous conclusion. I don't get the impression that the researchers misrepresented their study. Is that what you're alleging?
>>Did you know that the NY Times and others recently recanted much of their sensationalist reporting of the "Crack Epidemic" >I don't know how that is relevant. I am basing my position on personal experience working with these kids.
Does your personal experience involve having read news articles like the one we're discussing, or watching television news covering the subject?
>>efforts to reduce infant mortality and morbidity, and developmental defects in early childhood by combating drug-use were misguided; >No, they weren't. Cocaine use does lead to disabled children,
If you have finite resources n to spend fixing problem p and you have been using solution x which after some time appears to have negligible effect, would you continue x, or consider looking for another solution?
>No, they weren't. Cocaine use does lead to disabled children, statistically speaking.
Where are the statistics? The news article is reporting a study that does not, or only barely supports that conclusion, suggesting that the Cocaine use may be merely incidental, and not causal.
>Many of whom are premature.
From the article:
>Babies born prematurely, no matter the cause, are at risk for a host of medical and developmental problems.
>This was a study has no information on the amount of cocaine used throughout pregnancy,
Is it even possible to conduct such a study? It would likely require clinicians to closely supervise pregnant women while the women were using illegal drugs.
>All we can conclude from this study is that poverty is worse for kids than cocaine exposure near the time of full-term birth. It has no information for the 1/4 to 1/5 of the kids that are born to people that test positive for cocaine that are born prematurely and tend to have much more severe health and developmental problems. Not to mention the ones that don't make it to birth at all.
What is your hypothesis for how the effects of poverty would be negated for the cohort/time period you're interested in?
>Does your personal experience involve having read news articles like the one we're discussing, or watching television news covering the subject?
I suppose technically, yes. But it also comes from my father working as a neonatologist and my own experience working with severely disabled children, many of whom were crack babies or suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome, throughout my 20s.
> which after some time appears to have negligible effect
This is the problem. This study does not show that cocaine has a negligible effect. It shows that cocaine has a less than poverty effect for children that make it to term. Big, big difference.
>Where are the statistics?
Enjoy. Cocaine causes increased rates of premature birth (between 3 and 4 times the normal incidence). Premature birth, by itself, leads to severe developmental problems. Here are a few recent studies and surveys. [1], [2], [3], [4]
>What is your hypothesis for how the effects of poverty would be negated for the cohort/time period you're interested in?
You could look at women in poverty who give birth without cocaine in their system and compare statistics that way. It has been done. Prematurity is at about a percentage point higher for that group than the population at large compared to around 320% for those that test positive for cocaine.
> This study does not show that cocaine has a negligible effect. It shows that cocaine has a less than poverty effect for children that make it to term. Big, big difference.
You're right, I overstated my claim. The effect is negligible with respect to the effects of poverty.
> Cocaine causes increased rates of premature birth
The studies you've linked do not support your statement. The studies say that cocaine use is associated with, not that cocaine is the cause.
re: [1] I never disputed that PT infants have developmental problems.
re: [2] "Studies revealed that in most domains, the neurobiological effects of PCE play a subtle role, with effects no greater than other known teratogens or environmental factors. Associations between PCE and negative developmental outcomes were typically attenuated when models included conditions that commonly co-occur with PCE (eg. tobacco or alcohol exposure, malnutrition, poor quality of care)." and "Preconception and prenatal cocaine use is commonly associated with poor pregnancy outcomes with psychosocial, behavioral, and risk factors, such as poverty, poor nutrition, stress, depression, physical abuse, lake[sic] of social support, and sexually transmitted infection. Illicit drug use during pregnancy is a major risk factor for maternal morbidity and neonatal complications."
re: [3] "Cocaine use during pregnancy was associated with significantly higher odds of preterm birth"
re: [4] "Prenatal cocaine exposure is significantly associated with preterm birth, low birthweight, and small for gestational age infants."
Is the newspaper report non-factual? It even mentions the researcher's caveat not to use cocaine during pregnancy.
"Hurt, who is also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, is always quick to point out that cocaine can have devastating effects on pregnancy."
There are a lot of things researchers want. They write grant proposals to study things which they can, at the beginning of the study demonstrate the possibility of obtaining a useful unambiguous conclusion. I don't get the impression that the researchers misrepresented their study. Is that what you're alleging?
>>Did you know that the NY Times and others recently recanted much of their sensationalist reporting of the "Crack Epidemic" >I don't know how that is relevant. I am basing my position on personal experience working with these kids.
Does your personal experience involve having read news articles like the one we're discussing, or watching television news covering the subject?
>>efforts to reduce infant mortality and morbidity, and developmental defects in early childhood by combating drug-use were misguided; >No, they weren't. Cocaine use does lead to disabled children,
If you have finite resources n to spend fixing problem p and you have been using solution x which after some time appears to have negligible effect, would you continue x, or consider looking for another solution?
>No, they weren't. Cocaine use does lead to disabled children, statistically speaking.
Where are the statistics? The news article is reporting a study that does not, or only barely supports that conclusion, suggesting that the Cocaine use may be merely incidental, and not causal.
>Many of whom are premature.
From the article:
>This was a study has no information on the amount of cocaine used throughout pregnancy,Is it even possible to conduct such a study? It would likely require clinicians to closely supervise pregnant women while the women were using illegal drugs.
>All we can conclude from this study is that poverty is worse for kids than cocaine exposure near the time of full-term birth. It has no information for the 1/4 to 1/5 of the kids that are born to people that test positive for cocaine that are born prematurely and tend to have much more severe health and developmental problems. Not to mention the ones that don't make it to birth at all.
What is your hypothesis for how the effects of poverty would be negated for the cohort/time period you're interested in?