First Opinion is STAT’s platform for attention-grabbing, illuminating, and possibly even provocative articles concerning the life sciences writ massive, written by biotech insiders, well being care staff, researchers, and others.
To encourage strong, good-faith dialogue about points raised in First Opinion essays, STAT publishes chosen Letters to the Editor acquired in response to them. You possibly can submit a Letter to the Editor right here, or discover the submission type on the finish of any First Opinion essay.
“Moms in remedy for opioid use dysfunction shouldn’t additionally should combat youngster protecting providers,” by Arthur Robin Williams and Judith Cole
I fully agree with this text and really feel strongly that pregnant ladies have been wrongly “labeled” as unfit or unfit of being a mom if they’re utilizing drugs to assist them get off unlawful medicine. No mum or dad alive would really like it if their proper to be a mum or dad was made on the premise of a mistake or errors they could have made of their lives. If a girl is on methadone it’s as a result of she’s making an attempt to alter, be a greater particular person or mom so who’re we to evaluate that and deem her unfit to be a mum or dad??!! There are tens of millions of fogeys who don’t take methadone who haven’t any enterprise being dad and mom, so why punish those who’re actively doing their greatest to change into higher dad and mom?? Taking away a girl’s proper to be a mum or dad doesn’t make our neighborhood or society higher, it simply makes us larger hypocrites
— Jonathan Classen
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After I lived in larger New Haven I labored as a volunteer at Yale New Haven Hospital as a “child cuddler” for 3 hours each Saturday. I used to be assigned to the Kids’s Scientific Analysis Heart which cared for newborns born with opioids of their programs; they needed to keep for 4-6 weeks to be slowly weaned from the opioids. They had been in withdrawal and jogged my memory of children with colic. We swaddled them, rocked them, fed them and altered them. A few of us sang to them.
Throughout these years, 2000 to 2004, moms on methadone weren’t stored from being with their infants and had been allowed to take them house. Moms not on prescribed upkeep medicine had been allowed no contact and the kid left the hospital at age 4 to six weeks to go on to foster care. I hope the rules might be corrected earlier than extra households are traumatized by this craziness.
— Sue Fraser Frankewicz
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Hello I feel extra must be performed the place youngster protecting providers are involved. My youngsters are in state custody due to their father’s substance use issues. I’ve been sober for 5 years. CPS has an excessive amount of energy and the state fingers it to them. I agree fully that moms in restoration needs to be protected in opposition to these individuals. I feel that the individuals needs to be protected against them typically. There must be extra laws that protects dad and mom and their rights. I’m glad that I noticed this text as a result of somebody ought to combat in opposition to the injustice carried out by the state and federal regulation. Thanks on your time and stick with it.
— Chelsey Burnham
“Outdated Medicare guidelines stop some dementia sufferers from accessing the drugs they want,” by Carolyn Clevenger
I perceive the need to assist scale back very tough habits amongst dementia sufferers, however the scientific proof clearly signifies that antipsychotic medicine considerably improve the possibilities of an hostile occasion known as “sudden dying” amongst older sufferers. That is true for all atypical antipsychotics, together with the one the FDA lately authorized for dementia sufferers. Even when the outcomes usually are not deadly, many relations report that their family members change into nearly fully uncommunicative and unresponsive due to using these drugs in nursing properties and related services. That’s the reason why these drugs ought to very hardly ever be used for older sufferers, particularly those that usually are not capable of make the choice for themselves.
— Diana Zuckerman, Nationwide Heart for Well being Analysis
“100,000 fashions present that not a lot was discovered about stopping the Covid-19 pandemic,” by Eran Bendavid and Chirag Patel
Unsurprising conclusion.
Non-pharmaceutical interventions are all based mostly upon “the science of human habits” (behavioral psychology.)
No matter helpful insights it might probably present public well being researchers and policymakers, who should plug survey information into fashions based mostly upon a set of clear assumptions; the restrictions of those fashions are of a a lot larger magnitude than anybody in public well being appears ready to just accept.
(At the most effective of instances, human habits might be inscrutable. In the course of the worst, it’s nearly unpredictable.)
But, in my years of researching public well being coverage making, I see time and again references to the success of the anti-smoking advert marketing campaign.
In essence, each public well being coverage resolution has change into a brand new anti-smoking advert marketing campaign.
(“Leverage the worry response” is a phrase that I’ve seen used time and again.)
What this examine seems to be exhibiting is that this technique is long gone its use by date.
What the authors additionally factors up is way much less stunning to anybody who has studied statistics and likelihood idea: frequentist statistical fashions might be designed to output outcomes that gratify a researcher’s expectations.
In sum, I feel this paper is exhibiting that public well being coverage makers have to re-examine their fundamental assumptions, and public well being establishments have to dedicate rather more effort to addressing over-reliance on the accessible statistical/analytical instruments.
Thus, I discover it disappointing to listen to the decision sounded for “extra information, extra surveillance” from the authors.
Evidently they’ve totally misinterpret the outcomes of their analysis.
— Michael Doran, Springfield, MA
