The Washington Times (5/3, Hill) reports, “Gov. Martin O’Malley signed bills into law on Wednesday, including legislation that will limit use of septic systems and double the state’s so-called ‘flush tax,'” which “were among several notable pieces of environmental legislation.” In addition, he “signed a bill allowing the state to set up a health benefits exchange where residents and small businesses can buy benefits from private insurers in accordance with the US Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

Related Links:

— “Environmental, health insurance bills become Md. law,”David Hill , The Washington Times, May 2, 2012.

Reuters (5/2, Pittman) reports that an analysis published May 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that many clinical trials testing medications and devices are small and the quality is not consistent.

MedPage Today (5/2, Smith) reports that investigators analyzed “the more than 95,000 studies registered since 2004” in the ClinicalTrials.gov database. The researchers found “that the database is dominated by small studies, many conducted at a single center, with significant differences that would make them hard to compare.” The investigators, “for much of the analysis…concentrated on interventional trials in three areas — oncology, cardiology, and mental illness — that included a total of 79,413 studies.”

HealthDay (5/2, Dotinga) reports that altogether, “seven percent of the studies didn’t bother to mention their purpose, while others failed to provide other important details.” The researchers found that “62 percent of the trials from 2007-2010 were small, with 100 or fewer participants.” Just “four percent had more than 1,000 participants.”

Medscape (5/2, Brown) reports, “Mental health trials were more likely than cardiovascular and oncology trials to report use of” data monitoring committees. The researchers found that “oncology trials were least likely to use randomization (64.7% didn’t use randomization, vs 26.2% for cardiovascular trials and 20.8% for mental health trials), and 87.6% of oncology trials were not blinded.”

Related Links:

— “Drug and device trials vary in size, quality: study,”Genevra Pittman , Reuters, May 01, 2012.

On the front of its Science Times section, the New York Times (5/1, D1, Louis, Subscription Publication) reports, “The frequent prescription of narcotics in emergency departments for dental pain has been quantified for the first time by research financed by the National Institutes of Health, bringing to light another way opioids get into circulation and contribute to the rampant abuse of painkillers in the United States.” The research indicates that “from 1997 to 2007, painkillers were prescribed in three of four visits to the emergency department for dental complaints; roughly half of visits resulted in a prescription for antibiotics.” During “that period, the number of painkiller prescriptions for dental patients in emergency departments rose 26 percent, and antibiotic prescriptions jumped 41 percent, according to the report, published online in January in the journal Medical Care.”

Related Links:

— “E.R. Doctors Face Quandary on Painkillers,”Catherine Saint Louis , The New York Times, April 30, 2012.

Reuters (5/1, Seaman) reports that women who undergo a hysterectomy that plunges them into immediate surgical menopause are no more likely to experience depression or anxiety than women who go through menopause naturally over a number of years, according to a study published in the May issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. Researchers arrived at that conclusion after examining data on some 2,000 women in middle-age and following them for about a decade.

Related Links:

— “Hysterectomy not tied to greater depression risk,”Andrew M. Seaman , Reuters, April 30, 2012.

The Huffington Post (5/1, Pearson) reports, “One in three adults who have arthritis also have anxiety or depression, according to researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The study of some 1,700 adults, published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, found that more than one-third of the participants who had been diagnosed with arthritis or other rheumatic conditions “said they had at least one of two mental health conditions: anxiety and depression,” with anxiety found to be more common than depression. The article adds, “Prior research had established a link between chronic pain and depression, although groups like the National Institute of Mental Health caution that the exact, underlying links are not yet fully understood.”

“More than half of the patients who reported anxiety within the previous year were unemployed or unable to work, had problems bathing and dressing, and experienced significant difficulties in performing household activities and errands,” MedPage Today (5/1, Walsh) reports. “More than half also reported having severe fatigue within the past week and lacking confidence in the ability to engage in physical activity.” Also covering the story are WebMD (5/1, Mann) and HealthDay (5/1, Preidt).

Related Links:

— “Arthritis And Anxiety Closely Linked, Study Shows,”Catherine Pearson , Huffington Post, April 30, 2012.

The New York Times (5/1, D6, Belluck, Subscription Publication) reports, “The fast-growing abuse of prescription drugs has reached maternity wards in hospitals across the country, with the number of pregnant women addicted to opiate drugs — and the number of babies born experiencing withdrawal symptoms — rising sharply over the last decade.” Researchers “looked at two large databases that included a representative sample of patients from across the country and found that the number of pregnant mothers using opiate drugs jumped fivefold from 2000 to 2009.” The investigators found that “the number of infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome nearly tripled in the same period.”

USA Today (5/1, Szabo) reports that approximately “3.4 of every 1,000 infants born in a hospital in 2009 suffered from” neonatal abstinence syndrome, according to the study published online April 30 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. CDC researcher Andreea Creanga said, “The prevalence of drug use among pregnant women hasn’t changed since the early 2000s.” However, “the types of drugs that women are using is changing.”

The AP (5/1, Tanner) reports that altogether, “more than 13,000 US infants were affected in 2009, the researchers estimated.”

The Los Angeles Times (5/1, Kaplan) “Booster Shots” blog reports, “According to the federal data, 5.63 out of every 1,000 mothers who gave birth in a hospital in 2009 were addicted to opiates, up from 1.20 per 1,000 in 2000, the study found. Experts estimate that 60% to 80% of babies exposed to heroin or methadone in utero wind up addicted themselves.”

Bloomberg News (5/1, Ostrow) reports, “Newborns dependent on opiates were more likely to have increased irritability, tremors, respiratory problems, feeding issues and seizures and be born at low birth weight, the study showed.”

The CNN (5/1, Smith) “The Chart” blog reports, “The average hospital stay for a baby born withdrawing from painkillers is 16 days, according to the JAMA study, and 77% of the time, babies with NAS were charged under state Medicaid programs.”

Also covering the story were the Detroit Free Press (5/1, Erb), Reuters (5/1, Pittman), HealthDay (5/1, Mann), WebMD (5/1, Rubin),BBC News (5/1), and MedPage Today (5/1, Fiore).

Related Links:

— “Abuse of Opiates Soars in Pregnant Women,”Pam Belluck , The New York Times, April 30 , 2012.

HealthDay (4/30, Goodwin) reports, “Teens with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) and teens who start using cigarettes, drugs or alcohol tend to share at least one personality trait: impulsiveness, experts say. But a new brain-imaging study of nearly 1,900 14-year-olds finds that the brain networks associated with impulsivity in teens with AD/HD are different compared to those who use drugs or alcohol.” The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggests that “from a neurological standpoint, AD/HD and substance use may not be nearly as closely tied as previously believed”

Related Links:

— “Teen Impulsiveness Has Different Sources in ADHD, Substance Use,”Jenifer Goodwin , HealthDay, April 30, 2012.

HealthDay (4/28, Preidt) reports, “Poor mothers who are single or who have depression are more likely to overfeed their infants by adding cereal to baby bottles, a practice that can lead to excess weight gain in infants,” according to a study presented at a pediatrics conference. “For the study, US researchers examined data from 254 mothers of infants in low-income, primarily Hispanic households and found that 24 percent of the mothers put cereal in baby bottles.” Notably, “those with depression were 15 times more likely to do so than those without depression.”

Related Links:

— “Low-Income Mothers May Overfeed Their Infants,”Robert Preidt , HealthDay, April 30, 2012.

HealthDay (4/30, Preidt) reports, “Special-needs youth with chronic medical conditions or developmental disabilities are at risk for anxiety and depression if they’re excluded, ignored or bullied by other young people,” according to a study presented yesterday at a pediatrics meeting. After examining questionnaires filled out by 109 special-needs children ranging in age from eight to 17 and their parents, “researchers found that being bullied and/or excluded by peers were the strongest predictors of increased symptoms of depression or anxiety in the young patients.”

Related Links:

— “Being Bullied Tied to Anxiety, Depression in Special-Needs Kids,”Robert Preidt , HealthDay, April 30, 2012.

The Salt Lake (UT) Tribune (4/30, Lyon) reports that neuropsychologist Sam Goldstein, PhD, of Salt Lake City, UT, has expressed “skepticism for recent findings that one in 47 children in Utah and one in 88 children in the nation fall on the autism spectrum. The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he believes, is ‘extremely flawed.'” He may not be alone in his skepticism. “Critics question whether increased awareness accounts for the jump, or the expanded definition of autism spectrum disorders. Children may be being misdiagnosed, or parents may be seeking the diagnosis to access services.” Still other experts believe many youngsters may have always displayed such behaviors, but their behavior was not considered as a disability.

Related Links:

— “Are increases in autism rates in Utah, U.S. truly real?,”Julia Lyon , The Salt Lake Tribune, April 29, 2012.