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MEDICAL POT LAWS & TREATS MAY SEND MORE KIDS TO ER
Wednesday, 29 May 2013 11:15 Published in Health & FitnessMedical marijuana items include yummy-looking gummy candies, cookies and other treats that may entice young children. Fourteen children were treated at Colorado Children's Hospital in the two years after a 2009 federal policy change led to a surge in medical marijuana use, the study found. That's when federal authorities said they would not prosecute legal users.
Study cases were mostly mild, but parents should know about potential risks and keep the products out of reach, said lead author Dr. George Sam Wang, an emergency room physician at the hospital.
Unusual drowsiness and unsteady walking were among the symptoms. One child, a 5-year-old boy, had trouble breathing. Eight children were hospitalized, two in the intensive care unit, though all recovered within a few days, Wang said. By contrast, in four years preceding the policy change, the Denver-area hospital had no such cases.
Some children came in laughing, glassy-eyed or "acting a little goofy and `off,'" Wang said. Many had eaten medical marijuana food items, although nonmedical marijuana was involved in at least three cases. The children were younger than 12 and included an 8-month-old boy.
The study was released Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.
Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., allow medical marijuana, though it remains illegal under federal law. Colorado's law dates to 2000 but the study notes that use there soared after the 2009 policy change on prosecution. Last year, Colorado and Washington state legalized adult possession of small amounts of nonmedical marijuana.
Some states, including Colorado, allow medical marijuana use by sick kids, with parents' supervision.
In a journal editorial, two Seattle poisoning specialists say that at least seven more states are considering legalizing medical marijuana and that laws that expand marijuana use likely will lead to more children sickened.
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JAMA Pediatrics: HTTP://WWW.JAMAPEDS.COM
Medical marijuana: HTTP://TINYURL.COM/O2CU3BE
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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at HTTP://WWW.TWITTER.COM/LINDSEYTANNER © 2013 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED. Learn more about our PRIVACY POLICY and TERMS OF USE.
HEALTHY QUINTUPLETS BORN IN SALT LAKE HOSPITAL
Wednesday, 29 May 2013 11:11 Published in Health & FitnessGuillermina and Fernando Garcia's five babies - three girls and two boys - weigh between 2 and 3 pounds each and are expected to stay at the University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake City for another six weeks. Doctors predict they will grow up completely healthy.
Guillermina Garcia, 34, carried the babies until 31 1/2 weeks - seven weeks shorter than most single-birth pregnancies but about three weeks longer than most quintuplet mothers. The extra time in the womb helped the babies' lungs develop more than other quintuplets, said Dr. Elizabeth O'Brien, of the newborn intensive care unit.
"They are all doing remarkably well," O'Brien said.
It was the first set of quintuplets ever born at the hospital. Fewer than 10 quintuplet sets are born each year in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted 37 babies who were born as part of a set of five or more in 2010.
"We feel like we're dreaming," said Fernando Garcia in Spanish at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. "It's incredible that we have five."
The Utah couple used fertility drugs, which increases the odds of a woman having multiple births. They found out early in the pregnancy they were having quintuplets, and Guillermina Garcia had been in the hospital on bed rest since early April.
All five babies were born by cesarean section - coming out within two minutes. A team of five, including one doctor and two nurses, was waiting for each baby. Their names are Esmeralda, Fatima, Marissa, Fernando and Jordan.
"I was excited to see them and see that they were OK, that everything turned out normally," she said in Spanish.
The largest is baby Fernando, who weighed 3 pounds, 14 ounces. The two baby boys are still using breathing tubes, while the girls are breathing on their own.
Dr. Tracy Manuck served as Guillermina Garcia's doctor at the hospital and called the mother an extraordinary person who never complained, despite suffering from high blood pressure and other medical problems during the pregnancy. The doctors also complimented her husband's support throughout the pregnancy - including in the operating room Sunday morning.
Though the hospital had never had quintuplets before, they've had many women give birth to triplets and quadruplets and drew on those experiences to help them Sunday, Manuck said.
The beaming couple, originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, now begins a future sure to be filled with droves of dirty diapers, endless hours of trying to calm crying babies and enough bottles and binkies to fill a sink. They also have a 1-year-old girl, Julietta.
They said they have family who live in the area who will help them. Fernando Garcia's bosses have told him to take as much time off as he needs from his work as a welder at a local factory. The family has health insurance, and the Utah Doula Association has setup an account where people can donate to help with the costs of having five babies.
When asked how she plans to care for all five babies, Guillermina Garcia shrugged her shoulders, laughed and said simply: "I don't know."
Her husband smiled and gave a more confident answer: "Now that they're here, we'll find a way," he said. "We're through the hardest part."
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Follow Brady McCombs at HTTPS://TWITTER.COM/BRADYMCCOMBS
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Online: Utah Doula Association website: utahdoulas.org
© 2013 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED. Learn more about our PRIVACY POLICY and TERMS OF USE.
TRUCK IN WASH. SPAN COLLAPSE HAULED DRILLING EQUIP
Friday, 24 May 2013 11:07 Published in National NewsIt happened about 7 p.m. Thursday on the north section of the four-lane Interstate 5 bridge near Mount Vernon, about 60 miles north of Seattle and 40 miles south of the Canada border, and disrupted travel in both directions.
Washington State Patrol Trooper Mark Francis told the Skagit Valley Herald (http://bit.ly/1afx3lU ) the driver works for Mullen Trucking in Alberta. The tractor-trailer, which was marked as an oversize load, was hauling a housing for drilling equipment Vancouver, Wash., he said. The top right front corner of the load struck several trusses on the north end of the bridge, Francis said.
An accident report said the driver was William Scott, of Spruce Grove, Alberta, near Edmonton. He voluntarily gave a blood sample for an alcohol test and was not arrested.
Initially, it wasn't clear if the bridge just gave way on its own. But at an overnight news conference, Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste blamed it on the too-tall load. The vertical clearance from the roadway to the beam is 14.6 feet.
"For reasons unknown at this point in time, the semi struck the overhead of the bridge causing the collapse," Batiste said.
The truck made it off the bridge and the driver remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators.
Two other vehicles went into the water about 25 feet below as the structure crumbled. Three people were rescued and were recovering Friday.
Traffic could be affected for some time. The bridge is used by an average of 71,000 vehicles a day, so the roadblock will cause a major disruption in trade and tourism between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Washington Transportation Department has set up detours. The closest bridge nearby is mostly used for local traffic between Mount Vernon and Burlington. The department also is recommending detours using Highway 20 and Highway 9 that add tens of miles to a trip. Drivers are urged to avoid the area if possible, especially over the Memorial Day weekend.
Francisco Rodriguez, of Burlington, looked at the damage Thursday evening and realized the area has lost an important transportation link.
"Well, very important, I mean everybody goes through here, everybody goes to Canada, Canadian side. Myself, I drove it every day, twice a day," he said.
Dan Sligh and his wife were in their pickup on Interstate 5 heading to a camping trip when a bridge before them disappeared in a "big puff of dust."
"I hit the brakes and we went off," Sligh told reporters from a hospital, adding he "saw the water approaching ... you hold on as tight as you can."
Sligh, his wife and another man in a different vehicle were dumped into the chilly waters of the Skagit River.
Sligh and his wife were taken to Skagit Valley Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The other man was reported in stable condition at United General Hospital in Sedro-Woolley, hospital CEO Greg Reed said.
Sligh said his shoulder was dislocated in the drop into the water, and he found himself "belly deep in water in the truck." He said he popped his shoulder back in and called out to his wife, who he described as being in shock initially as they waited for rescuers to arrive in boats.
The bridge was inspected twice last year and repairs were made, Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson said.
"It's an older bridge that needs a lot of work just like a good number of bridges around the state," she said.
Transportation officials are working on plans for either a temporary or permanent replacement, she said.
The National Transportation Safety Board was sending an investigative team.
Jeremiah Thomas, a volunteer firefighter, said he was driving nearby when he glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye and turned to look.
"The bridge just went down, it crashed through the water," he said. "It was really surreal."
Deyerin said the water depth was about 15 feet, and the vehicles half-visible in the water likely were resting on portions of the collapsed bridge.
Crowds of people lined the river to watch the scene unfold.
"It's not something you see every day," said Jimmy O'Connor, the owner of two local pizza restaurants who was driving on another bridge parallel to the one that collapsed. "People were starting to crawl out of their cars."
He said he and his girlfriend were about 400 yards away on the Burlington Bridge when they heard "just a loud bang."
"Then we looked over and saw the bridge was down in the water," he said.
He pulled over and saw three vehicles in the water, including the camping trailer that landed upside-down, he said.
The bridge was not classified as structurally deficient, but a Federal Highway Administration database listed it as being "functionally obsolete" — a category meaning that the design is outdated, such as having narrow shoulders and low clearance underneath.
The bridge, which was inspected last August and November, was built in in 1955 and had a sufficiency rating of 47 out of 100 at its November 2012 inspection, Transportation Department spokesman Noel Brady said Friday. The state average is 80, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Washington state was given a C in the American Society of Civil Engineers' 2013 infrastructure report card and a C- when it came to the state's bridges. The group said more than a quarter of Washington's 7,840 bridges are considered structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
The bridge was 1,112 feet long and 180 feet wide, with two lanes in each direction, Brady said. There are four spans, or sections, over the water supported by piers. The span on the north side is the one that collapsed. It's a steel truss bridge, meaning it has a boxy steel frame.
The mishap was reminiscent of the August 2007 collapse of an I-35W bridge in Minneapolis that killed 13 people and injured another 145 when it buckled and fell into the Mississippi River during rush-hour.
Sligh was thankful.
His wife was "doing OK" and he had "lots of cuts," he said. "You're kind of pinching yourself and realize you're lucky to be alive."
___ Baker reported from Olympia, Wash. Associated Press writers Chris Grygiel in Seattle and Terry Tang in Phoenix also contributed to this report.
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