Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

News and Notes

2009; Wiley; Volume: 104; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1360-0443.2009.02555.x

1360-0443

Peter Miller, Molly Jarvis, Louisa Strain,

Prenatal Substance Exposure Effects

The National Council for Research, the main funding body for research in Brazil, has announced the creation of the first National Institute of Policies on Alcohol and Drugs. It is the biggest ever investment in addiction research in Brazil. The objectives of the Institute are: To generate research on alcohol and drug policies in order to help Brazil improve its response to a series of problems in the country. Current research includes: a national survey of consumption of alcohol and drugs; alcohol and violence; drinking and driving; the economic impact of alcohol consumption; teenage drinking; the effect of advertising on alcohol consumption and clinical trials on the treatment of addiction. To transfer technology in the area of treatment and prevention in order to aid the professional development of workers in the field. Training has already taken place in 22 of the Brazilian states, with more than 1.000 professionals graduating in a Diploma of Addiction Behaviour. There is also an electronic version of this course with potential to reach the whole country. The funding is for five years, a practice not very common in Brazil, which allows room for future planning. The Institute will be based at the Federal University of São Paulo, with Prof. Ronaldo Laranjeira as principal investigator, and five other groups of professionals in different states. An international partnership is already in place with Prof. Raul Caetano from Texas University—USA, but others partnerships are expected to happen. Drug and Alcohol Review has said farewell to Professor John Saunders as Editor-in-Chief. John has worked tirelessly for the journal for the past 22 years and is responsible for steering the journal to its current internationally recognised position. He has provided exceptional leadership and devoted service to both the journal and the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs for the last 25 years. John will continue his commitment to the journal in the newly awarded role of Founding and Emeritus Editor-in-Chief. Drug and Alcohol Review's new Editor-in-Chief will be Dr. Robin Room, whose distinguished career in the alcohol and other drug field extends over many years. He is currently Director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, and Professor of Alcohol Policy Research at the School for Population Health at the University of Melbourne. The Star reports that from March 2009, all cigarette packs sold in Malaysia must carry graphic pictures to warn people of the dangers of smoking. The packaging regulation is part of the government's latest blitz against smoking. Packaging with images has already started appearing. These include a picture of a dead foetus, as well as a picture of someone affected by neck cancer. The Guardian reports that a New Delhi high court has overturned a federal ban on smoking onscreen. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul ruled in January that a 2005 act to ban smoking on film and TV was unnecessary, and restricted film-makers' freedoms. ‘Directors should not have multifarious authorities breathing down their necks when indulging in the creative act,’ he said. ‘A cinematographic film must reflect the realities of life. Smoking is a reality of life. It may be undesirable, but it exists.’ The move is a setback for health campaigners, who had welcomed the ban. The act had also forced distributors and exhibitors to show health warnings on older films if they featured cigarette smoking. Source: The Guardian, 26 January 2009 The New Scientist reports on a team of researchers at the University of California who say that results from studies involving brain scans may be inflated and in some cases entirely spurious. The team, led by psychologist Hal Pashler, examined more than 50 studies that relied on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, many published in high-profile journals, and questioned the authors about their methods. Pashler's team say that most of the studies, which linked brain regions to feelings including social rejection, neuroticism and jealousy, used a method that inflates the strength of the link between a brain region and the emotion or behaviour. In many of the studies, researchers scan volunteers' brains as they complete a task designed to elicit a particular emotion. They then divide the images from the scans into cubes called voxels, which can each contain millions of neurons, and attempt to correlate the activity of particular voxels with emotional changes reported by the volunteers. The problem arises when researchers attempt to calculate the strength of this correlation. This has to be done in two stages. The first is to identify regions in which the correlation between voxel activity and the emotion exceeds a certain threshold. In the second stage, the researchers assess the strength of the correlation in that region. Pashler recommends that two independent sets of scans be used in these two stages. If the same set is used for both, there is an increased risk of misinterpreting random noise as a genuine signal. Yet in almost 30 of the papers Pashler's team analysed, researchers used the same scans to identify the voxels of interest and determine the final correlation. This inflates the correlation above its true value, and has the potential to produce apparent links between emotions and brain regions when none exists, Pashler's team claims. The claim is disputed by at least two of the critiqued groups who argue that Pashler has misunderstood their results and that their conclusions are backed by other studies. Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126914.700-doubts-raised-over-brain-scan-findings.html The Australian Drug Policy Modelling Program has prepared an annotated bibliography of relevant research in relation to prison-based drug treatment. The primary focus is on Australian research, but it also includes much international work. Only research papers that report on programs in prison settings are included. The bibliography was updated in November 2008 and contains the latest information available. Wherever possible an Abstract and a link to the reference are provided. http://notes.med.unsw.edu.au/DPMPWeb.nsf/resources/Interventions/$file/Prisons.pdf Arash Alaei and Kamiar Alaei, two brothers known internationally for their groundbreaking work in Iran as HIV and AIDS physicians, have been sentenced to six and three years in prison respectively, after a one day closed-door trial at Tehran's Revolutionary Court at the end of December. The brothers were detained by the Iranian authorities in June 2008 and were tried as conspirators working with an ‘enemy government’ to overthrow the government of Iran, apparently for their work with international and specifically US institutions in the field of HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment. They were also tried at that time on unspecified other charges which neither they nor their lawyer were allowed to know, see the evidence of, or address. The prosecution of the doctors has prompted an outcry among international human rights groups and critics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The brothers ran a clinic in Tehran and HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs throughout the country, focusing particularly on at-risk sectors like prostitutes and drug users. The Alaeis were convicted under an Iranian law that stipulates that anyone cooperating with a foreign ‘hostile’ government against Iran can be sentenced to between one and 10 years in prison. More information can be obtained from: http://iranfreethedocs.org/ A study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence has reported that methadone patients do as well in rehab as abstinent patients [1]. Residential therapeutic communities have demonstrated effectiveness, yet for the most part they adhere to a drug-free ideology incompatible with the use of methadone. This study used equivalency testing—a statistical technique often used to show that a new medication is indistinguishable from an approved standard medication. Outcomes from the two treatments (in this case therapeutic community residence with versus without methadone maintenance) are declared equivalent if the confidence interval for the difference between them is completely within 20% plus and minus the value of outcomes from the standard treatment. The study compared 24-month outcomes between 125 methadone patients and 106 opioid-dependent drug-free clients with similar psychiatric histories, criminal justice pressures and expected lengths of stay, who were all newly enrolled in a therapeutic community. As hypothesised, the average number of days in treatment was statistically equivalent for the two groups (166.5 for the methadone group and 180.2 for the comparison group). At each assessment, the proportion of the methadone group testing positive for illicit opioids was indistinguishable from the proportion in the comparison group. Generally considered incompatible treatment modalities, this is one of the few studies to show that a therapeutic community environment can be combined with methadone maintenance, and the first to do so in respect of a residential community. Source: http://findings.org.uk/count/downloads/download.php?file=Sorensen_JL_10.txt 33rd Annual New Directions in the Study of Alcohol Group Conference—Asking the right questions in the right way: re-evaluating alcohol research & treatment for the 21st century, 23–26 April 2009, Stranmillis College, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Website: http://www.newdirections.org.uk or contact: carol.driver@actiononaddiction.org.uk 31st Substance Abuse Librarians & Information Specialists (SALIS) Conference, 5–8 May 2009, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Website: http://www.salis.org/conference/conference.html 6th UK/European Symposium on Addictive Disorders, 14–16 May 2009, Millennium Gloucester Hotel, Kensington, London, UK. Website: http://www.ukesad.org National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers Annual Conference, 17–20 May 2009, PGA Resort, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA. Website: http://www.naatp.org/conferences/annualconference.php 35th Annual Alcohol Epidemiology Symposium of the Kettil Bruun Society, 1–5 June 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark. Website: http://www.kbs2009.dk 12th European Federation of Therapeutic Communities Conference, 2–5 June 2009, World Forum Convention Centre, The Hague, The Netherlands. Website: http://www.eftc-bepartofthesolution.eu National Conference on Tobacco or Health, 10–12 June 2009, Phoenix Convention Centre, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Website: http://www.tobaccocontrolconference.org/2009/ The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) 71st Annual Meeting, 20–25 June 2009, John Ascuaga's Nugget Casino Resort, Reno/Sparks, Nevada, USA. Website: http://www.cpdd.vcu.edu/index.html 2009 UK National Smoking Cessation Conference, 22–23 June 2009, Novotel London West Hotel and Convention Centre, UK. Website: http://www.uknscc.org Third Summer Institute on Alcohol, Drugs and Addiction, 12–24 July 2009, Graduate School of Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. An intensive two-week summer programme that seeks to provide an interdisciplinary approach to the study of addiction and to promote opportunities for international networking among participants. Deadline for applications is 1 May 2009. Website: http://www.ishss.uva.nl/addiction 19th Annual Symposium of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, 8–11 July 2009, Pheasant Run Resort, St. Charles, Illinois, USA. Website: http://cannabinoidsociety.org/SYMPOSIUM.2009/index.html International Narcotics Research Conference, 12–17 July 2009, Benson Hotel, Portland, Oregon, USA. Website: http://www.inrcworld.org/2009/2009mtg.htm International Society of Addiction Journal Editors (ISAJE) 2009 Meeting, 24–26 September 2009, Hotel Riviera & Maximilian's, Trieste, Italy. Website: http://www.theoffice.it/isaje09 European Science Foundation-Linköping University Conference on The changing use and misuse of Catha Edulis (khat) in a changing world: tradition, trade and tragedy, 5–9 October 2009, Scandic Linköping Väst Hotel, Linköping, Sweden. Website: http://www.esf.org/conferences/09274 News and Notes welcomes contributions from its readers. Send your material to Peter Miller, News and Notes Editor, Addiction, National Addiction Centre PO48, 4 Windsor Walk, London SE5 8AF. Fax+44 (0)20 7848 5966; e-mail louisa@addictionjournal.org Conference entries should be sent to Molly Jarvis at molly@addictionjournal.org. Subject to editorial review, we will be glad to print, free of charge, details of your conference or event, up to 75 words and one entry only. Please send your notification three months before you wish the entry to appear.