Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/452792
ByLindseyTanner The Associated Press CHICAGO With virtually no hard proof that med- ical marijuana benefits sick children, and evidence that it may harm develop- ing brains, the drug should only be used for severely ill kids who have no other treatment option, the na- tion's most influential pe- diatricians group says in a new policy. Some parents insist that medical marijuana has cured their kids' trou- blesome seizures or led to other improvements, but the American Academy of Pediatrics' new policy says rigorous research is needed to verify those claims. To make it easier to study and develop marijuana- based treatments, the group recommends removing marijuana from the govern- ment's most restrictive drug category, which includes heroin, LSD and other nar- cotics with no accepted medical use, and switching it to the category which in- cludes methadone and oxy- codone. The recommended switch "could help make a big difference in promot- ing more research," said Dr. Seth Ammerman, the poli- cy's lead author and a pro- fessor of pediatrics and ad- olescent medicine at Stan- ford University. The academy's qualified support may lead more pe- diatricians to prescribe medical marijuana, but the group says pediatric use should only be considered "for children with life-lim- iting or severely debilitating conditions and for whom current therapies are inad- equate." The academy also re- peated its previous advice against legalizing mari- juana for recreational use by adults, suggesting that may enable easier access for kids. It does not address medical marijuana use in adults. Studies have linked recreational marijuana use in kids with ill effects on health and brain devel- opment, including prob- lems with memory, con- centration, attention, judg- ment and reaction time, the group's policy emphasizes. The policy was published online Monday in Pediat- rics. It updates and expands the group's 2004 policy. Since then, the marijuana movement has grown sub- stantially. Recreational and medical marijuana use is le- gal for adults in four states — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. Nineteen other states and Washing- ton D.C., have laws allowing medical marijuana use only and most allow children to qualify, according to Mor- gan Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project, a national group that advocates mar- ijuana policy reform and tracks state laws. "The cart is so far ahead of the horse related to this drug," said Dr. Angus Wil- fong, of Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Mar- ijuana has dozens of chem- ical components that need to be studied just like any drug to determine safety, proper doses and potential side effects, he said. Wilfong was involved in a recently completed inter- national study involving 30 children with severe ep- ilepsy. About half got an ex- perimental drug made with a marijuana compound that doesn't make users high; the others received dummy medicine. Study results are being analyzed. Wilfong said five children from his hospital were involved and while he doesn't know if any of them got the marijuana drug, none suffered any se- rious side effects. Wilfong said he has a young seizure patient in a different, less rigorous study who has shown dra- matic improvement after several months on the mar- ijuana-based treatment, "but that doesn't prove it was due to the" experimen- tal drug," he said. CHILDREN AND MARIJUANA MDs:MedicalpotonlyOKforsickkidsfailedbyotherdrugs By Maria Cheng The Associated Press GENEVA The World Health Organization has proposed reforms that could overhaul its structure after botch- ing the response to the big- gest-ever Ebola outbreak, a sluggish performance that experts say cost thousands of lives. On Sunday, several dozen of WHO's member countries approved a res- olution aimed at strength- ening the U.N. health agen- cy's ability to respond to emergencies, though many of the details have yet to be worked out and it's unclear what concrete changes will result. "The WHO we have is not the WHO we need," said Dr. Tom Frieden, di- rector of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said decisions at WHO were often made for political rather than scien- tific reasons. WHO's chief, Dr. Mar- garet Chan, acknowledged Sunday that WHO was too slow to grasp the signif- icance of the Ebola out- break, which is estimated to have killed more than 8,600 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Critics say the kinds of reform being adopted are long overdue. "The groundswell of dis- satisfaction and lack of trust in WHO over Ebola has reached such a cre- scendo that (without) fun- damental reform, I think we might lose confidence in WHO for a generation," said Lawrence Gostin, di- rector of the WHO Col- laborating Center on Pub- lic Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown Uni- versity. "Ebola revealed all of WHO's inherent weak- nesses and the interna- tional community saw painfully what it was like to see WHO not being able to lead. That resulted in thousands of deaths that were completely avoidable," he said. In a resolution ad- opted by WHO's exec- utive board, nearly 60 countries called on the agency to take "immedi- ately necessary steps" to enact measures including the creation of an emer- gency fund to respond to health crises. Britain's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Sally Davies, an- nounced the U.K. would do- nate $10 million to the pro- posed fund. The resolution also called for the establish- ment of a reserve of health workers to battle epidem- ics, but didn't specify how large this workforce would be. WHO conceded that, de- spite public expectations that it can respond quickly to health emergencies, it simply is not designed to do that. The proposed changes undermine WHO's own decision two years ago to slash its outbreak depart- ment and challenges the agency's past insistence that its expertise is in is- suing technical guidance, not acting as a first re- sponder. Countries also proposed that WHO's director-gen- eral should be able to "add or change staff with appropriate expertise at the country and regional level." In an internal draft doc- ument obtained last year by The Associated Press, officials at WHO's Geneva headquarters blamed its Africa office for botching initial efforts to contain Ebola. Dr. Bruce Aylward, who is leading WHO's response to Ebola, said country and regional offices hadn't yet signed off on these reforms and that hammering out those details might be chal- lenging. "A lot of this is still to be discussed, what this will actually look like," he said. Gostin said no other agency has a mandate to protect public health that could easily replace WHO. "If we didn't have a WHO, we would need to create one," he said. HEALTH ORGANIZATION WHO adopts reforms to repair reputation a er bungling Ebola THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), addresses the media in Gammarth, northeastern Tunisia, in October. The World Health Organization is considering reforms that could overhaul its structure in what may be a last-ditch effort to salvage its credibility a er botching the response to the biggest-ever Ebola outbreak. RANDAL S. ELLOWAY DDS IMPLANT DENTISTRY 2426 SO. 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