Parents should talk to children about drugs and alcohol often, and firmly, but spend more time listening

Talking about drugs and alcohol often, and when children are at a young age, are two of the best things parents can do to prevent substance abuse by teenagers.

"As much as parents want to be the 'anti-drug,' as media campaigns encourage, the tricky part is doing it effectively, without alienating their kids or essentially lighting a joint for them," reports Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz of the Chicago Tribune.

One of the keys is to have conversations often and early on. "What you don't want is to be having this conversation after your child has already started drinking or smoking marijuana," said J. David Hawkins, founding director of the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington.

Nationwide, 71 percent of high school graduates have consumed alcohol, half have gotten drunk at least once, almost half have tried illegal drugs, and one-fourth have tried illegal drugs other than marijuana, the 2010 Monitoring the Future survey found. The annual poll, conducted by the University of Michigan, talked to 50,000 American teens.

Kentucky teens under 18 are among the least likely to drink alcohol of teens in the nation, the 2007-08 National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed. Kentucky teens ranked 10th lowest, but were nearly on par with the national average when it came to binge drinking. (Read more)

The workshop "Guiding Good Choices" gives lessons to parents in how to deal with the issue. It advises parents to talk to their kids about drugs before adolescence, preferably when they're in the fifth or sixth grade. Parents should talk to their kids about people in their family that may have drinking or drug problems and how that affects them. They should set a family policy on drugs or alcohol and establish consequences. And they should plan to have the conversation every year.

Teens generally obey rules until they reach the eighth grade, when it becomes unclear to them whether or not drugs and alcohol are actually bad. Alison Birnbaum, a psychotherapist and social worker based in New Canaan, Conn., said talking about drugs is only 20 percent talking, and 80 percent listening, but parents should be firm. Parents should make clear they will be disappointed if the rules are broken.

Safety First, a teen drug-prevention project, advocates "Just Say Know," rather than "Just Say No." It provides kids with science-based information and asks parents to be honest, if selective, about their own history with alcohol and drugs. "Parents often worry that they're condoning drugs if they're not condemning them, but ... acknowledging the possibility that your kids might experiment sets you up to discuss what they should do if they get in trouble," Elejalde-Ruiz writes. (Read more)

E-cigarettes are untested and promote nicotine addiction, UK professors say

In the wake of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's move to classify the electronic cigarette as tobacco rather than a more strictly regulated drug-delivery device, two University of Kentucky professors outline the dangers, and false claims, of the product in an op-ed piece in the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"E-cigs preserve the visual, sensory and behavioral aspects of smoking, which can prolong addiction, " Ellen Hahn and Carol Riker contend. The product can also be a gateway to traditional cigarettes for non-users and, because of their flavorings, attract youth, they say.

E-cigarettes are reusable tubes that contain a mixture of liquid nicotine, flavorings, propylene glycol that mimics the look of smoke, as well as other chemicals. Hahn and Riker note that the e-cigarette industry says its product can be a replacement on occasions when traditional smoking is prohibited, but at the same time claims that e-cigs help smokers break the habit.

"Recent studies report serious labeling and quality-control issues as well as design flaws, none of which are reflected in the industry's television ads, powerful Internet pitches and testimonials using Facebook and other social media," Hahn and Riker write, adding the World Health Organization has concerns about the product and the FDA has not evaluated it for safety. "Continuing to market e-cigs without rigorous research and strict regulation is an uncontrolled experiment conducted by those whose primary interest is to profit from addition." (Read more)

National Women's Health Week kicked off yesterday; today is National Checkup Day

National Women's Health Week kicked off fittingly on Mother's Day, with communities, hospitals, health centers, churches and schools participating. The observance, which runs through May 14, is coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's Health.

This year's theme is "It's Your Time." The goal of the week is to have women make their health a top priority by encouraging them to eat a nutritious diet; go to the doctor to get a regular checkup and preventative screenings; avoid risky behaviors like smoking and not wearing a seatbelt; get enough sleep and manage stress; and get at least 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate physical activity and 1 hour and 15 of vigorous physical activity each week.

Today is National Women's Checkup Day, which is meant to promote regular checkups for early detection of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, mental health illnesses and sexually transmitted infections. (Read more) For a list of Kentucky-based events being held in honor of National Women's Health Week, click here.

Veteran journalist sees hope in residential drug recovery program

"Kentucky's struggle to help its citizens who suffer from dependency on drugs and alcohol recently reached an impressive goal when leaders of that struggle who are prominent in different political parties celebrated the official opening of a $5 million treatment center in Western Kentucky," Al Smith wrote in an op-ed piece for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Smith, left, reports on his trip to the dedication of the Recovery Kentucky residential center in Paducah with "First Lady Jane Beshear, wife of the Democratic governor, and Don Ball, the Lexington developer and Republican fund-raiser," who "left politics behind" to mark the opening of the 10th and last in a series of centers planned at Ball's urging by Gov. Steve Beshear's Republican predecessor, Ernie Fletcher. Smith praises Beshear or "retaining Ball as task force chairman and appointing the first lady as his cochair in a commendable commitment to making the program a bipartisan effort."

Recovery Kentucky uses "a recovery model that includes peer support, daily living skills training, job responsibilities and challenges to practice sober living," writes Smith, who overcame his own alcohol addiction almost 50 years ago while editing the Russellville newspaper. "The memory is so vivid I couldn't resist sharing it with some newcomers to sobriety in Paducah," he wrote, quoting himself: "I've been where you've been. It's a program of hope, it works if you work it." (Read more)

Health care reform will be costly to hospitals, Kentucky Hospital Association chief says

Many of Kentucky's 132 hospitals will lose money and be forced to merge because of the new health care law, says the president and CEO of the Kentucky Hospital Association.

Speaking to the Madisonville-Hopkins County Chamber of Commerce, Michael Rust, left, said one in three Kentucky hospitals is already losing money. Under the new law, reimbursement rates for Medicare are set to go down by 10 percent, which will further put the pinch on health-care facilities. "The proposed 10 percent reduction will cut jobs and wages by an estimated $5.3 million, reduce sales to businesses by $19.6 million and reduce state and local revenues by $1 million," Ron Sanders reports on iSurfHopkins.com.

Rust said the expanded coverage afforded by the law, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, will cost Kentucky $1 trillion. Half of that will be financed by new taxes. The other half will be paid for through Medicare cuts, representing a $3.4 billion loss in Kentucky hospital revenue, Sanders reports. Hospitals are, in turn, "working to reduce costs through strategic affiliations or mergers or acquisitions," Sanders reports from Rust's speech. (Read more)

Kentucky Voices for Health Executive Director Jodi Mitchell told Kentucky Health News, "We know the law is not perfect and there are areas of concern that are valid. However, status quo is not an option given that we had a broken and costly health care system. We anticipate the reforms will continue to happen and there will be corrections and amendments to the law to improve upon it." Kentucky Voices for Health is a coalition of more than 100 organizations and individuals working to build a healthier Kentucky and does not have a formal stance on the new health care law, Mitchell said. "It is the law of the land and we are trying to provide objective information in regards to the valuable consumer protection provisions that are in the law."

Free clinic helps care for poor workers in horse racing industry

People who don't have health insurance but who work at Churchill Downs and elsewhere in the horse racing industry can get free care, thanks to the Kentucky Racing Health Services Center.

"The nonprofit, nurse-managed clinic started as a joint venture between the University of Louisville and the Kentucky Racing Health and Welfare Fund, a non-profit organization that gets its money from when people wager but do not cash their tickets," The Courier-Journal's Laura Ungar reports.

The clinic opened six years ago and helps about 2,500 patients a year. Most earn very low wages; stable-help and groom positions pay between $150 and $250 a week plus housing, equine-related employment service Equimax found.

To be treated, workers must be able to show a valid racing license and be employed in the horse industry. Many of the clinic's patients are Hispanics, who have a disproportionately high number of health issues compared to the rest of the population in part because language barriers can either keep them from getting care or understanding instruction. In Jefferson County, the number of Hispanics has increased — representing 4.4. percent of Jefferson County's population in the 2010 U.S. Census versus 1.8 percent in 2000. (Read more)

Teens are misinformed about risks of tanning beds, and are not being warned at salons

With swimsuit season just around the corner, the American Academy of Dermatology has found that more than 40 percent of people who tan have never heard from tanning salon employees about the dangers of tanning beds. This comes days after the Tanning Bed Cancer Control Act was introduced by U.S. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Charlie Dent (R-Pa.). It calls on the Food and Drug Administration to reclassify indoor tanning beds and require warning labels on the equipment about the dangers of ultraviolet light.

"Studies have found that UV radiation from indoor tanning beds increases a person's risk of developing melanoma by 75 percent," said dermatologist Dr. Ronald L. Moy, president of the dermatology academy. "Contributing to this problem is the fact that tanning bed facilities currently are not required to verbally warn patrons of the known health risks of ultraviolet radiation and, in some cases, they may be misleading the public by falsely promoting artificial UV light as safer than natural sunlight."

The report found tanning bed users from 14 to 17 are "more than twice as likely to think tanning beds are safer than the sun than older tanners age 18 to 22 ... and more than three times as likely to think that tanning beds do not cause skin cancer," the research-reporting service Newswise reports.

"The FDA currently ranks tanning beds as a Class I medical device, which provides a minimal level of regulation and oversight similar to bandages, tongue depressors, gauze and crutches," Moy said. "That is why it's important that the FDA change the classification of indoor tanning devices to reflect the significant health risks that they pose." (Read more)

Earlier this year in the Kentucky General Assembly, state Rep. David Watkins of Henderson introduced a bill that would prevent children under 14 from using tanning booths. The bill, which was backed by the Kentucky Medical Association and the American Cancer Society, cleared the House's Health and Welfare Committee but went no further.