Study

An abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman's risk of breast cancer, according to results released yesterday from a decade-long study of more than 100,000 women. The study is the most recent in a series that have undercut a concern used by activists to dissuade women from having an abortion. "It's important for women to have the facts," said Dr. Karin B. Michaels of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, lead author of the study. An expert panel convened by the National Cancer Institute concluded in 2003 that there was no evidence to support a link between abortion and breast cancer, she said, "and our study is very much in line with that."

A new study of adolescents in poor Baltimore neighborhoods lends scientific weight to the common-sense notion that a good parent is a pain in the neck.A team of researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in a study released yesterday, found that youths who said they were closely supervised by a parent were only about half as likely to use marijuana or alcohol, sell drugs or have unprotected sex."This gives parents renewed hope and a renewed sense of responsibility," said Dr. Bonita F. Stanton, one of the study's authors.

THE NEGATIVE reaction of many civil rights advocates to a recent study regarding the effect of abortion on crime rates is understandable, yet unwarranted.The study by two professors, John J. Donohue III of Stanford University Law School and Steven D. Levitt of the University of Chicago, concludes that as much as half of the precipitous decline in crime rates since the early 1990s is traceable to the legalization of abortion two decades earlier.Crime declined in the 1990s, the study contends, because disadvantaged women in the 1970s, disproportionately black and Latino, had abortions.

A new study could revive an old debate over whether chiropractic treatment for lower back pain does any good.In the study of 1,310 patients by the Rand Corp., 29 percent of initial chiropractic treatments for lower back pain were found to be inappropriate, 46 percent were ruled appropriate and 25 percent were of uncertain value."Clearly, a 29 percent inappropriateness rate is too high and should be decreased," said study author Dr. Paul G. Shekelle of the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

They were single and unemployed, urban men and women who used drugs but didn't use condoms, people whose actions put them at higher risk for getting HIV than anyone else in America.Now the largest study of its kind has found that something as simple as talking can save their lives.They attended seven two-hour sessions that taught them how to correctly use condoms and how to talk with their partners.The participants also learned to understand what might be driving their risky sexual behavior and, in some cases, changed it.The results, reported in today's issue of the journal Science, offer encouragement for anyone who ever tried to teach safe sex.For up to a year after the sessions, the study's participants, including 700 Baltimore residents, doubled their regular use of condoms and posted lower rates of symptoms from sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs.

An independent review has confirmed that Baltimore police substantially overstated the drop in gun violence over the past four years, according to a summary of the study obtained by The Sun last night.The review conducted by a University of Maryland, College Park criminologist reaches conclusions similar to those of two other studies -- by the police and comptroller's office -- that showed Police Department computer glitches overcounted the number of shootings in years before 1994.Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier boasted last year that shootings had dropped nearly 60 percent from 1993 to 1997.

Secondhand cigarette smoke is more dangerous than previously thought, Harvard researchers reported yesterday in a study with broad implications for public health policy and probable impact on at least one major lawsuit.The 10-year study, which tracked more than 32,000 healthy women who never smoked, has found that regular exposure to smoking by other people smoking at home or work almost doubled the risk of heart disease.Earlier studies have linked secondhand smoke to heart disease, but the new findings show the biggest increase in risk ever reported, and the researchers say it applies equally to men and women.

GREENVILLE, N.C. -- They arrived at the East Carolina University medical school here yesterday, cloaked in official anonymity, like the jurors in a celebrated criminal case.But the people who underwent six hours of testing yesterday, and the others who will come here next Saturday, aren't being asked to pass judgment.These 60 people are acting as witnesses against single-celled organisms, including Pfiesteria piscicida, the fish-killing microbe accused but not convicted of having made people ill along the tidal rivers that vein North Carolina's coast.

WASHINGTON -- A national study has conclusively shown that allergic reaction to cockroaches is a major cause of the high level of asthma in children in inner cities, researchers said yesterday.A five-year federally financed study conducted at eight medical centers in seven cities -- including Baltimore -- concluded, as experts had long suspected, that children are at high risk of asthma attacks if they are allergic to cockroaches and their homes show high levels of the insects' body parts and droppings.

In the largest such study to date, federal researchers have found that estrogen replacement therapy among postmenopausal women decreases the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by more than 50 percent.Experts said the new study out of Baltimore -- which included 472 women monitored for 16 years -- is important because it is the first long-term analysis of estrogen's effects on this disease that affects more than 4 million Americans.Earlier studies had hinted at such a beneficial effect but were much smaller and covered periods of up to only a few months.

Maryland, with a pedestrian death rate that is significantly higher than the national average, ranks second from the bottom nationally in its spending of federal transportation funds on resources for walkers and bicyclists, according to a study released Monday. The national study, "Dangerous by Design," concludes that a disregard for the safety of people on foot in highway engineering is an important contributing factor in the thousands of pedestrian deaths on U.S. roads. Produced by a coalition of groups led by the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership and Transportation for America, the report calls for significant investments in projects to make roads safer for walking.

The Maryland Stadium Authority will study the potential for a 7,000-seat soccer stadium south of M&T Bank Stadium, a $30 million proposal by the city's minor-league, outdoor soccer club that would help anchor a sports and entertainment district near the city's proposed slots casino. Crystal Palace Football Club USA, which plays at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and has been looking for a site of its own, is forming a joint venture with the owners of about 15 acres in the Carroll Camden Industrial Park to develop a stadium in time for the 2012 season.

AIDS virus could be eliminated in a decade The virus that causes AIDS could theoretically be eliminated in a decade, if all people living in countries with high infection rates are regularly tested and treated, according to a new mathematical model. It is an intriguing solution to end the AIDS epidemic. But it is based on assumptions rather than data and is riddled with logistical problems. The research was published online last week in the medical journal, The Lancet. "It's quite a startling result," said Charlie Gilks, an AIDS treatment expert at the World Health Organization and one of the paper's authors.

Jury study targets very real problem According to reporter Julie Bykowicz's disturbing article on the findings of the Abell Foundation's jury study, Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy attacked the study as "divisive" and demanded that its recommendations be changed ("Jury study raises hackles in city," Aug. 18). The Abell Foundation report found that in the three Maryland counties it studied, 45 percent of defendants in jury trials were convicted and 27 percent were acquitted.

Two Maryland lawmakers are asking the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate why a study it funded spread sewage sludge on the lawns of nine East Baltimore rowhouses as part of an effort to combat lead poisoning. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, both Democrats, have written a letter to outgoing HUD Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson seeking answers to safety questions raised by the study. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has said it will hold hearings on risks of using sludge as fertilizer.

One in four teenage girls in the United States - and nearly half of African-American girls - has at least one sexually transmitted disease, according to a study released yesterday, providing the first national snapshot of infection rates among this age group. Those numbers translate into an estimated 3.2 million adolescent females infected with one of the four most common STDs - many of whom may not even know they have a disease or that they are passing it to their sex partners. "What we found is alarming," said Dr. Sara Forhan, a researcher with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the study's lead author.

It's not enough anymore to be satisfied with your job. Being engaged in your job is the new measure of work happiness that employers desire and researchers are studying these days. What's the difference? Being engaged at work means you're emotionally connected, invested in your job and organization and want to contribute to the company's success. As a result, an engaged work force can help a business' bottom line and increase the likelihood that workers will stay with the company, according to several recent studies.

Researchers have found that firstborn children are smarter than their siblings - and the reason appears to be not genetics but the way their parents treat them, according to a study published today. The study of 240,000 Norwegian men in the journal Science found that the IQs of firstborns were two to three points higher than their younger siblings'. While that might not sound like a lot, experts said a few IQ points can make a big difference over the course of a lifetime - and set firstborns on a trajectory for success.

The reaction to a New York Times article that suggested NBA referees - white and black - occasionally succumb to subconscious racial biases when whistling fouls proves again that most of the media are unprepared to lead an informed, honest discussion of race. The study, conducted by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student, has been dismissed and ridiculed by the black sports media elite. The methods, conclusions and relevance of the study have all been trashed.

America is one of the richest countries in the world. It's also one of the worst industrialized places for kids to grow up and has a greater percentage of depressed people than impoverished, war-torn nations do, according to two major studies. The first unflattering finding comes from a recent UNICEF child-welfare study that measured everything from the number of books in the home to infant-mortality rates, drinking and drug use and the percentage of children who eat meals with their families.