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Newborns addicted to painkillers

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Good morning Qcity! It’s Monday. For most of us, that means it’s time to get back to business. Today is going to be a nice day in Charlotte. The weatherman is calling for partly cloudy skies with a high around 72° and lows in the mid 50s.

Here’s what’s brewing in the news:

More babies born addicted to pain killers

Doctors across the nation are reporting a surge in the number of babies born addicted to powerful prescription painkillers, such as OxyContin and Vicodin, reports USA Today. Some physicians fear that this may become an epidemic, much like the crack-babies of the 1980s.

After birth, doctors often “readdict” the drug-exposed infants, giving them narcotics and sedatives, which can include intravenous morphine, methadone and Phenobarbital to ease their pain and get them comfortable so they can eat and sleep. Many painkiller-addicted babies go through extreme withdrawals after birth, rubbing their noses so hard with their fists that their skin bleeds. It can take weeks to wean the babies off the drugs.

Prescription drug abuse is the nation’s fast-growing drug problem and has been classified as an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a result, some states have seen the number of painkiller-addicted babies double, triple or multiply by even more in some cases over the past 10 years. The American Academy of Pediatrics has convened a committee this year to revise its treatment guidelines for babies in response to growing severity of the problem.
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1 in 10 will have diabetes by 2030

There are about 346 million people worldwide living with diabetes, according to the World Health Organization. In the next two decades, that number is expected to rise to 522 million people, according to a report released today by the advocacy group International Diabetes Federation. That means that one in 10 adults would be living with the disease by 2030, and the group calls those figures conservative. The numbers include both types of diabetes and are based on factors like aging and demographic changes, but do not include the impact of increasing obesity. WHO believes that the figures released by the International Diabetes Federation are possible and predicts that the number of deaths associated with the disease will double by 2030. 
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Gloria Cain speaks out

Herman Cain’s wife, Gloria, is speaking out publicly for the first time in defense of her husband after four women accused the Republican presidential candidate of sexual abuse during his days as president of the National Restaurant Association. In the clip below, Mrs. Cain says her husband couldn’t have done those things unless he has a split personality. “He totally respects women,” she says.

Watch & Discuss

*** Speak out. Share what's brewing on your mind in the comment section below.

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May 24, 2012
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