"Crack Babies: The Epidemic That Wasn't":
This is fascinating in light of the tremendous concern about "crack babies" in the 1980s:
When the use of crack cocaine became a nationwide epidemic in the 1980s and '90s, there were widespread fears that prenatal exposure to the drug would produce a generation of severely damaged children. Newspapers carried headlines like "Cocaine: A Vicious Assault on a Child," "Crack's Toll Among Babies: A Joyless View" and "Studies: Future Bleak for Crack Babies."Hat tip: Jonathan Simon.
But now researchers are systematically following children who were exposed to cocaine before birth . . . . So far, these scientists say, the long-term effects of such exposure on children's brain development and behavior appear relatively small.