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SCIENCEThursday 28 January 2016
Study questions link between teen pot usage and IQ decline
MALCOLM RITTER
AP Science Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — A new
analysis is challenging the
idea that smoking mari-
juana during adolescence
can lead to declines in
intelligence. Instead, the
new study says, pot smok-
ing may be merely a symp-
tom of something else
that’s really responsible for
a brainpower effect seen
in some previous research.
It’s not clear what that
other factor is, said Joshua
Isen, an author of the anal-
ysis. But an adolescent at
risk for smoking pot “is prob-
ably going to show this IQ
drop regardless of whether
he or she is actually smok-
ing marijuana,” said Isen,
a lecturer in psychology at
Loyola Marymount Univer-
sity in Los Angeles.
The study was released
earlier this month by the
Proceedings of the Nation-
Research begins into possible vaccine for Zika virus
L. NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
U.S. government is begin-
ning research into a pos-
sible vaccine for the mos-
quito-borne Zika virus that
is suspected of causing an
unusual birth defect as it
spreads in Latin America.
Don’t expect protection
anytime soon — vaccine
development typically
takes years.
“This is not going to be over-

A person holds a freshly-rolled marijuana joint in Seattle. A new be compared. Scientists show poorer trends than
analysis released earlier this month, is challenging the idea that have to assess what peo- those who’d smoked less.
smoking marijuana during adolescence can lead to declines in ple do on their own. But that’s not what the data
intelligence. For the new work, the re- revealed. Among users,
searchers examined data those who’d smoked more
(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) that had been collected than 30 times or used it dai-
for two big U.S. studies of ly for more than a six-month
al Academy of Sciences. Studying the topic is dif- twins. They focused on stretch didn’t do worse.
Some prior research has led ficult because children 3,066 participants who The study also looked at
to suggestions that the de- can’t ethically be random- were given a battery of in- 290 pairs of twins in which
veloping adolescent brain ly chosen to either take illic- telligence tests at ages 9 to one had used marijuana
is particularly vulnerable to it drugs or abstain for years 12 — before any of them and the other had not. The
harm from marijuana. so that their outcomes can had used marijuana — and members of each pair had
again at ages 17 to 20. grown up together and 137
They tracked changes in sets were identical twins so
the test scores and studied they shared the same DNA.
whether those trajectories Again, the pot users did not
were worse for marijuana fare worse than their ab-
users than for non-users. staining twin siblings.
Most tests revealed no dif- So, the researchers con-
ference between the two cluded, pot smoking itself
groups, but users did fare does not appear respon-
more poorly than abstain- sible for declines in test
ers in tests of vocabulary scores. Isen noted, howev-
and general knowledge. er, that the work says noth-
If smoking pot harmed test ing about other potential
scores, the researchers harmful consequences
reasoned, people who’d of smoking marijuana in
smoked more pot should adolescence.q

night,” Dr. Anthony Fauci NIH researchers have be- White House said Obama cousin dengue. But amid
of the National Institutes of gun some initial work, and urged them to accelerate a large Zika outbreak in
Health said in an interview the agency also plans to research into diagnostic Brazil, researchers began
this week. boost funding to some Bra- tests, vaccines and thera- reporting an increase in a
But there are vaccines in zilian scientists to acceler- peutic drugs, rare birth defect named
various stages of develop- ate Zika-related research, and work to inform Ameri- microcephaly — babies
ment for other viruses in the he said. cans about the Zika vi- born with abnormally small
same family — dengue, President Barack Obama rus and ways to protect heads. While scientists try to
West Nile and chikungu- met this week with his senior against infection. prove if Zika is the cause,
nya — that offer a pattern health advisers, including The Zika virus, first discov- the U.S. Centers for Disease
for creating something simi- Fauci, Health and Human ered decades ago in Af- Control and Prevention has
lar against Zika, said Fauci, Services Secretary Sylvia rica, was long thought to advised pregnant women
who directs NIH’s National Mathews Burwell and Cen- be more of a nuisance ill- to reconsider travel to Brazil
Institute of Allergy and In- ters for Disease Control Di- ness, with symptoms gen- and 21 other countries and
fectious Diseases. rector Thomas Frieden. The erally much milder than its territories with outbreaks.q