UNIVERSITY CURRENTLY TESTS INFANTS WHEN DEEMED NECESSARY

IOWA CITY - University Hospitals may begin screening all babies for drugs
starting later this year, hospital officials said Monday.

At present, only those babies suspected of having been exposed to drugs
before birth are tested.

"The only way to know how many you are missing is to test them all," said
Dr. Edward Bell, the director of neonatology at University Hospitals in
Iowa City.

University Hospitals, using protocols developed a decade ago, tests about 5
percent of the estimated 1,500 babies born there each year. Bell said
between 10 percent and 30 percent of those babies test positive for illegal
drugs.

In the Quad-City area, Trinity Regional Health System tests about 20
percent of the babies that are born at its hospitals, with about 5 percent
found positive for illegal drugs.

Trinity officials said their protocol is to test babies who have received
no prenatal care, as well as those who exhibit symptoms of prenatal drug abuse.

At Genesis Medical Center, which has a testing protocol similar to
Trinity's, just less than 10 percent of the 2,400 babies born there last
year were tested for illegal drugs. Genesis officials were not sure Monday
about the exact percentage of those tested who turned up positive for drugs
in their systems.

University Hospitals will seek funding from the National Institutes of
Health to begin the screenings of newborns and as many mothers as possible.
The cost of doing that could be as much as $255,000 per year.

The hospital will not know until spring whether a grant for the screening
has been approved, so testing probably would not begin until fall,
officials said.

Dr. Resmiye Oral, the director of the University Hospitals Child Protection
Program, believes current testing protocols are too narrow.

"If we can identify these children, there is a chance to intervene, provide
services to the mother and protect the child as well," Oral said.

The testing of newborns for drugs is sporadic in Iowa, with some hospitals
testing only a handful of babies per year. Hospitals in Cedar Rapids tested
about 25 percent of their newborns during 2003. About 8 percent of those
turned out to be positive for illegal drugs.

The use of drugs by parents can lead to medical and developmental problems
in children, Oral said.

According to the U.S. Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, many of the
babies born with drugs in their systems end up going through withdrawal.
Some even have to be given morphine in a last-ditch attempt to cure their
addiction.