February 29, 2008

Researchers Probe How Poverty Harms Children's Brains

By RICHARD MONASTERSKY

In 1989, Hallam Hurt, a neonatologist in Philadelphia, started recruiting poor inner-city women for a study of how cocaine use during pregnancy affects the developing fetus. Dr. Hurt enrolled women who had used cocaine while pregnant and balanced them against a control group of equally poor women who hadn't taken any drugs. Years later, when the physician conducted follow-up intelligence tests, the results provided a shocking indictment of American society.

But not in the way that many

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