Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings April 2017 - 250

TEXAS PRISON POPULATION
In 1985, it was 37,488 and in 2016 it was 146,843 (7). The
annual budget of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is
$3.4 billion, and for the entire US it is roughly $80 billion. The
USA, with 5% of the global population, leads the world in people locked in prisons. Presently, the US imprisons approximately
one-fourth of all the world's prisoners. Black and Latino men
make up >60% of the prison population, including two-thirds
of those locked up in Texas' 109 facilities. One problem is the
1994 Omnibus Crime Bill that gave birth to the federal threestrike rule that mandated life sentences for criminals convicted
of a felony after two prior convictions, including drug crimes.
Although these numbers are high, Texas is beginning to see a
drop in the number of prisoners, thanks both to a budget pinch
and to a shift in philosophy.
TEXAS EXECUTIONS DECLINING
Texas executions and death sentences are occurring at the
lowest rate in decades (8). Only three people in the state were
sentenced to death in 2016, and seven others were executed.
The numbers are still higher than in most other states, but represent a sharp decrease for Texas. There are now 242 inmates
on death row in Texas-the fewest since 1987. Death sentences
in 2016 are at their lowest level in 30 years and executions at
their lowest level in 20 years.
ALCOHOL DRINKING IN WOMEN
According to a recent analysis by two writers of The
Washington Post, women in the USA are now drinking far
more alcohol and far more frequently than their mothers and
grandmothers, and alcohol consumption is killing them in
record numbers (9). White women are particularly likely to
drink dangerously, with more than a quarter drinking multiple
times a week, and the share of their binge drinking is up 40%
since 1999. In 2013, more than 1 million women of all races
wound up in emergency rooms as a result of heavy alcohol
consumption, with women in middle age most likely to suﬀer
severe intoxication. This behavior has contributed to a startling
increase in early mortality. The rate of alcohol-related deaths for
white women aged 35 to 54 in 2015 was 8% of deaths in this
age group, twice that in 1999.
Some of this increase has been attributed to advertisements
in social media-Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram-focusing
on the most eager consumers. Jokes about becoming inebriated are common. One Twitter ad featured a bottle the size of
a refrigerator tilted toward a woman's lips. Its contents: Fireball
Cinnamon Whiskey. Women also are frequently shown drinking alcohol to cope with daily stress. In one image that appeared on a company website, two white women wearing prim,
narrow-brimmed hats, button earrings, and wash-and-set hair
confer side-by-side. "How much do you spend on a bottle of
wine?" one asks. The other answers, "I would guess about half
an hour. . . ." At the bottom is the name of the wine: "Mommy's
Time Out."
Drinking alcohol can be especially hazardous for women.
Women, of course, tend to have smaller bodies than men and
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diﬀerences in physiology that make blood-alcohol levels climb
faster and stay elevated longer than in men. Some studies have
found that women have lower levels of the stomach enzymes
needed to process the toxins in alcoholic beverages. As a result,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
women are more prone to suﬀer brain atrophy, heart disease,
and liver damage. Even if a woman stops drinking, liver disease
may continue to progress in ways it does not do in men. There
is no gender equity when it comes to the eﬀects of alcohol on
men vs. women. Women are more susceptible to the unwanted
biologic eﬀects of alcohol when they consume the same amount
of alcohol and at the same frequency, even when there is an
adjustment for weight.
DRY EYES AND CELLPHONES
According to an article by Ann Lukits (10), pediatric dry-eye
disease can negatively aﬀect vision and school performance and
is believed by many specialists to be underdiagnosed. Staring at
smartphones, computers, and other screens has been linked to
reduced blinking, which can lead to faster evaporation of the
tear ﬁlm and increase the risk of dry-eye disease. Smartphones
also have a short watching distance due to their small screens
that can tire the eyes. Researchers in South Korea conducted eye
exams on 916 children aged 7 to 12 years: 60 (7%) of the total
met the criteria for dry-eye disease based on various assessments
including tear-breakup time, a test that measures the stability
of tear ﬁlm. Of those 60 children, 58 (97%) reported on questionnaires that they used smartphones an average of 3.2 hours a
day. In contrast, of the 856 children without dry-eye symptoms,
the control group, 55% used smartphones 37 minutes a day.
The latter group also spent more time outside-an average of
2.3 hours a day compared with 1.5 hours by the dry-eye group.
The prevalence of dry-eye disease was higher among students
in urban than in rural schools.
US ABORTION RATES
The rate of abortions in the US has fallen to its lowest level
since the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision (11). In
2014, there were 14.6 abortions per every 1000 women aged
15 through 44 in the US, down 50% from a peak of 29.3
abortions per 1000 in the early 1980s. The number of abortions fell to 926,200 a year for the ﬁrst time since 1975. The
number of abortions in the US reached a peak of 1.6 million
in 1990. The decline in numbers of abortions is likely the result
of reduced unintended pregnancies due to the increased availability of aﬀordable, long-lasting contraceptives, such as IUDs.
MANDATORY IUDS IN CHINA
Thirty years ago, China began demanding that women be
ﬁtted with an intrauterine device after they had one child and sterilized after they had two (12). From 1980 to 2014, 324 million
Chinese women were ﬁtted with IUDs. Now these IUDs can be
removed free of charge at government expense. While IUDs in
other countries often can be removed with a tug on their strings
in a physician's oﬃce, surgery is usually needed in China because
most devices were designed or altered to be more diﬃcult to

Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings

Volume 30, Number 2

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings April 2017