Niles hosts Illinois author today about drug addiction

NILES

Dr. Ira J. Chasnoff, author and researcher, is presenting a day-long training presentation today for 150 social workers and others at Ciminero's banquet hall on the impact of addiction on children.

Chasnoff, who is also professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago and author of the book The Mystery of Risk, is an expert on fetal alcohol and drug exposure.

He described a teen who had experienced some of the worst symptoms associated with being exposed to substance abuse in the womb.

The boy, who was 17 when Chasnoff met him, was born to a drug-addicted mother who was positive for cocaine and alcohol when she gave birth. The boy had spent time in more than a dozen foster homes after being taken from his mother at age 5. When Chasnoff met the boy, he had committed a rape and was a gang member.