Kids Should Blame Us for Children’s Health
Life has changed since I was kid. Most of the things that kids take for granted these days such as bicycle helmets, we didn’t have when we were kids. We also didn’t have to take our children everywhere to worry about pedophiles on the street. Life was good and life was safe. Now, parents throughout the country have to lose sleep at night trying to understand how a country like China can import toys into the country with unsafe amounts of lead.
Well, you should be really angry after reading that the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization has found asbestos in toys including one of this holiday season’s biggest sellers. CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit, two brands of children’s play clay, powdered cleanser, roof sealers, duct tapes, window glazing, spackling paste and small appliances were among the products in which asbestos was found by at least two of three labs hired by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. Many of these toys also come from China.
The product of greatest concern is the fingerprint kit modeled after the popular CSI television show.
The analysis done for the victim’s organization found high levels of two types of asbestos in the white and the glow powder. At this time, there are no U.S. regulations for asbestos levels in consumer products though there is a ban on all building products with asbestos levels greater than 10%. The fingerprint kit is one of several products licensed to manufacturers based on the CSI show. CBS has requested independent testing of the product and if it’s deemed to be unsafe, they will request that the product is removed from the shelves.
One parent leaving a store in central New Jersey had this to say, “This holiday season will be crazier than ever. You have to be crazy to buy that product but we’ll all go nuts to buy the second most popular product.”
When you give it some thought, it makes sense. Do the right thing CBS!
U.S. Food and Drug Administration to Add Warning Label to Popular Flu Drugs
After 25 deaths in children while taking Tamiflu and an unusual number of occurrences of neurological disorders in children taking Relenza, a panel of pediatic experts will meet on November 27 to review the safety profile of the two most popular flu drugs. There is no evidence that directly links the drugs to the events but the unusual number of deaths and psychotic episodes including delirium and hallucinations has prompted the review.
Are Tonsil and Adenoid Surgerys Helpful?
Tonsil and adenoid surgery are the most common major surgeries performed in children.
Children with frequent throat infections and obstructive sleep apnea were excluded from the study because the researchers concluded that the value of the surgery in those patient groups is not disputed.
However, the results of the study were surprising, even to the researchers. In the multi-center study, 149 children were randomized into a watchful waiting group and 151 were randomized to undergo a adenotonsillectomy. Watchful waiting required that the children were monitored closely with medical intervention if necessary.
Annual medical expenses attributed to the watchful waiting group were $500 per year as compared to $730 in the group that underwent surgery. More astonishing was that the surgery did not result in a clinically relevant decrease in occurrences such as fever, throat infections or upper respiratory infections.
The data was released in the November issue of the Archives of Otalaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery.
What the national healthcare argument means for our kids
Written by Michael Vass
So, everyone wants to talk about nationalized healthcare. Presidential candidates, Congress, Conservatives and Liberals. There are just massive amounts of communication on the issue. You hear about it from pundits on cable news channels, listen to answers (and half-answers) about it from candidates, read polls on it in newspapers and countless blogs like this one discuss all aspects of the issue. Except one.
The one item is quality of the care. Whether any citizen is able to get private care, or publicly funded medical coverage or any other solution that may be proposed the real issue is how good the quality of the care they receive is. This is no more critical than when the quality of care given to children is concerned.
I want to thank Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey for the article she wrote on a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was based on 1500 children, and conducted by Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, the University of Washington School of Medicine and the RAND Corporation, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Roughly 80% of the children had private medical coverage and nearly all had some form of coverage.
What the study found was shocking. 46% of the care that the kids should have gotten never happened. While treatment for something like the common was mostly appropriate, but for asthma and other chronic ailments it was half as effective. Let me be clear, out of 175 items that should be part of child care – including the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up – many items were never done. And this is among children that had the money.
Imagine that. Your kids are not getting the treatment they need, and politicians are arguing over how to pay for what they aren’t being given in the first place. The priorities seem to be fundamentally flawed. The question that should be asked appears to be why is the quality of care as low for children in a nation with as many resources and experts as America does?
No matter the political affiliation, I believe that everyone loves children. None would wish them harm and want only the best for them. Yet political bickering is oblivious to this issue, stuck in a quagmire of how to pay. I am not a parent but I am sure that every parent I know hasn’t a single care about cost when their child is sick. If you gave them a million dollars and stated their child would remain ill, or have lifelong complications from failing to get the right treatment, the parent might throttle you for such a suggestion. Yet that is the political environment today.
I am insulted to learn this information and to hear of this lapse. This is America, a land where the best of everything exists and the standards in virtually every aspect of life are the envy of every nation in the world. Yet our children lag far behind. Not behind our potential, but behind our actual ability to provide care. That is an insult, our children deserve more.
Smoking by Teenagers May Be On the Rise for the First Time in Decades
According to a report just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the decades long decline in smoking among Americans has failed to decline for the past 3 years. Even more worrisome is that the pattern of decline has also stalled among high school students. In fact, some are analyzing the data along with the introduction of the Camel 9 by RJR Nabisco and are concluding that smoking is on the rise among high school seniors.
Since 2004, there has been no decline in the percentage of Americans smoking. About 20.8 percent of American adults are smokers. Out of that percentage, 36.3 million are smoking every day.
Corinne Husten, head of the epidemiology branch of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health pointed our two reasons for the data trends. First, cigarette companies have increased advertising to increase revenues to offset tax increases. Second, there have been massive decreases in the budgets for some very effective anti-smoking campaigns.
Old Wives Tales about kids
Written by Michael Vass
We have all heard of Old Wives Tales that have cures and ideas about all types of maladies for adults and children alike. From the way a woman carries a baby determining the child’s sex, to one of my Grandmother’s favorites for curing a cold (warm milk with scotch – God bless her). Some are based in fact, some are anyone’s guess where they come from. But we all know a few of them.
One I recall as a boy, and use to this day is ‘feed a cold, starve a fever’. Many of us have heard of this one. I know that it was used in my youth, and I got better. Now whether that was due to this old wives tale or just the fever running it’s course I cannot say. But here is a definitive thought on the subject.
Another one that I recall from my early teens was ‘coffee stunts your growth’. My mother refused to let me try any coffee lest I fail to reach my full stature. My father (God bless him) didn’t agree. Thus at the ripe age of 13 I was able to have 2 cups of coffee with huge amounts of milk. Today I stand 5’10”, though my father was 6’2” and most of my siblings (younger) are about 1 ½ inch taller. So was it the coffee?
“False. Coffee won’t affect a child’s growth, but too much caffeine doesn’t belong in a child’s diet. Excess caffeine can prevent the absorption of calcium and other nutrients.”
Perhaps one item that is more prevalent today than in the past when I was growing up is ‘too much TV is bad for your eyes’. With the modern HDTV’s and 500 channels I’m sure more mothers mention this than any other wives tale. I still recall the comment, “stop watching that TV, it will hurt your eyes. Go out and play.” I’m sure all the kids out there want to hear if this is true.
“False. Watching television won’t hurt your eyes (no matter how close to the TV you sit), although too much TV can be a bad idea for kids. Research shows that children who consistently spend more than 10 hours a week watching TV are more likely to be overweight, aggressive, and slower to learn in school.”
Sorry mom.
But for all the parents that have (or had) to listen to Marilyn Manson, The Cure, The Beatles, Wu Tang Klan, 50 cent, Pink Flyod (that was my house growing up), or any other music that is played at 11 on the speakers, this one is for you. The wives tale goes ‘too much loud noise can cause hearing loss’. I’m sure kids have heard this about their stereos, Ipods, walkmans (do they still use them?), CD players, et al. Here is the truth:
“True. Just 15 minutes of listening to loud, pounding music; machinery; or other noises can cause temporary loss of hearing and tinnitus, a ringing in the ears. Loud noise causes the eardrum to vibrate excessively and can damage the tiny hairs in the cochlea, a cone-shaped tube in the inner ear that converts sound into electrical signals for the brain to process. Although temporary hearing loss usually disappears within a day or 2, continuous exposure to extreme noise can result in permanent hearing loss. For example, if a child is wearing headphones - and those around him or her can hear the music - the volume is too high.”
So there you go. For more Old Wives Tales and their factual basis you can go to Kids Health and see what they have to say about pregnancy, baby and other tales.
Are Sneaky Chefs Dangerous?
My wife called me the other day and asked me to order the best selling book “The Sneaky Chef”. I was watching one of the late night cable TV talk shows a few weeks ago when I first heard of the book and my first reaction was, “What a great idea.” Spinach in brownies. What a concept. I was just browsing the web and it seems that we are trying to sneak things in our children’s food at an increasing pace.
What happened to the days when I heard the great Pink Floyd say, “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding; how could you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat.” And so I did along with my vegetables because that’s what I was supposed to do.
Fast forward 2007. Kids are hooked on video games and soft drinks and so we must sneak good things into things that are supposed to be bad things but are actually good things so our kids will eat it. Confused. So am I. I’ll leave you with this. Celebrate the book but question our society. When we have to be sneaky with our children, we may have to change our strategy.
So, where are we at in these sneaky times? Confused!
