Archives for December 2009

A theologian friend shared the story of taking her car to a Jiffy Lube for servicing. Not having anything to read, she picked up a manual on the coffee table about boating. A chapter on the rules for what happens when boats encounter one another on the open sea described two kinds of craft: burdened and privileged. The craft with power that can accelerate and push its way through the waves, change direction, and stop on demand is the burdened one. The craft dependent on the forces of nature, wind, tide, and human effort to keep going is the privileged craft. Since powerful boats can make their way forward under their own power, they are burdened with responsibility to give the right of way to the powerless or privileged vessels dependent on the vagaries of the tide, wind, and weather. "Who wrote this thing?" she asked. "Billy Graham? Mother Teresa? What's going on in our land when the New Jersey State Department of Transportation knows that the powerful must give way if the powerless are to make safe harbor and the government of the United States and the Church of Jesus Christ and other people of God are having trouble with the concept?"

In the current debate on national health reform that's exactly what is happening. The very fragile boat of children has been submerged and buffeted in our political process, huge waves and the wake of the burdened boats -- powerful insurance and drug companies and lobbyists for other wealthy organized constituencies who make big campaign contributions and can mount a strong constituent voice of voters. The controversy-seeking media has ignored the huge looming injustice from the proposed abolition of the successful and cost effective Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), enacted in 1997 with the bipartisan leadership of Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, in the House bill and its weakening in the Senate Finance Committee bill. That millions of children will be worse off if CHIP is abolished or weakened has been drowned out by the strident Tea Party, anti-immigrant and abortion foes.

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Autism, a brain disorder that interferes with communication and social skills, affected an estimated one in 110 American 8-year-olds in 2006, according to a federal study released last Friday. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at the medical diagnoses of 307,790 children who were age 8 in 2006. They found 2,757, or 0.9 percent, had been diagnosed with autism.

The CDC team found that autism cases were four to five times higher among boys than girls, with 1 in 70 boys and 1 in 315 girls identified. The overall ratio is far higher than previous estimates that the incurable family of conditions affected 1 in 150 US children. A few decades ago autism was thought to be rare.

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This is a very normal situation in modern times. Kinds get into their rooms and close the door, is very difficult to us to realize what exactly they are doing. Nowadays they have access to different types of information, like TV programs, radio, internet, etc.

Is very important that parents know what our kids are doing, what are they real needs, witch are they feelings. Often we try to talk with them and we don’t get it. It’s not our fault, it’s not their fault, is just that because of the different ages is not very easy to maintain fluid communication along time.

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 A national recall of H1N1 flu vaccine is more worrisome for its potential effect on people not yet vaccinated than for the children who got the shots, Texas health officials said Tuesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that 800,000 doses of swine flu vaccine had been recalled because tests showed they had lost strength faster than expected. The vaccine was designed for children 6 months to 35 months old.

"It is not an issue of safety," said Dallas County heath department director Zachary Thompson. "It's a question of effectiveness.

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About 13 percent of American children and young teens have at least one mental health disorder, yet only about half have been seen by a mental health professional. That's according to a survey funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and released online today ahead of print in the journal Pediatrics.

"We need to get these kids the help they need and determine what the best type of intervention to help kids from suffering needlessly," NIMH researcher Dr. Kathleen R. Merikangas noted in a telephone interview with Reuters Health. The problem, she said, is that there is a severe shortage of mental health professionals with expertise in child psychiatry in the US. "There simply aren't enough child psychiatrists to go around. It's an urgent crisis.

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Nutrition has become a confusing, overwhelming and often contradictory subject. It's challenging enough to understand how to make healthier choices as an adult, but the plot thickens when we need to teach our children healthy nutritional habits for life. When I think of teaching anyone, children or adults, how to make healthier food choices, I look at a two-fold approach to the process.

First, the positive side. This is all about building health. We have certain innate genetic nutritional requirements that we must meet in order to create optimal health, function and performance. We need an abundance of nutrients in their cleanest form possible.

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Geez, oral health care can be tough! How do you know what's normal and what isn't inside a kid's mouth? Here are a few quick tips to identify the lumps, bumps, and owies. If in doubt, you can always call your friendly pediatric dentist.

Normal stuff: Normal oral anatomy is usually midline or symmetrical. That little bump behind the front top teeth is called an incisal papilla, if burned on pizza or poked with a chip it can get inflamed but will quickly heal. Those bright red spots under the tongue are surface blood vessels called varices, they're fine Mom!

Cold Sores: Common cold sores usually occur outside the mouth on the lips. They are a reoccurrence of a viral infection called Herpes Simplex. About 90% of children are exposed to the herpes cold sore virus by age four (look what I brought home from preschool Mom!), and about 50% become chronic carriers. That means, since the herpes virus infects nerve cells that never die, periodically the virus will reappear to form a cold sore. Before a cold sore has crusted over, it sheds virus and in very infective. Luckily a whole family of antiviral medicines can treat the cold sore to limit its size, duration and discomfort.

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A new report says Massachusetts has fallen six places to rank 41st nationally in funding programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. The coalition of public health organizations that released the report Wednesday says nearly 18 percent of state high school students smoke. About 6,300 children become regular smokers every year as tobacco claims 9,000 lives and costs the state $3.5 billion in health care bills.

But Massachusetts has cut state funding for tobacco prevention by 63 percent, from $12.2 million to $4.5 million. The state will collect $829 million from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend just 0.5 percent of it on tobacco prevention programs this year. Tobacco companies spend $194.6 million a year to market their products in the state 32 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention.

More than 80 percent of U.S. children severely ill with H1N1 flu have been treated swiftly with antiviral drugs, a trend that could be saving lives, U.S. health officials said on Friday.

Public education campaigns about swine flu have translated into quicker and better treatment with Tamiflu, Roche AG and Gilead Sciences Inc's influenza pill, they said.

Usually, at most 20 percent of children severely ill with influenza ever get treatment with Tamiflu or GlaxoSmithKline's inhaled drug Relenza, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Thomas Frieden.

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An extra 1200 child health checks were done between October last year and June this year. That brings the number of children in prescribed areas of the Northern Territory who have had a health check to more than 10,000, or 65 per cent of those eligible.

The most common conditions found were oral health problems, ear disease and skin problems. But just 38 per cent of children referred for dental care have been seen. The report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows almost 21 per cent of children referred to an ear, nose and throat specialist have not yet been seen.

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