Ron was puzzled. He had been a mechanic for many years, and had known Ms. McCarthy through two previous vehicles. But what could he say to a request like this?
“I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to do it this way. What’s the harm?” The mother of two seemed sincere and earnest. Ron knew she wanted to take good care of her car, and the kids who rode with her …
Seat belts, brakes and tires: A vaccine story
I’ve been skeptical of the trend of “holding back” children with late birthdays. These are kids, usually born in the summer, who are just a few months short of the next grade cut-off. Some parents wonder whether it would be wise to hold them back a few months, so they end up one of the oldest (rather than youngest) kids in their class. This might seem to confer an advantage …
Holding children back a grade and ADHD: A problem or solution?
Let’s say you were inventing a new flea powder, called Flea-B-Gone. To test it and manufacture it, you’d need a whole mess of fleas. As everyone knows, kangaroo fleas are hardy and docile, so you open up a kangaroo farm to grow your fleas. You treat the kangaroos well, and other than itchiness, they don’t have much to complain about as you scrape off their fleas to make your Flea-B-Gone. …
Anti-vaccine propagandists and the rogues’ gallery of misinformation
A concussion is a brain injury resulting from a blow to the head. Not the kind of injury you can see on a CT scan or MRI — there’s no broken bones and no squashed or visibly damaged brain. But nonetheless, the brain is damaged. Symptoms tell you immediately after a concussion that the brain has been affected. Sometimes, a person is knocked out cold, but a concussion can occur …
How to protect your child from concussions
Well, this isn’t good news.
The CDC has compiled an extensive report of the top US health risks from infections. Called “Threat Report 2013,” their evaluation shows that the three most worrisome risks have all been created by our own indiscriminant overuse of antibiotics. The biggest baddies:
Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae. The carbenapenem antibiotics were first developed in the 1970s and grew into wide use in the late 1980s. They had been the biggest, baddest …
Stopping the threat of drug resistant bacteria
Dr. Google, you’ve let a whole lot of people down.
If you Google a vaccine question, and many parents have, you’re very likely to find a good, science-based answer — but it will be buried among dozens of sites with anti-science, pro-disease propaganda. The mountain of misinformation is staggering, with multiple anti-vaccine sites repeating each other in a seemingly endless loop of worry and dread. Let neither facts nor truth nor …
How to find good vaccine information online
It goes without saying that unvaccinated kids get more vaccine-preventable illnesses. For instance a 2010 study from Kaiser Permanente showed that children who hadn’t received pertussis vaccine were 23 times more likely than vaccinated children to get pertussis.
But there’s another consequence of not getting vaccines. It hurts your child, sure. But it also can hurt other people in your community.
Vaccines are not perfect. Not everyone who receives a vaccine gets 100% protection; …
Unvaccinated kids hurt the people in your community
Jenny wrote in about her son, who has a lot of headaches: “My 12 year old son gets them pretty much every day, and this has been going on for six months. He missed a lot of school, and now is starting to get them again in the summer. The doctor ordered a CT scan which didn’t show anything. What can this be? Could it be sinuses?”
Headaches are common in …
Managing chronic headaches in children
You’re at the doctor’s office, and you see strolling up to the window a good-looking, well-dressed professional. They’re usually pulling a little discreet cart, and after a few words with the receptionist they’re rushed right back. Sometimes they’ll bring a tray of cookies, or they’ll be followed by a caterer with a cartful of food.
You think they had an appointment? No, but you can be they’re here to see the …
Is your physician immune to drug marketing?
I’ve been writing a lot about CT scans lately. Why are so many being done, and which children with head trauma really need one? CTs are really kind of neat—it’s amazing that we can peer into your body to see what’s going on in there. But like every other medical intervention and treatment, there are positives and negatives, pros and cons, a ying and a yang.
I’ve mentioned some downsides …
CT scans and radiation: How can patients limit risk?
The thing about science: it’s not a body of knowledge, or a list of facts. It’s a method. It’s looking at natural things, explaining them, and testing ideas to see if they’re right. More experiments (and better experiments) on more ideas leads to improved understanding and better ways to predict and influence what happens.
But science doesn’t go in a straight line. Not every study is valid, and not every idea …
How should doctors and patients look critically at medical decisions?
Emily wrote in about an article about prenatal ultrasounds and autism: “I saw this on The Daily Beast today. Is the media trying to freak us expecting couples out or what? How big of a question is this in scientific circles or is this just sensational stuff? Sometimes I think there should be studies about how the internet causes anxiety disorders!”
A good question, and another post that I’m going to put …
Ultrasounds don’t cause autism
The evidence has become quite clear: bed sharing, or co-sleeping, increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
The latest study to reinforce the risk of bed sharing comes out of the UK (with contributions from New Zealand and Germany). Published in the British Medical Journal, Bed sharing when parents do not smoke: is there a risk of SIDS? An individual level analysis of five major case–control studies, …
Bed sharing and co-sleeping increases the risk of SIDS
Kathy wrote about her son: “What can cause a 9-year-old boy to poop in his pants occasionally and not feel it? He was completely potty trained at age three. I have found dirty underwear and poop on the bathroom floor–and it just concerns me that he is unaware of it. It has been suggested at checkups that he may be constipated. My mother suggests he may simply not be paying …
When a child can’t feel his poops
Many years ago, I worked as a counselor at the city camp in North Miami Beach, Florida. Camp “No Mi Be” was attended by what seemed to be a countless number of very active, very inquisitive, and pretty-much-unstoppable 10-year-old boys.
We learned quickly that the best way to start the day was with running. Run, run, run. We’d make the kids run back and forth to the fence, or run around …
How exercise benefits kids with ADHD
Jess, like many parents, has been hearing conflicting information about what crying can do to your baby.
She wrote: “So, my husband and I accidentally let our kiddo (5.5 months) cry it out. So of course, I’m spending all sorts of time on Google finding out that I’ve caused long-term damage to my son and he’ll be more likely to get ADHD and …
Letting your infant cry it out: Will it hurt your baby?
“My wife gets migraines—really bad ones—and now my daughter seems to be getting them too. She’s only 7! Is she just copying what her mom does? Can a child really start getting migraines?”
Oh, yes they can. Migraine is very much a childhood disorder. About 5% of adults have migraines, and half of them started having their migraines as kids.
As in adults, migraines in children can be severe and debilitating. However, …
Migraine is very much a childhood disorder
You might think a thing sold by a huge manufacturer of children’s toys and furniture as a “sleeper” would a safe, appropriate place for a baby to sleep. It is, after all, called a “sleeper.” But it is not a safe place for your baby to sleep.
The Fisher Price Newborn Rock ‘n Play Sleeper is a sling-shaped baby holder sort of gizmo, …
Is this Fisher Price sleeper safe for infants?
Wemberly worried about everything. Big things. Little things. And things in between.
–Wemberly Worried, Kevin Kenkes
The bottom line: you can add arsenic in rice to your long list of health risks you don’t need to worry about. And you can add Consumer Reports to your long list of media outlets that you can’t depend on for reliable health advice. Inaccuracy and breathless scaremongering …
Should you worry about arsenic in rice?
First, it was the MMR-autism link—that turned out to be a complete fabrication, a fraud invented by a single “researcher” who made up his data. He was taking money from plaintiff’s lawyers, and he was trying to patent his own, competing vaccine. Too bad for the scare and the resulting surge in measles.
Then, the mercury connection. A mercury-containing preservative, thimerosal, …
It’s time to put the vaccine-autism link behind us
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