Entries for November 2008

So now we hear that a Harvard psychiatrist apparently hid millions of dollars in payments from pharmaceutical companies, all while promoting the use of powerful antipsychotic drugs for children. This comes at a time when the big increase in prescriptions in bipolar disorder for children is ever more controversial. Given all this, how can parents decide whether medication is the right choice for their child?

Dismayed by this latest news, I called Robert Hendren, president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, who points out that while there's plenty of controversy in child psychiatry about how to diagnose bipolar disorder, Joseph Biederman, the child psychiatrist at the center of the scandal, is not the only person contributing to the knowledge base. "We do think that we have good information," Hendren says. "We do see children and adolescents with bipolar disorder, and we do find that these medications work better than placebo."

Finding a family physician who is taking new patients can be really tough, and it's not going to get easier anytime soon.

Earlier this week, I talked with WTOP Radio about strategies for tracking down those elusive docs.

My biggest surprise: that the American Medical Association's online doctor finder, which is free and doesn't take advertising from doctors, lists all the physicians in a ZIP code, not just the few who are AMA members.

But even with that, it may well take hours on the phone to find a physician who is taking new patients, as I found out when I tried booking an appointment with the list from my insurance company. The best bet: Find that doc now, so you're not out in the cold if you suddenly become sick and need care.

Norovirus, often called the stomach flu, is back, closing down a college in Michigan and sickening kids and parents nationwide. It sure was topic No. 1 at my daughter's school bus stop this morning.

One mom recounted her family's harrowing weekend spent dealing with projectile vomiting, diarrhea, and headaches. Another gave a worried look at her third grader, who had woken up with a tummy ache. She decided to take him back home rather than letting him board the bus.

Wise move, mom.

This has to be one of the saddest statistics ever printed in a medical journal: The number of American children taking medication for type 2 diabetes more than doubled from 2002 to 2005, particularly among teenagers. That may be partly because more children are being screened for diabetes or because drugs are more often being used to treat metabolic syndrome. But the recent rise in childhood obesity is the obvious first suspect because overweight and obese children are more than twice as likely as their normal-weight peers to develop the disease.

Diabetes is a horrible disease, and no child should have to start dealing with it as a teenager. It's time for us parents to think about how to diabetes-proof our children. Here are five ways to start: