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Flexible Approach to Vaccinations Comes Under Fire
Tweet Share on Facebook December 29, 2008 Comment (33)The American Academy of Pediatrics rolled out its new immunization schedule for kids in its latest issue of the journal Pediatrics , released today. The big change for this year is a new recommendation for an annual flu vaccine for all kids ages 6 months to 18 years—which follows the new guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Along with this policy statement and numerous research papers, the journal contains a "special article" that quite frankly shocked me for its one-sided treatment of a very important issue with regard to vaccinations. The article is an attack on doctors who take a flexible approach to vaccinations, working with parents who, say, don't want their 2-month-old to get vaccinated against eight different diseases at once, which is what's recommended on the AAP schedule.
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Getting Enough Sleep? Consider Your Heart
Tweet Share on Facebook December 23, 2008 Comment (3)As a 30-something, I hereby resolve to sleep more in 2009. And published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association is a well-timed finding to motivate my New Year's resolution: Longer sleep duration for people in their 30s and 40s may decrease the risk of coronary artery calcification, a predictor of atherosclerosis and heart disease. In fact, the study showed that one extra hour each night lowered the estimated odds of having such gunk in the vasculature by 33 percent. According to the study authors, getting that extra hour brings a benefit, cardiovascularly speaking, similar to that of lowering systolic blood pressure (the top number in the blood pressure ratio) by 17 points.
Diane Lauderdale, study director and associate professor of health studies at the University of Chicago, noted that the results need to be replicated by further research. But she says the 30s and 40s are "a time when many people start on a trajectory leading to coronary disease risk." Certainly, that's not how I think of myself at age 32. Subjects' coronary calcification was found in the study by imaging tests (not typically given to this age group) and considered subclinical, meaning not yet developed into full-blown disease.
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Why Statins Don't Work Well in 1 in 5 Users
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2008 Comment (4)Often hailed as "wonder drugs" for their ability to lower cholesterol and reduce heart attack risk, statins actually don't work that well in about 20 percent of users. Turns out, these people may have certain genetic mutations that lower the drugs' effectiveness, according to a new study from Duke University Medical Center. Those who carry a specific mutation in the ABCA1 gene, which is responsible for cholesterol transport into and out of cells, had a 24 percent decline in their "bad" LDL cholesterol levels after going on a low-dose statin compared with a 32 percent reduction in those who didn't carry the gene mutation.
These folks might need to switch to a more powerful statin, study author Deepak Voora tells me. Or perhaps they might want to try combining a statin with a cholesterol-lowering fibrate drug. A new one, called TriLipix, was approved yesterday.
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Vaccination Rates Overreported in Developing Countries
Tweet Share on Facebook December 11, 2008 Comment (10)When it comes to vaccinating kids in developing countries, immunization rates have long lagged behind those in the United States—which means a significant number of children are still dying from infectious diseases. Efforts by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and others have dramatically improved immunizations against such diseases as diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, but the increase in vaccination rates may have been greatly exaggerated. Foreign governments—which get paid $20 for each child vaccinated against DTP by a global alliance of health organizations—may be overestimating how well they get the job done, according to a study published today in the journal Lancet.
University of Washington researchers funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which is a member of the alliance) discovered from household surveys that about 7.4 million children were vaccinated against DTP in 51 countries from 1999 to 2006. The countries, though, reported vaccinating 13.9 million. That indicates they received overpayments to the tune of $140 million.
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So What if Adults Aren’t Getting Their Flu Shots?
Tweet Share on Facebook December 11, 2008 Comment (4)The news out today warns that more than half of adults have no intention of getting a flu shot. It's based on a Rand survey of 4,000 U.S. adults that shows the following:
- Fifty-three percent of all adults surveyed have no intention of getting the flu vaccine this year, while 17 percent say they haven't yet but will at some point.
- Seventy percent of healthy adults under age 50 have no intention of being vaccinated, while 16 percent say they will at some point but haven't yet.
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Great American Smokeout: a Day to Quit Cigarettes
Tweet Share on Facebook November 20, 2008 CommentThe inspiration to quit hasn't quite struck yet? Perhaps today will help. It's the American Cancer Society's 33rd annual Great American Smokeout, launched in 1976 to give smokers a designated day to abstain from cigarettes in the hopes that they'll find impetus to stop puffing for good.
If that's not enough to sway you to quit, perhaps these 12 nonobvious reasons to really quit smoking will be. It's not just lung cancer and respiratory ills to worry about.
If you're having trouble quitting, you're in good company. Smoker in Chief (and President-elect) Barack Obama has reportedly said he is trying to quit smoking but also admitted to having some cigarettes while on the campaign trail.
More from USNews.com
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Flu Vaccines Necessary in Kids?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 20, 2008 Comment (41)To me, the best part of being a journalist is that sometimes my preconceived notions get thrown to the wind in the process of researching an article. After interviewing about two dozen experts for a feature I'm writing on vaccines, I've come to question the wisdom of the new government recommendation that all children be vaccinated against the flu. Let me state this in bold face: I am very much pro-vaccines. My three children were all vaccinated on the recommended schedule and got their chicken pox boosters at their last checkups. But I opted not to give them the flu vaccine.
That's because whereas I once viewed all vaccines as 100 percent risk free and completely necessary, I now see them as akin to very safe medicines. They have saved countless lives, but they're not without their risks. This more complex message often gets lost in the push to get kids vaccinated, because public health officials are justifiably fearful that any talk of risks will turn parents off to vaccinations.
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Can I Blame My Aches and Pains on My Sinuses?
Tweet Share on Facebook September 23, 2008 Comment (5)I've had persistent sinus problems since my early teens—stuffiness, decreased sense of smell, facial pressure, and pain—that my doctors say are tied to my severe allergies. And every few months, I get a nasty acute sinus infection that calls for a couple of rounds of antibiotics. I've also long coped with a chronic condition called fibromyalgia, characterized by muscle pain and fatigue and triggered, I'm told, by a 1996 car accident.
Until this week, it never occurred to me that the symptoms I've experienced since that car accident might be linked to what keeps happening in my nose. My ear, nose, and throat doctor, allergist, and primary-care doctor always ask about facial pressure and pain when I seek treatment for sinus problems, but I don't recall any of them ever asking how my back and knees were feeling at the time. Now, new research suggests that chronic sinus problems may be linked to body pain and fatigue.
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Our Baby Formula Worries Pale Next to China's
Tweet Share on Facebook September 19, 2008 Comment (6)After covering the controversy this week over bisphenol A, a chemical found in such things as hard plastic baby bottles and the lining of infant formula cans, I couldn't help but make the comparison with the milk tragedy occurring in China. According to Reuters's last count, 6,244 children have become ill, with four dead and 158 suffering acute kidney failure from drinking formula laced with another plastic material called melamine. Chinese parents are in a justified state of panic, rushing their babies to emergency rooms for ultrasounds of their kidneys, while supermarket managers pull milk and yogurt from shelves after the chemical was found in fresh milk as well as the powdered kind added to formulas.
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Cheerleading Accounts for Most Catastrophic High School Injuries
Tweet Share on Facebook August 15, 2008 Comment (4)Not long ago, my colleague (and former gymnast) Lindsay Lyon wrote about the dangers of gymnastics, a sport that's responsible for sending hundreds of kids to the emergency room each year. Well, Lindsay, I've got you beat. This week, the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research released a study announcing that my former sport, cheerleading, is the most dangerous, accounting for 65.1 percent of all catastrophic sports injuries among high school girls in the past 25 years.
Cheerleading, a sport? If you've seen competitive cheerleading recently, you would have no doubt in your mind that these girls (and guys) are every bit the athlete—and carry much more of the risk for devastating injury. What started out as a pre-feminist rah-rah pep club has turned into a competitive blend of gymnastics, dance, weightlifting, and Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics. Cheerleaders don't date the captains of football teams anymore—they're too busy weight training, so they can throw their teammates into the air for a double backflip.
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