Children ‘should sleep with parents until they’re five’

Nothing surprising here, except maybe for those selfish child-abusing parents who need their “space.” Really? Then get a cat, cuz unlike human offspring they like sleeping by themselves too.

By Sian Griffiths, Times Online.

Margot Sunderland, director of education at the Center for Child Mental Health in London, says the practice, known as “co-sleeping”, makes children more likely to grow up as calm, healthy adults.

Sunderland, author of 20 books, outlines her advice in The Science of Parenting, to be published later this month.

She is so sure of the findings in the new book, based on 800 scientific studies, that she is calling for health visitors to be issued with fact sheets to educate parents about co-sleeping.

“These studies should be widely disseminated to parents,” said Sunderland. “I am sympathetic to parenting gurus – why should they know the science? Ninety per cent of it is so new they bloody well need to know it now. There is absolutely no study saying it is good to let your child cry.”

She argues that the practice common in Britain of training children to sleep alone from a few weeks old is harmful because any separation from parents increases the flow of stress hormones such as cortisol.

Her findings are based on advances in scientific understanding over the past 20 years of how children’s brains develop, and on studies using scans to analyse how they react in particular circumstances.

For example, a neurological study three years ago showed that a child separated from a parent experienced similar brain activity to one in physical pain.

Sunderland also believes current practice is based on social attitudes that should be abandoned. “There is a taboo in this country about children sleeping with their parents,” she said.

“What I have done in this book is present the science. Studies from around the world show that co-sleeping until the age of five is an investment for the child. They can have separation anxiety up to the age of five and beyond, which can affect them in later life. This is calmed by co-sleeping.”

Symptoms can also be physical. Sunderland quotes one study that found some 70% of women who had not been comforted when they cried as children developed digestive difficulties as adults.

Sunderland’s book puts her at odds with widely read parenting gurus such as Gina Ford, whose advice is followed by thousands.

Ford advocates establishing sleep routines for babies from a very early age in cots “away from the rest of the house” and teaching babies to sleep “without the assistance of adults”.

In her book The Complete Sleep Guide for Contented Babies and Toddlers she writes that parents need time by themselves: “Bed sharing . . . more often than not ends up with parents sleeping in separate rooms” and exhausted mothers, a situation that “puts enormous pressure on the family as a whole”.

Annette Mountford, chief executive of the parenting organisation Family Links, confirmed that the norm for children in Britain was to be encouraged to sleep in cots and beds, often in separate bedrooms, from an early age. “Parents need their space,” she said. “There are definite benefits from encouraging children into their own sleep routine in their own space.”

Sunderland says moving children to their own beds from a few weeks old, even if they cry in the night, has been shown to increase the flow of cortisol.

Studies of children under five have shown that for more than 90%, cortisol rises when they go to nursery. For 75%, it falls whenever they go home.

Professor Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Washington State University, who has written a foreword to the book, said Sunderland’s arguments were “a coherent story that is consistent with neuroscience. A wise society will take it to heart”.

Sunderland argues that putting children to sleep alone is a peculiarly western phenomenon that may increase the chance of cot death, also known as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). This may be because the child misses the calming effect on breathing and heart function of lying next to its mother.

“In the UK, 500 children a year die of SIDS,” Sunderland writes. “In China, where it [co-sleeping] is taken for granted, SIDS is so rare it does not have a name.”

Cervical Cancer Vaccine Paralyses 12-Year-Old Girl

Big Pharma stooges, in the guise of modern witch doctors, of course deny any link. Black is white, up is down—parents, ignore the evidence before your very eyes because the “experts” have everything well in hand!

Source: Times Online.

A 12-year-old schoolgirl has been left paralysed from the waist down by a mystery illness that came on 30 minutes after she was given the new anticervical cancer jab.

Ashleigh Cave suffered dizziness and headaches soon after the vaccination at her school and then deteriorated rapidly, collapsing several times over the following days.

A week later she was admitted to hospital after losing all strength in her legs and, two months on, there has been no improvement.

Her mother Cheryl, 37, from Aintree, Merseyside, is blaming her daughter’s condition on the human papillomavirus (HPV) jab, which was introduced in Britain in September as part of a government-funded vaccination programme.

All girls aged 12 and 13 are being offered vaccinations with Cervarix, a drug that stimulates the body to defend itself against HPV, to protect against the later onset of cervical cancer which is linked to the virus.

In America, where an immunisation programme using a similar product, Gardasil, began more than a year earlier, there have been dozens of serious “adverse events” reported in which a link to the vaccinations is suspected.

They included 30 deaths in addition to cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, an auto-immune disease that can cause paralysis. The American authorities have said, however, that there is no evidence the HPV jabs caused these reactions.

Ashleigh’s case has been logged with Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency as an instance of possible Guillain-Barré syndrome, although her doctors have now apparently ruled it out as the cause.

The agency has also indicated that the illness was probably not caused by the jab. Ashleigh’s doctor at Alder Hey children’s hospital, Liverpool, where she is undergoing tests, has said she did not have a “pathological reaction” to the vaccine.

Cheryl Cave said that she found the timing of her daughter’s symptoms impossible to ignore.

She said that within 30 minutes of Ashleigh having the jab at Maricourt Catholic high school on the morning of October 15, she was complaining of severe headaches and dizziness. Over the next 48 hours her condition worsened and she collapsed five times. Two days later they set off to visit friends in Hampshire but the schoolgirl collapsed again on the train.

She was admitted to Frimley Park hospital in Camberley, Surrey, where doctors gave the initial diagnosis of “vertigo and generalised myalgia, probably due to recent vaccinations”.

On October 22, a week after she was given the HPV jab, she was admitted to Alder Hey hospital, where she has remained ever since.

Her mother said: “At first they tried to tell us she was imagining it because she was being bullied . . . they will not mention her illness and the vaccine in the same sentence.”

A spokesman for the medicines agency said: “Guillain-Barré syndrome naturally occurs in the population. There is no good evidence to suggest that the Cervarix vaccine can cause [it].”

GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Cervarix, said that the agency had suggested the case “was not linked to the vaccine”.

“Conclusive” vaccination study?

This is regarding the study that came out that supposedly found no link between autism and the MMR vaccine. No wonder there were so many news stories about parents who don’t vaccinate against measles a couple of weeks ago! This is a classic set-up. I’ll bet “they” hope it reassures the questioning sheeple that all is well in Vaccine Land.

Source: TampaBay10.com.

St. Petersburg, Florida—A local pediatrician, who treats many young patients with autism, is speaking out against a new government study on childhood MMR vaccinations.

The Centers for Disease Control released a new study, claiming there is no link between the combination Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism nor gastrointestinal disorders.

While several researchers said this study is “conclusive” proof that there is no link, Tampa pediatrician, Dr. David Berger says the study is too small (38 children) to make that claim and not comprehensive enough to give parents 100 percent assurance.

Dr. Berger says larger, longterm studies are needed.

The Tampa board certified pediatrician advises parents to separate the live combination virus vaccine so they can tell if their child has had an allergic reaction to any of the vaccines. That will help parents when it comes time to give kids their MMR booster shot around kindergarten.

Dr. Berger says he uses the same cautious approach when it comes to introducing new foods to kids, try one at a time.

Many parents of autistic kids and advocacy groups suspect that combination MMR vaccine may have triggered their child’s GI (gastrointestinal) disease and autism, but there are no longterm studies to support that claim.

Watch Heather’s story on “Why some Bay area parents are separating combination MMR vaccines.”

Click here to find a pediatrician or location that will separate vaccines.

Here is Dr. David Berger’s online interview:

-What is your reaction to this study?

If this study was done in an attempt to try and replicate the original research that was done by Dr. Wakefield, the researchers completely missed the point.

Dr. Wakefield specifically looked at children- who had developed symptoms of both autism and intestinal abnormalities after receiving the MMR vaccine, and in those particular patients he was able to identify the presence of the measles virus.

In this current study 80% of the patient’st had abnormal gastrointestinal symptoms prior to receiving MMR.

-Do you agree this study is conclusive of no link?

It is not possible for a study such as this to be conclusive . There was a small sample size, for one thing. I guess that one could conclude that the evidence from the study shows that the small group of children studied who have abnormal intestinal symptoms prior to getting the vaccine do not show evidence of measles in the intestinal tract, but I think it would be reaching to go further than that .

-Does this put the controversy to rest?

Absolutely not.

-What are your concerns about this study?

As stated above.

Also, this study is only looking for presence of the measles virus itself. We know that there are immunological changes that occur when a person is injected with a virus which is different than what happens when a virus is either inhaled or ingested. These immunological changes may persist, and it can be independent of the virus itself persisting.

-What are you advising cautious parents to do?

Follow their instincts

-The government claims there are many studies proving no link and combination MMR is safe. Do you believe these studies are adequate?

I do not.

-What type of study is needed?

Someone needs to replicate Dr. Wakefield study done in the exact same manner that he did.

Gardasil Meets Measles: A Coincidence?

I had a feeling there was some ulterior motive behind the reporting of the “high” rate of measles outbreak last week.

by Barbara Loe Fisher

www.vaccineawakening.blogspot.com
www.NVIC.org
www.StandUpBeCounted.org
http://www.vran.org/vaccines/hpv/hpv.htm

The bad news about GARDASIL vaccine keeps getting worse and it was only a matter of time before government health officials promoted an “epidemic” to deflect attention from GARDASIL risks and create an excuse to point accusing fingers at parents who decline to give their children one or more of the 16 federally promoted vaccines. They did the same thing in 1985, when publicity about DPT vaccine reactions prompted officials at the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics to allege there were whooping cough epidemics in eight states due to parents rejecting DPT. Then as now, the cases of disease were divided between vaccinated and unvaccinated children and adults, which is hardly big news.

The government’s dire warnings came late last week after newspaper articles examined the muscle that Merck used to get GARDASIL fast tracked and licensed, followed by an aggressive multi-media advertising and lobbying campaign targeting teenage girls which has already netted the big pharmaceutical company more than $1.5 billion in sales worldwide. The New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial discussed in the Wall Street Journal asking good questions about the evidence for long term protection and cost effectiveness of mass use of GARDASIL vaccine, questions that NVIC first raised in 2007 .
And new concerns are being voiced about whether the vaccine is safe to give to adolescent girls , whose bodies are undergoing hormonal changes, as no studies have been published to evaluate whether there are increased risks for vaccine reactions depending upon when the vaccine is administered during a girl’s monthly hormonal cycle.

Last week, a CDC apparently weary of all the bad publicity about GARDASIL got its taxpayer-funded PR machine in gear and issued a media advisory warning that 131 cases of measles have been reported in the U.S. this year and that half of those cases involved unvaccinated children whose parents homeschooled their children or held religious or philosophical beliefs opposing use of one or more vaccines. National news stories and local news coverage examined the measles outbreaks and allegations of growing parental vaccine refusal.

The New York Times published an editorial and repeated unsubstantiated claims made by the CDC about the numbers of children, who were injured and died from measles in the past, stating that there were 400-500 deaths; 48,000 hospitalizations and 1,000 cases of brain injury out of 3-4 million measles cases every year prior to mass use of measles vaccine. A quick look at MMWR historical charts reveals that the highest number of reported cases of measles in the U.S. since 1945 (and before the measles vaccine was licensed in 1963) was 763,094 cases in 1958. Why don’t CDC officials publicly release the documented cases of hospitalization, injury and death due to measles in that year – or ANY year – instead of demanding blind faith in their version of the facts? (For decades, parents have been waiting for the CDC to document the widely published allegation that there are “36,000 deaths” due to influenza every year in the U.S., a statistic that is promoted to justify new directives that every baby and child through age 18 get annual flu shots.)

The publicizing of 131 cases of measles out of a population of 300 million people in the U.S. and blaming the “outbreak” on 63 cases that occurred in unvaccinated children, whose parents hold religious or conscientious objections to vaccination or homeschool, is a transparent attempt by federal employees to persecute fellow citizens holding religious beliefs, moral convictions, intellectual positions and wellness lifestyles different from their own. Adopting a strategy that “the best defense is a good offense,” CDC officials are whipping up fear of those who do not vaccinate in order to cover up a three decade refusal to scientifically investigate reports of children regressing into autism and other kinds of chronic illness after administration of MMR and other vaccines. They know the truth about vaccine risks is becoming more widely known and are lobbying hard for removal vaccine exemptions they do not control so all Americans will be forced without exception to get every vaccine marketed by industry and mandated by government officials.

The premature licensure and universal use recommendation of GARDASIL is just the latest example of what is wrong with the mass vaccination system. If there is a crisis of confidence in the safety of vaccines, which prompts parents to ask pediatricians more questions and seek alternative health care options for keeping their children well, that crisis of confidence can be laid squarely at the feet of those operating the mass vaccination system for failing to do their job. As Generation Rescue founder J.B. Handley recently commented, “Most parents I know will take measles over autism.

There is a 92 to 100 percent uptake of MMR vaccine and many other federally recommended childhood vaccines among children entering kindergarten in every state. This is one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, especially in such a large population. If the MMR vaccine is so unreliable that a few hundred cases or even a few thousand cases of measles among 300 million people is a cause for panic, then the benefits of MMR vaccine weighed against its risks are far less than industry, government and medical organizations have admitted.

In the 1960’s, when the live virus measles vaccine was licensed, parents were told it would give their babies the same lifelong immunity that having the natural disease confers. By the late 1980’s, it was clear that was not true because measles was occurring in both vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Government officials eventually recommended another dose of measles vaccine (usually given as MMR) for all children even though there were outstanding questions about the multiplication of different genetic strains of measles and how this may affect the vaccine’s ability to prevent measles on an individual and population basis long term.

Today’s young mothers do not have qualitatively superior measles antibodies to transfer to their newborns to protect them in the first year of life as past generations of mothers did because most young mothers giving birth today have been vaccinated and never had measles as children, which confers lifelong immunity. So babies born today are vulnerable to measles from birth instead of from ages 15 months to six years, which is when most children in the past experienced measles by age six and severe complications were rare. For several decades, vaccinologists have been attempting to create a “high titer” EZ measles vaccine that can be given to infants under one year that will override any existing natural maternal antibodies and replace them with vaccine induced antibodies but there have been long-standing questions about EZ measles vaccine safety .

Vaccination does not mimic the natural disease process and offers only temporary immunity, which is why vaccine boosters are frequently given. Every vaccine carries a reaction risk that can be greater for some than others. Measles vaccine, which is part of the combination live virus MMR (measles-mumps- rubella) vaccine can cause brain inflammation and permanent brain damage . There have been more than 46,000 reports of health problems associated with MMR vaccination made to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) . However, there is gross underreporting of vaccine- related health problems to VAERS and it is estimated that, for example, fewer than 4 percent of all cases of thrombocytopenia (potentially fatal blood disorder) following MMR vaccination are ever reported to VAERS.

The CDC’s one-size-fits-all, no-exceptions MMR vaccine policies allow almost no contraindications to MMR vaccine use. According to the CDC, a child can be sick at the time of vaccination or recovering from an illness; have a fever; be taking antibiotics; have a history of allergies; or have experienced a seizure or regression after a previous MMR shot and still be eligible for more MMR vaccine. This kind of cavalier disregard for minimizing vaccine risks is one reason why more parents are questioning government vaccine policies.

Parents, whether they do or do not vaccinate their children, should become informed and clearly understand the symptoms and complications of every infectious disease, including measles. Parents who choose to vaccinate should have a 99 to 100 percent guarantee that the vaccine will, indeed protect their child. They should have a similar guarantee that the vaccine will not injure or kill their child.

Like all pharmaceutical products, vaccines should be subject to the law of supply and demand. When people are captive and unable to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccines that have been rushed to market on greased skids by federal health agencies, where every vaccine reaction is unscientifically labeled a “coincidence,” the first casualty is freedom and the second is the health of innocent children.

Public health officials and pediatricians should explain why 20 percent of America’s highly vaccinated child population suffers with chronic illness and disability rather than blaming parents who refuse to salute smartly and take the risk of watching the child they love become one more victim of vaccine damage.

To report a vaccine reaction to NVIC’s Vaccine Reaction Registry , go to http://www.nvic.org/Report/reaction.htm .

To view vaccine reaction reports, go to the Vaccine VictimMemorial at http://vaccinememorial.org/
__________________________________________

“Ms. Kim and Harvard colleague Sue Goldie concluded that it cost about $43,600 per “quality- adjusted life year” gained, when HPV vaccine is administered to 12-year-old girls. This falls below the $50,000 per quality-adjusted life year threshold that some researchers use as a maximum for cost- effectiveness. Other researchers use a higher maximum benchmark of $100,000 per QALY to gauge cost-effectiveness….. At least one of the factors in the primary Harvard calculations may be a relatively optimistic assumption — that vaccination would produce lifelong immunity. Because the vaccine was only studied for five years and has been on the market for two years, no one knows for certain if its protection is lifelong, or if it wanes over time. The Harvard researchers concluded that the cost per QALY would rise if the vaccine’s effect wanes after 10 years. Merck says the vaccine will offer protection well beyond five years, Dr. Haupt said. The Merck economic model that arrived at the cost per QALY below $50,000 assumed lifelong immunity, he said. Still, the study is likely to fuel skepticism about Gardasil, which has already faced questions surrounding its safety and effectiveness (Merck and the CDC maintain it is safe and effective, with the most common side effect being soreness at site of injection.)” – Peter Loftus, Wall Street Journal (August 21, 2008) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121928503311259059.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

“Why has there not been any mention of the potentially adverse effects of Merck’s cervical cancer vaccination, Gardasil® in relationship to the timing of the vaccination and where a young woman is in her menstrual cycle? This information is especially critical considering the vaccination is recommended for adolescent girls from the age of nine to young women up to 26-years. Why is it that women are constantly forced into a male medical model which blatantly ignores their menstrual health and administers drugs, surgeries, and vaccinations without any regard to where women are in their hormone cycle?….As the female hormone levels of estrogen and progesterone decrease during the premenstrual phase, the female body begins the process of releasing the uterine lining in the act of menstruation. The decrease in hormones actually affects a woman’s energy levels and her emotions. The immune system becomes more compromised, and that translates to a lowered defense system to fight off invading, foreign toxins….. In her 1977 groundbreaking book, “The Premenstrual Syndrome”, Katharina Dalton noted that drug reactions “…..are common during the premenstruum and may follow administration of antibiotics and inoculations. Confusion may occur as to the real origin of such reactions. In double-blind, clinical trials the placebo drugs are often reported to have side effects such as increased drowsiness, headache, nausea, or increased pain; which may be no more than the usual premenstrual symptoms which have not been meticulously observed and reported.” – Leslie Carol Botha and H. Sandra Chevalier-Batik, Holy Hormones (August 21, 2008)
http://holyhormones.com/about-2/articles-by-leslie/now-hold-on-one-hormonal-minute%E2%80%A6/

“Measles cases in the U.S. are at the highest level in more than a decade, with nearly half of those involving children whose parents rejected vaccination, health officials reported Thursday. Worried doctors are troubled by the trend fueled by unfounded fears that vaccines may cause autism. The number of cases is still small, just 131, but that’s only for the first seven months of the year. There were only 42 cases for all of last year…..The CDC’s review found that a number of cases involved home-schooled children not required to get the vaccines. Others can avoid vaccination by seeking exemptions, such as for religious reasons…..The vaccine is considered highly effective but not perfect; 11 of this year’s cases had at least one dose of the vaccine. Of this year’s total, 122 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. Some were unvaccinated because the children were under age 1 – too young to get their first measles shot. In 63 of those cases – almost all of them 19 or under – the patient or their parents refused the shots for philosophical or religious reasons, the CDC reported. In Washington state, an outbreak was traced to a church conference, including 16 school-aged children who were not vaccinated. Eleven of those kids were home schooled and not subject to vaccination rules in public schools. It’s unclear why the parents rejected the vaccine. The Illinois outbreak – triggered by a teenager who had traveled to Italy – included 25 home-schooled children, according to the CDC report.” – Mike Stobbe, Associated Press (August 21, 2008)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080821/ap_on_he_me/med_measles_outbreaks

“He was advanced for his age. He was talking when he was 11 months old,” recalls Edward Delean. The father of 4 says everything changed after his now 9 year old son who has autism was vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella or MMR. It was like that was it. He never talked again, he still doesn’t talk. He has about 10 words,” he says, adding, “it really devastated our family. I just destroyed us.” Testimonials like that have led some parents to shun vaccinations altogether. The Centers for Disease Control says measles cases have dramatically increased from 42 cases in all of last year to 131 in just the first seven months of this year because of parents who are rejecting the MMR vaccine for their kids. “It doesn’t serve us well when we have government officials trying to create fear and anxiety” says Barbara Loe Fisher with the National Vaccine Information Center. She says some parents opt out of immunizations for religious or philosophical reasons. Others have said no because their kids have had adverse reactions to the vaccines that are usually given on a set schedule. “Right now we’re seeing a one-size fits all approach to vaccination that doesn’t really recognize that children are different, that children react differently to vaccinations,” she says.” – Nancy Yamada, WUSA9-TV (August 21, 2008)
http://www.wusa9.com/news/health/story.aspx?storyid=75284&catid=28

When the bottom line overrides the Hippocratic oath

Source: Salon.com.

As a naive pediatric resident, I couldn’t believe it when the surgeon called back and said we don’t treat those kinds of patients.

By Rahul K. Parikh, M.D.

Jul. 16, 2008 | I don’t remember many specific patients from my days as a resident. Like all doctors in training, I was overworked, underpaid and chronically fatigued. With that, details become murky.

What I do remember, though, are certain incidents that gave me pause and made me wonder what the hell I had gotten myself into. The kinds of situations that only residents — who are the blunt business end of America’s sloppy healthcare system — can get stuck in.

Take my experiences in a Los Angeles hospital with kids who needed a surgeon. I would be on call, living in scrubs, trying to digest hospital chow. In the dead of the night, my pager would begin squealing, jarring me awake (if I was lucky to sleep in the first place). A number from an outlying hospital would flash on the screen. Stumbling out of bed to the nearest phone, I would learn that a child with, say, an open fracture of his leg needed to be transferred to our hospital since we offered “a higher level of care,” which often meant an orthopedic surgeon who could treat the child.

Indeed, this is what happened one night. With the child on the way, I paged the orthopedic surgeon on call. Surgeons like information given to them concisely and directly. I ran through what I would say: “Sorry to wake you, Doc, but I have a 5-year-old male en route from a community hospital who has an open fracture of his right femur. According to the transferring physician, he will need to have a reduction in the operating room tonight. While we’re waiting for you, we’ll start morphine for pain relief and some Ancef (an antiobiotic) for infection prophylaxis.” Then I waited for the phone to ring.

When the surgeon, a partner in a private Beverly Hills orthopedic group, returned my call, I was naive enough to expect some further questions about the child’s history, requests for some laboratory work or more X-rays, and instructions on how to prep the operating room. Instead, his first question was: “What’s their insurance?”

Medical students and residents are trained to anticipate and prepare for a lot of things. If we’re doing rounds with a senior physician, we try to be prepared for questions about the illnesses of our patients and how to treat them. For those reasons, and for our love of learning, many of us would talk about our patients and read in advance of our rounds, even when we could have been sleeping.

But I was not prepared for this question. I told the surgeon I would call back with the insurance information, which forced me to call the transferring doctor. I can’t remember if the child was underinsured, uninsured or was insured by the state, but it didn’t matter. When I called the surgeon back, he refused to come in. His group didn’t cover “those kinds” of patients.

So there we were — me, my intern, a nurse — somewhere between late at night and early in the morning, alone. A broken child and his parents were on their way in an ambulance. We had promised to provide “a higher level of care,” but the only doctor who could give that care just killed it. What was my plan? I was the doctor, after all. I had no idea.

In the end, all we could do was give the child morphine (a lot of it) and antibiotics, hoping we could keep him comfortable. Still, every time he moved just a little, he howled in pain. We hoped he wouldn’t lose his leg to some flesh-and-bone-eating infection. And so we waited until morning, when we would ask our teaching attendants to delicately negotiate with the surgical group to please come in and take a look.

What did I learn that night? Certainly nothing about the preoperative and postoperative management of children with femur fractures. No, I learned how even in the dead of night, in the presence of a child suffering, the bottom line can override the Hippocratic oath.

Such is our peculiar institution called American healthcare. We have gobs of money, the best technology, plenty of specialists, and spend the most money on healthcare in the world. Despite that, a child gets left out in the cold. Whom do we blame? Some would say the surgeon for refusing to play ball. But practically speaking, would you, whatever your job, work for free? In some cases, you can hold patients accountable for being careless with their health — drinking, smoking, eating too many McNuggets — but you can’t prevent unforeseen things.

This is especially evident in pediatrics where children will suddenly develop epilepsy or leukemia, or have an accident. You can blame insurers for their reimbursement games, the American Medical Association for lobbying to maintain the status quo, lawyers for bringing frivolous lawsuits, or drug makers for blocking international imports to keep prices high. The list goes on and on. But in the end, put it all together and it’s a system, a monstrous medical-pharmaceutical-legal-actuarial-industrial complex that’s leaving a lot of people behind.

There are triumphs to report. But those often refer to the most fortunate. Take the celebrity mother who went into preterm labor at 35 weeks during a transcontinental flight. She was wheeled into a private hospital room (off limits, of course, to residents), where her private doctor and two neonatal ICU specialists were waiting for her. I was called in a couple of days later and found a very large, intimidating dude standing at the door, checking the IDs of everyone who went in and out. He was the celebrity mother’s bodyguard. While the baby was there, his pediatrician, a 90210 doctor type whose signature wasn’t his clinical acumen but his Tommy Bahama shirts, checked the mother twice a day.

But healthcare, unlike caviar and first-class airline tickets, shouldn’t just be for rich patients and their doctors. So enough already. Let’s fix this mess. Get people insured, get incentives aligned, use technology to be more efficient and effective. Stop relying on market forces, stop backing the status quo, give people, rich or poor, access to quality healthcare. It won’t be perfect. There will be challenges, the most important one being that we will have to confront the fact that we’re trying to do unlimited things with limited resources. But we need to level the playing field, not only for the next child with a broken leg, but for the overworked, underappreciated staff of doctors and nurses who commit to taking care of him in the middle of the night.

Drugs.com Lists “Autism” as Known Adverse Reaction to DTaP Vaccine Tripedia

From Adventures in Autism:

In Drugs.com’s “A to Z Drug Facts” section the entry on Diphtheria / Tetanus Toxoids / Acellular Pertussis Vaccine contains the following Central Nervous System Adverse reactions for Sanofi Pasteur’s Tripedia:

“Tripedia
Drowsiness (29%); irritability (25%); anorexia (10%); fussiness (6%); autism, convulsion, encephalopathy, grand mal convulsion, hypotonia, neuropathy, somnolence (postmarketing).”

Hats off to Drugs.com for actually providing informed consent to consumers. To my knowledge they are the first to do it.

HT: Allison Chapman

Girl, 13, may be paralysed by disease that baffled doctors for six months – but her mother diagnosed on the internet

This goes to show that parents following their instincts can help cure their children. Always listen to that gut feeling, no matter what any “expert” says!

Unfortunately, the lack of decent medical “care” due to over-reliance on big pHARMa forces many people to become their own doctors. Beware if a doctor wants to prescribe anti-depressant meds instead of trying to find out what’s wrong with you. You may spend years still sick and with additional “side” effects from the pills.

Source: This Is London.

A schoolgirl who has been left bed-ridden with a serious illness for six months, was only diagnosed after her mother looked up her symptoms on the internet.

Danielle Fisher, 13, fell ill in October and doctors were baffled by her mysterious condition.

Her mother Dominique, 35, took her to the doctors after she began suffering from viral meningitis-like symptoms, including severe headaches and fatigue.

Over the next few months, Danielle’s condition worsened as her eyes became ultra-sensitive to light and she began suffering from vertigo and shortness of breath.

Danielle Fisher has been left bed-ridden by Lyme Disease
after doctors failed to diagnose the condition for six months

Danielle, from Whitefield, Greater Manchester, attended various doctor and hospital appointments where she was diagnosed with a variety of possible illnesses, including meningitis, Epstein-Bar virus, a tumour and even psychological problems.

Her mother, 35, said, ‘She was admitted to hospital a few times, she was in and out for a long time and we got an array of diagnoses which were all wrong.

‘She was diagnosed with Epstein-Bar virus, without the glandular fever. Then meningitis, then the psychiatrist comment was the best one.

‘They even suggested it could be a clot or a tumour at one point, which was worrying.

‘The last time she was in, the doctor said there’s nothing wrong with her, she needs a psychiatrist, which I knew was wrong, the poor girl could hardly walk.’

Frustrated at the lack of an appropriate diagnosis, Dominique, who is an estate agent, was so worried that she began doing some research herself on the internet into Danielle’s symptoms.

She had severe vertigo and couldn’t walk any more

She was shocked to discover her daughter’s illness may have been caused by a bite from a tick, a tiny spider-like blood-sucking parasite which usually feeds off animals.

Dominique said, ‘I’d begun doing some research myself by then as she had severe vertigo, couldn’t walk any more and had severe muscle and joint pain.

‘I came across Lyme Disease and it just seemed to fit. There’s a lot of controversy over the treatment of the disease and over diagnosing the disease.

‘I took Danielle to see a professor in Newcastle privately and he diagnosed her with Lyme Disease and three core infections. That’s why she was so ill.

‘If it hadn’t have been diagnosed, she could have become paralysed or blind.’

Danielle’s condition was diagnosed as borreliosis, also known as Lyme Disease in April. If left untreated, it can cause nerve damage, paralysis and blindness.

The Manchester schoolgirl is now taking several courses of antibiotics to treat the condition but it is feared she may never fully recover.

‘If she had been diagnosed straight away, it would have been a course of six weeks of antibiotics but now she’s on heavy antibiotics. It’s gone past the blood-brain barrier,’ Danielle’s mother said.

‘Thankfully she is now on a course of treatment and we are just hoping as much as we can that she will get better. On one extreme she could be better in weeks and on the other extreme she might always be like she is now. ‘

Dominique added: ‘Danielle is fed up. She’s lost a lot of weight, she’s miserable and she just wants to be better. She just wants to be back at school and with her friends.’

The disease has seen a fivefold increase in Britain in the past decade.

‘It’s staggering that this has been caused by one bite. Danielle is literally bed-ridden. She can barely walk because she is so weak and she gets tired really easily.

‘This disease is a lot more common than people think and I just want to make people aware of it.’

‘It can happen anywhere in the UK. There seems to be quite a lot of it in certain big parks. It’s like an unlucky lottery, it can happen to anyone.’

Wendy Fox, Chairperson and Director of BADA (Borreliosis and Associated Diseases Awareness UK) said: ‘Doctors need to be much more aware of early signs and symptoms, the fact that ticks can carry more than one infection concurrently and the fact that rashes can differ to those in medical journals.”

Currently the only defence against Lyme Disease in the UK is wearing sensible clothing, using repellent and being aware of possible symptoms.

Insanity: 8-Year-Olds on Statins?

I’ve been warning parents against taking their children to pediatricians, especially the vax-jabbing, pill pusher variety. Here’s another good reason not to.

Source: TARA PARKER-POPE, The New York Times.

Cholesterol drugs for 8-year-olds?

This aggressive new recommendation for warding off heart disease in some children has stirred a furious debate among pediatricians since the American Academy of Pediatrics issued it on Monday.

While some doctors applauded the idea, others were incredulous. In particular, these doctors called attention to a lack of evidence that the use of the cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins, in children would prevent heart attacks later in life.

“What are the data that show this is helpful preventing heart attacks?” asked Dr. Darshak Sanghavi, a pediatric cardiologist and assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. “How many heart attacks do we hope to prevent this way? There’s no data regarding that.”

Nor, Dr. Sanghavi added, are there data on the possible side effects of taking statins for 40 or 50 years.

Other doctors said the recommendation would distract from common-sense changes in diet and exercise, which are also part of the new guidelines.

“To be frank, I’m embarrassed for the A.A.P. today,” said Dr. Lawrence Rosen of Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, vice chairman of an academy panel on traditional and alternative medicine. He added: “Treatment with medications in the absence of any clear data? I hope they’re ready for the public backlash.”

Doctors who sat on the academy’s committee on nutrition, which issued the guidelines, agree there are no long-term data on statin use in children. But they say there are adequate safety data to justify the recommendations. One statin, Pravachol, has already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in children as young as 8.

“We extrapolate from the information we have in adults,” said a member of the panel, Dr. Nicolas Stettler, an assistant professor of pediatric epidemiology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “We know that in adults, decreasing cholesterol and giving some of those drugs decreases risk of heart disease or death. So there’s really no reason to think that would be any different in children.”

Some recent ultrasound studies of the carotid arteries in high-risk children also show that statin use in children does appear to slow the progression of heart disease, Dr. Stettler said.

To be sure, the statin recommendation does not apply to most children. “Among the vast majority of children, this will not even be an issue,” said Dr. Daphne Hsu, a chief of pediatric cardiology at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.

But it signals a more aggressive approach to treating cardiovascular disease at a young age using drugs that have been studied primarily in adults.

Under the old guidelines, children considered at high risk for heart disease could be given statins starting at age 10. The new guidelines apply to children as young as 8 with LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol of 190 milligrams per deciliter, or those with LDL of 160 and a family history of heart disease or two other risk factors. Among children with diabetes, drug treatment may begin when bad cholesterol reaches 130.

In addition, the academy recommended that children with a family history of heart disease be screened as early as the age of 2 and no later than the age of 10. And by the age of 12 months, if a doctor is concerned about future weight problems, low-fat milk may be recommended.

Although the real numbers are small, some experts worry that the new guidelines will encourage too much reliance on drug therapy rather than more difficult lifestyle changes.

“It will open the door for pharmaceutical companies to heavily advertise and promote their use in 8-year-olds, when we don’t know yet the long-term effect on using these drugs on prepubertal kids,” said Dr. Alan Greene, a pediatrician in Danville, Calif., and the founder of the popular Web site DrGreene.com.

None of the doctors on the academy’s nutrition panel have disclosed any financial relationship with makers of statin drugs. (The report’s lead author, Dr. Stephen Daniels, told The Associated Press that he had worked as a consultant to Abbott Laboratories and Merck, but not on their cholesterol drugs. He was not available for comment on Monday.)

Some childhood obesity experts said they understood the need for the new guidelines, but added that there needed to be more focus on public health changes to address childhood obesity.

“When you have a kid whose cholesterol looks like an overweight 65-year-old, what do you do?” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the childhood obesity program at Children’s Hospital in Boston. “The committee had to balance the risks of treating children with powerful drugs, about which there is limited long-term data, with the risks of not treating children with unprecedented cardiovascular disease risk factors.”

Even so, Dr. Ludwig says he has some concerns about what the guidelines say about public health.

“My concern is what this is saying about society when we are so quick to prescribe drugs for these conditions before having systematically attacked the problem from the public health perspective,” he said.

Part of the concern about statin use in children stems from the fact that there is still controversy about how widespread their use should be in adults. Statins, which are the most prescribed drugs in the world, have been shown to lower risk for heart attack and death in middle-aged men with existing heart disease. But there is little evidence they prolong life in healthy men, women or people over 70. And since statins have been around only since the mid-1980s, there is no evidence to show whether giving statins to a child will lower his or her risk for heart attack in middle-age.

Side effects, particularly muscle pain and cognitive problems, also have been a concern in adults, but it is unclear whether children will experience similar problems.

“We’re talking about potentially treating thousands and thousands of children simply to possibly prevent one heart attack,” says Dr. Sanghavi, from the University of Massachusetts. “That kind of risk benefit calculation is entirely absent from the A.A.P.’s policy.”

While most of the attention has focused on the drug therapy guidelines, far more parents may be affected by the recommendation that low-fat milk products are appropriate to give to children after the age of 12 months. Historically, low-fat milk has been discouraged for very young children because fat is essential to brain development. But the academy noted that because children were getting so much fat elsewhere in their diets, low-fat milk may be recommended by pediatricians if they are concerned about future weight problems.

“Obviously all of us want kids to really take care of their health,” said Dr. Marcie Schneider, a member of the nutrition committee who is an adolescent medicine specialist in Greenwich, Conn. “We want them exercising, we want them eating well. You try the least invasive things always first, but at some point if that’s not helping enough, you need to go to the next level.”

well@nytimes.com

Hippie midwife shakes up obstetricians

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, The Jerusalem Post.

Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery and Dr. Grantly Dick-Read’s Childbirth Without Fear inspired me to power through a long and hard labor without medical interFEARance. What really helped was going on all fours like Gaskin recommends, but which hospitals discourage you to do. They don’t like you to move around when they’ve got you hooked up like Frankenstein’s monster to all the monitors. Is this any way to birth? I’m surprised feminists hardly comment on how most women take such a passive, obsequious attitude toward birth and doctors.

Ina May Gaskin – the woman widely described as the “most famous” and “most authentic” midwife in the world – never even took a formal midwifery course. Nevertheless, obstetricians, who in most of the developed world prefer to deliver all babies themselves, have given her the ultimate honor – naming an obstetric procedure that literally saves life and limb after this unusual woman.

Observing how uneducated, poor women deliver babies under primitive conditions in Guatemala, Gaskin formulated what she claims is the most effective way to deal with shoulder dystocia, in which the baby’s head has already emerged but its shoulders are too broad to get out of the birth canal. Doctors try an incision on the perineum, pulling and twisting, but this can lead to fractures of the infant’s bones, brachial plexus injuries and more. Instead, Gaskin suggested putting the mother on all fours – a position common in indigenous cultures – and in the vast majority of cases, the baby will pop out “within a maximum of six minutes.”

SHE WAS brought to Israel earlier this month by Great Shape, a Jerusalem exercise studio based in the capital’s majestic YMCA building and with expertise in workouts for pregnant and post-natal women. Hundreds of women from around the country, including midwives, dolas, nurses, pregnant women and new mothers packed the auditorium to hear the folksy Gaskin being introduced by Great Shape director and co-founder Rachelle Oseran. Most of the audience were either modern Orthodox or secular Jewish women – and some brought along their babies whom they breastfed in a nursing corner where the sound was piped in so they wouldn’t miss out on Gaskin’s lectures between 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. If there had been a large number of obstetricians guarding their territory, opposing home births and demanding that midwives get academic training, however, the reception would probably have been cooler.

Widely known only by her first and middle names, Ina (pronounced eye-na) May was born in 1940 to a Protestant farming family in Iowa. She recalled that she was a tomboy who delivered papers; because of the birthing of farm animals she witnessed from an early age, she was interested in how creatures enter the world. She had initially planned to become an engineer, but a turning point came at age 16, when she borrowed from a library the classic natural-childbirth guide by British obstetrician Dr. Grantly Dick-Read called Childbirth Without Fear.

“It made sense. If you’re not afraid of childbirth, you breathe better and your muscles are more relaxed so you can have the baby more easily,” she said from the YMCA stage.

AFTER GRADUATING from her hometown high school, she attended a community college, married charismatic “hippie guru” Stephen Gaskin at 19 and enrolled at the University of Iowa to study English. The idealistic Ina May and Stephen enlisted in the Peace Corps and lived for a time in Malaysia, where she taught English, but they returned to the heartland of America for her to earn her master’s degree in English.

While still a graduate student in 1966, she first gave birth in a hospital, attended by an obstetrician, but found the experience nothing like what Dick-Read had described in his book.

Ina May – a grandmother of two with long gray hair and dressed in a calf-length peasant skirt and blouse – recalled that she had been left alone most of her time in the delivery room. When her contractions intensified, doctors came in armed with forceps to pull out the baby, even though she had wanted to have hers naturally. She wasn’t permitted to see her daughter for a day and a half. “I wanted to have my next baby at home.”

Many US obstetricians of that era who encountered shoulder dystocia performed the Zavanelli Maneuver, in which they rotated the baby’s head and pushed it back into birth position before performing a Cesarean section.

“They decided to do this based on only 10 cases, and two of the women needed an immediate hysterectomy. I was surprised that it was even published in a medical journal. The Zavanelli Maneuver is sometimes still performed today!” said Ina May.

America’s obstetricians then believed that “all women need a big episiotomy” (incision in the perineum, sometimes even to the anus) to avoid injury to babies and mothers during birth. “Every first baby had to arrive by a forceps delivery. As a farmer’s daughter, I saw how animals were born – with no forceps. As I had read so many romantic 18th-century English novels, I thought I could escape my fate in the delivery room by being quiet, but it didn’t help. I wasn’t aware then that there were any midwives in the US. The profession had nearly been wiped out. There were 4.3 million births per year – almost all attended by obstetricians. Today,” said Ina May, “fewer than 10 per cent of US births are performed by midwives, and home births constitute less than 1%. Even so, this situation is very threatening to the American Medical Association, which is always trying to push through laws to prevent all home births by preventing payment for it.”

SHE WOULD probably envy Israel, where most babies are born with the help of midwives, and obstetricians are called in only if there is risk or if the couple pay privately. But there are few home births, as the Health Ministry says this is unnecessary and can endanger infants. Hospitals, which depend on per-baby payments from the National Insurance Institute, are not keen on losing the business, and women receive NII grants for delivering in a hospital.

After moving to San Francisco in 1970, the Gaskin family decided to start a commune in the center of the country. Some 250 people traveling in a bus caravan put down roots in Summertown, Tennessee and called the settlement near a forest The Farm. They grew their own food, but had no health insurance, ideologically refused to accept government help and had to manage without physicians.

“As lots of women were pregnant by the time we settled down in the commune” remembered Ina May, “they were having lots of babies.” She helped bring children into the world – her first one on a bus in a parking lot – without any formal training. The Farm’s population quadrupled in four years to 1,000 people.

Eventually, based on what she learned and recognized as a Certified Professional Midwife by a layman group as she lacked academic study, Gaskin wrote her best-selling books Spiritual Midwifery (1976) and Ina May’s Guide To Childbirth (2003) – both of which promoted natural childbirth and the home birth movement. Via her midwife quarterly, the Birth Gazette, she has promoted a woman-centered, low-intervention method of delivery.

AFTER GETTING some pointers from a kindly physician, she was so calm and collected while delivering babies that her fellow residents at The Farm asked her to attend them, often in their own bedrooms. Ina May believes that midwives like her who have learned from experience (“direct entry”) rather than from formal training should get a license like academically trained midwives, and pushed for this as a founder of the Midwives’ Alliance of North America.

When a terrible earthquake hit Guatemala, the Gaskins went there to help the victims by building homes and outhouses, capping springs and other tasks. “The average life expectancy there was 44 years. I met a foreign midwife, from Belize in Africa, who was living there and working as the district midwife,” Ina May recalled. “She supervised illiterate Mayan women, but found that when the baby’s shoulders got stuck, the natives knew better what to do than she herself had been taught. The woman turned onto her hands and knees and was able to push the baby out easily.”

Back at The Farm, there were 30 babies to deliver each month. “Shoulder dystocia had become America’s most feared birth problem. Victims had useless, even permanently paralyzed arms. Doctors were afraid of being sued.” Ina May was on hand to deliver the second child of her friend, Barbara. “His head was out, but she couldn’t push because his big fat cheeks were against the perineum. I remembered what I had seen in Guatemala and turned her over. She thought I was crazy, but her 10-pound [five kilo] baby was born immediately.”

INA MAY demonstrates on the YMCA stage why her maneuver is successful. Holding the front and back of her pelvis when standing straight, she instructs her audience to stand up and copy her. Bending forward, as if on all fours, they felt that the distance between the front and back of the pelvis expanded, leaving more room for the baby to get out.

“Another reason is when in the womb, the baby isn’t glued in any particular position. When its mother rolls over, the inertia of the baby’s weight can knock loose the wedged shoulder like a little ship inside a bottle.”

Her most exciting achievement was when she collaborated with Prof. Joe Bruner of Vanderbilt University and published an article about the Gaskin Maneuver in the May 1998 issue of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine; obstetricians who read it were gradually persuaded that perhaps it could be of use when dealing with shoulder dystocia. Yet she knows of hospital departments where the chief of obstetrics forbids women to go on all fours “because they regard this as a sexual position that has no place in a hospital.”

IN ANY delivery, Ina May advises, the midwife or obstetrician should “always take a very deep breath before saying anything. Then say it in a very quiet voice so you don’t scare the mother. Understanding the ring-shaped sphincter muscles that surround the natural openings in the body and can open or close them is also a very important part of childbirth, she continued. In addition to sphincter muscles in the heart, gastroenterological system, urethra, anus and mouth, the cervix and vagina are also sphincters.

“There are many women so afraid of birth that without knowing it, they close these sphincters during labor. They can remain contracted when the mother is tired or shy,” said Ina May. “When her mouth is open and smiling or laughing, you can feel the cervix and vagina soften and open. Fear can stop labor, and the baby can be drawn back into the uterus due to the adrenalin produced.”

Many Aztec or Mayan birthing figures, she noted, show stylized women with their mouths and vaginas open that were used to promote quicker delivery. She told of cases in which women were so frightened by the arrival of obstetricians that their babies went back into the birth canal for minutes, hours and even weeks.

Some women are so afraid that they will defecate, urinate or release gas during their labor that they involuntarily hold the fetus in, said Ina May. Some of these fears originate in their toilet-training period when they were derided or punished for “accidents.” Such women can have great difficulty delivering babies.

“If you suspect such trauma,” she told her audience, “make jokes about pooping, peeing or farting. ‘Shit’ is a perfectly acceptable word; Shakespeare and Chaucer used it. If a midwife can’t say these words during delivery, she’s in deep shit!” said Ina May in her typical homespun manner. “Our bottom parts work better when our top parts – our minds – are either grateful or amused at the antics or activities of our bottoms. Humans are the only animals disgusted by their own poo.”

This is not the style of most obstetricians, but it will be interesting to see whether women’s growing demands for more natural childbirth will bring “direct-entry” and academically trained midwives and physicians closer in their outlooks, choice of procedures and language.

“Well” Baby Visit Vaccines = One Dead Baby?

Keep your baby alive by not taking her to “well” baby visits with pediatricians. Family Practice doctors that don’t push shots and meds are a safe bet. Choose one whose office doesn’t contain Big Pharma posters, pens, and notepads.

By Kia Carter, WQAD.

QUAD CITIES — Wednesday all Genesis Medical Center Pediatric Clinics suspended their use of childhood vaccines. The decision comes after a baby received routine vaccinations on Tuesday, then died several hours later at home. Genesis Health Group says its suspending pediatric vaccinations merely as a precaution until the cause of the baby’s death can be determined.

Tuesday morning a 4-month-old baby boy came to the Genesis East Pediatrics Clinic in Silvis for a routine checkup that included several vaccinations. The seemingly healthy baby boy was brought in for a “well baby” visit, that’s a check up that includes routine vaccinations like pneumonia, and DPT, which is for diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus. Then Tuesday night his parents found him dead with no obvious cause for his death. Now all childhood vaccinations at Genesis clinics in Silvis, Bettendorf and Davenport have been temporarily suspended. A Genesis spokesman says hospital administration have no reason to believe the vaccines caused the baby’s death, but they want to be overly cautious.

“They’ll be a coroner’s examination of the baby and we’ll get a report. At that time we’ll most likely resume our vaccinations, because we don’t think there was a link between them and the child passing,” says Craig Cooper, Genesis Health Group spokesman.

Genesis has also sent the batch of vaccines the boy received off to the Food and Drug Administration and to the makers of the vaccines for testing. This is the first time Genesis has ever suspended pediatric vaccinations at it’s clinics. We’ll continue to bring you the latest as Genesis finds answers.