Childhood Tobacco Smoke Exposure Ups Risk of ADHD

Hispanics and other races at higher risk than non-Hispanic whites and blacks

MONDAY, Sept. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in childhood increases the odds of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but the magnitude of risk seen with elevated serum cotinine levels varies by race, according to research published online Sept. 20 in Pediatrics.

Xiaohui Xu, Ph.D., of the University of Florida in Gainesville, and colleagues examined the association between postnatal environmental tobacco smoke exposure, measured with serum cotinine levels, and ADHD among children 4 to 15 years of age. After controlling for prenatal exposure, the interactions of race and serum cotinine levels with ADHD were also studied.

Overall, the researchers found that ADHD prevalence increased as serum cotinine levels increased, but the magnitude of the cotinine effect varied by race. Comparing same-race children with the highest and lowest cotinine levels showed an ADHD odds ratio of 2.72 for Mexican-American children and 5.32 for children of races designated as "other." For non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks, there were no significant associations between cotinine level and ADHD.

"Although it is impossible to control for all confounders and/or biases in measurements of outcome and covariates in our analysis, this study supports the hypothesis that postnatal environmental tobacco smoke exposure, independent of prenatal smoking exposure, is an important risk factor for ADHD. Moreover, our study suggests that the effects of postnatal environmental tobacco smoke exposure on ADHD may differ according to race. The findings warrant further investigation

Children Convulse from Dangerous Vaccines

An unusually high number of children under five years of age experienced fevers, vomiting and seizures after having the flu shot in March and April last year, prompting a call for an inquiry.

The federal government's response to a large number of adverse reactions to the flu vaccine last year has been deemed appropriate by an independent auditor.

Former chief medical officer Professor John Horvath conducted the review, which pointed to a more coordinated plan to quickly and effectively deal with concerns about vaccines.

Just over a month after commencing the program in March last year, the chief medical officer of Australia suspended the vaccine for all children under five after a number of seizures were reported by hospital staff.

Within days, the Therapeutic Goods Association received "a lot of calls" from immunisation service providers about children having high temperatures and being unwell, some with seizures, immediately following the vaccine.

Staff in South Australian hospitals and clinics reported making calls to their WA counterparts to compare the children's adverse reactions.

The report detailed 14 convulsion episodes reported by April 19 in WA as well as several in South Australia and Queensland; four days later the program was suspended.

The independent review found that the actions of the TGA and chief medical officer were appropriate, timely and proportionate, following the extensive investigation.

The fact that there was insufficient data on the vaccines, particularly as there was no clearly identifiable reason to explain the seizures, was much of the reason behind its suspension.

Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing Catherine King said the review noted there was no standard operating procedure for responding to a vaccine safety issue in large groups of people.

"The review identified that the arrangements for vaccine safety issues are complex and, while the Therapeutic Goods Administration has the key responsibility in monitoring adverse events, many other organisations, including Commonwealth and state health authorities, also have a role," Ms King said.

"The 2010 flu vaccine health alert highlighted a lack of clarity of the relationships between these groups and their roles and responsibilities in vaccine safety monitoring and responding to the identification of a possible safety signal."

Other recommendations cover surveillance, the need for timely reporting of adverse reactions following immunisation, raising awareness and more transparency by the TGA to ensure better access to vaccine safety information.

Head of Clinical Research at the National Centre for Immunisation and Research and Surveillance at the Westmead Children's Hospital in Sydney, Professor Robert Booy, welcomed the findings and said they addressed some crucial points.

"There is no doubt that improving communication about health matters with the public and profession, as well as increasing the transparency of the regulatory agency, the TGA, will be of benefit," Professor Booy said.

"The best way we could get early signal of a safety concern would be to have active surveillance; linking records generated about vaccine uptake, GP presentation and hospital admission in real time.

Medical Errors Kill 15,000 Patients a Month

  Thirteen [13] percent of Medicare patients in the U.S. experience an adverse event each month in American hospitals, and some 15,000 of them die as a result according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General

The report points out that 44 percent of adverse incidents occurring in hospitals are avoidable. And all-together, these adverse events are costing Medicare more than $300 million a MONTH.

Kevin K. Golladay, regional inspector general for evaluation and inspections with OIG thinks hospitals need to have greater incentives to reduce errors and adverse events, and the OIG report suggests that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could perhaps create this incentive by denying payment for conditions acquired while in the hospital setting.

Editorial Comment: (from Chiro.org, edited)

The unfortunate truth is that Medicare balks at the prospect of paying chiropractors for all the services they are trained (and licensed) to provide.

This costs Medicare $300 million a MONTH from injuring patients (or 3.6 Billion per year).  How many are for conditions that could have been safely and successfully treated with Chiropractic care?  According to the most in-depth review article written on the topic, the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year, at a cost of $282 billion dollars.

• That’s 2147 people dying per DAY

• That’s two 9-11 events happening every three days…forever.

Sitting Will Kill You

This is just sooooo cute.  Click on the link to go to the page and see the rest of this very scary graphic.  Sitting is bad and now you can really feel nervous about it.

Click Here To Be Very Scared!!

Scientists Lie AGAIN. Vaccines and Autism.

American prosecutors are attempting to extradite a Danish scientist.

Poul Thorsen has been charged with 13 counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering; a federal grand jury alleges that Thorsen stole over $1 million from autism research funding between February 2004 and June 2008.

Thorsen is said to have used the proceeds to buy a home in Atlanta, two cars and a Harley Davidson. He is said to have stolen the money while serving as the 'principal investigator' for a program that studied the relationship between autism and exposure to vaccines.

The Copenhagen Post reports:

"... [O]ver the four-year period he submitted over a dozen false invoices from the CDC for research expenses to Aarhus University, where he held a faculty position, instructing them to transfer the funds to a CDC account, which was in fact his personal account ...

Thorsen's research on autism is widely known in academic circles, where he was until this week a highly respected figure. A paper of his on the subject, which is known as 'The Danish Study', is quoted extensively to refute the autism vaccine connection."

Another prominent name in vaccine medicine, Dr. Paul Offit, well-known shill for the vaccine industry, has also been called out for making false and unsubstantiated statements about CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson and her report looking into the ties between vaccine supporters and the vaccine industry.

On April 18, 2011, the California Orange County Register issued a retraction of an August 4, 2008 article containing disparaging statements made by Dr. Offit about Attkisson.

According to Adventures in Autism:

"Upon further review, it appears that a number of Dr. Offit's statements, as quoted in the OC Register article, were unsubstantiated and/or false. Attkisson had previously reported on the vaccine industry ties of Dr. Offit and others in a CBS Evening News report 'How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders?'"

The unsubstantiated statements included a claim that Attkisson "lied", and a claim that CBS News sent a "mean spirited and vituperative" email. Offit also told the OC Register that he provided CBS News "the details of his relationship ... with pharmaceutical company Merck", but documents provided by CBS News indicate Offit did not disclose all of his financial relationships with Merck.

US Quietly Paid Families For Vaccine-Linked Autism Cases

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Federal health officials may have only recently called autism a “national health emergency”, but a new study released Wednesday showed the U.S. has been quietly compensating families with autism for nearly two decades.

The report from SafeMinds.org — a group that believes scientific evidence has linked autism to vaccinations – alleges that a fund set up by the U.S. government to compensate those injured by vaccines has paid out claims to dozens of families of autistic kids.

The study conducted by the Pace Environmental Law Review revealed that since the late 1980s, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) has paid money for 83 cases involving autism out of approximately 1,300 cases of vaccine injury that resulted in childhood brain injury.

In that same time period, federal officials have maintained that autism — which now affects an estimated one in 110 individuals — is still “rare” and has publicly conceded to only one vaccine-induced autism case involving nine-year-old Hannah Poling.

But Dr. Elizabeth Evans, a pediatrician and specialist with Northridge Hospital Medical Center, told KFWB 980′s Maggie McKay she disputes the study’s findings.

“The important thing for the American public to know is that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is very unique,” said Evans. “It is in no way related to a court case or something in a court of law.”

“There is no proof that an injury has been caused by a vaccine,” she added.

The study’s authors stand behind the findings and warn they are only “the tip of the iceberg.”

Currently, there are over 5,000 vaccine court cases pending that claim autism as a result of vaccine injury.

Malaria mosquitos like sweaty feet

Mosquitos carrying malaria are attracted to sweaty feet, according to doctoral student Remco Suer of Wageningen University.

The Volkskrant says malaria mosquitos detect humans by the carbon dioxide they exhale from dozens of metres away. However, the smell given off by bacteria causing sweaty feet takes over as the mosquito nears its target.

Suer says the finding shows why mosquitos tend to bite feet and ankles rather than faces and could provide a clue to changing their behaviour.

Medical Research Supports Chiropractic Maintenance Care

Two research studies generated by the medical profession this year add evidence in support of the value of chiropractic maintenance care. 

The first study published in January 2011 in Spine concluded that “SMT is effective for the treatment of chronic non specific LBP. To obtain long-term benefit, this study suggests maintenance spinal manipulations after the initial intensive manipulative therapy.” 

The second study in April 2011, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, provides additional support for the value of chiropractic maintenance care for post injury low back pain patients.  The study followed 894 injured workers for a period of one year.  During that year there were four different types of therapy available to the workers:  medical management, physical therapy, chiropractic, and no therapy.  Episodes of repeat disability were recorded during the year following the initial injury.  Physical therapy had the highest percentage of reinjured workers followed by those receiving medical management or no treatment at all.  The lowest incidence of repeat injury was found among those workers who had received chiropractic maintenance care. 

The results of published surveys given to chiropractors have documented the profession’s belief in the value of maintenance care.  Furthermore, during the last decade there have been a dozen peer reviewed papers on the subject.  There are far more questions to be answered, but it is heartening to see medical research corroborate the studies and beliefs of the chiropractic profession. 

Children told to be tested for HIV after flu vaccines reused

FORT COLLINS - A clinic in Northern Colorado is advising parents of children who received a pediatric flu shot from their offices to get tested for some blood-borne diseases including HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C after their vaccine syringes were shared between patients.

Med Peds Clinic of Fort Collins sent out a letter on April 6 stating a medical assistant at the office took the pre-measured children's influenza vaccine and only gave half to each child, assuming it was the adult dosage. Children between 6 months and 35 months are only supposed to receive half of the recommended dosage for adults.

Since children are supposed to receive two doses of the pediatric influenza vaccine within a month of each other, the assistant removed the needle from each half-full syringe, assuming it was an adult dose, and replaced it with a sterile needle, but not a new syringe.

Med Peds says she then placed the used syringes in a box marked "second doses," which also contained unused, fully-filled pediatric vaccines.

The clinic says some of the half-used vaccines were then used inadvertently on children returning for their second shot.

The medical assistant has been fired, Med Peds says.

"Apparently, somebody wasn't following policy and procedure and it puts infants in danger, so [I'm] not a big fan of them right now," father Cary Bergeron, whose infant was vaccinated at Med Peds, said. "She [my daughter] was born flawless, and now, by someone else's mistake, something bad could happen."

Med Peds says the first concern for patients is they didn't receive a full influenza vaccine. They say children between 6 months and 35 months who received two does during the 2010-2011 flu season may need two shots again during the 2011-2012 flu season to be fully vaccinated.

"We are handling this with our patients directly. We have talked to majority of our patients in person. We are a little dismayed that one of our former medical assistants did not follow procedure when handling this," Dr. Mark S. Simmons with Med Peds said.

The clinic, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and The Children's Hospital says the chances of a child who was vaccinated with the tampered shot has a very low chance of contracting an infectious disease. The CDPHE still suggests the children who received the tampered vaccines be tested now and again six months from the date of the second dose for blood-borne pathogens like Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV.

"We are looking into this incident and their practice is cooperating. We have directed the office to notify all patients. We do not believe there is any public health risks outside of the risks to the patients treated at Med Peds. Even that risk we believe to those patients is extremely low," Mark Salley with the CDPHE said.

The clinic says they are taking precautions to make sure this doesn't happen again in the future.

"We are writing this letter to express our sincere apology for the mistake this former employee made. Please be confident we have carefully evaluated the facts and circumstances surrounding this matter and have taken steps to prevent future incidents from happening," the letter that went out to patients said.

(KUSA-TV © 2011 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)

CDC and ADA Now Advise to Avoid Using Fluoride

A new study in the Journal of the American Dental Association finds once again that, contrary to what most people have been told, fluoride is actually bad for teeth.

Exposure to high levels of fluoride results in a condition known as fluorosis, in which tooth enamel becomes discolored. The condition can eventually lead to badly damaged teeth. The new study found that fluoride intake during a child's first few years of life is significantly associated with fluorosis, and warned against using fluoridated water in infant formula.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is of a similar opinion. According to their website:

"Recent evidence suggests that mixing powdered or liquid infant formula concentrate with fluoridated water on a regular basis may increase the chance of a child developing ... enamel fluorosis."

Sources:

  Journal of the American Dental Association October 14, 2010; 141(10):1190-1201 

  CDC May 28, 2010