November 1st, 2010 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Tips, News
No Comments »
Vaccines have saved more lives than any other medical intervention in history. They are incredibly safe and effective and are well-tolerated by most people. In the US, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) carefully reviews all reports of adverse reactions that could be associated with vaccines. Over decades of review, they have found that the rate of potential severe reactions is so low that they cannot even calculate a risk.
There are many vaccines available for babies, children, and adults. Please check these vaccine schedules to make sure that you and your family are fully protected from vaccine-preventable diseases. (Or you can ask your doctor/nurse to review your vaccine needs with you in person.)
Vaccines for ages 0-6 click here.
Vaccines for ages 7-18 click here.
Vaccines for adults click here.
In case you have any doubts about the value of protecting yourself from disease, here are my top 10 reasons to get vaccinated: Read more »
October 22nd, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
No Comments »
Dr. Robert Sears’ The Vaccine Book, is, as Dr. Rahul Parikh puts it, “a nightmare for pediatricians like me.”
In a piece from Salon, Dr. Parikh brings his issues to the author. The controversy of the book is the so-called “alternative vaccine schedule,” which, as vaccine developer Paul Offit puts it:
…is “misrepresentation of vaccine science” that “misinforms parents trying to make the right decision for their children” in the Journal of Pediatrics. And yet, as a pediatrician myself, I have seen an increasing number of caring, reasonable parents hold it up like a bible in my practice (and that of my colleagues).
This post, however, isn’t about the vaccine controversy — I’ll leave you to read Dr. Parikh’s excellent piece for yourself.
What I found interesting was a passage discussing the public health fears stemming from an increasing number of unvaccinated children. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
October 2nd, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, News, Research
No Comments »
British scientists announced that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been linked to deleted or duplicated DNA segments (copy number variants), which leads to developmental difference in the brains of children with the condition.
Researchers scanned genomes of 366 children with ADHD and compared them with 1,047 unrelated, ethnically matched control subjects. They reported full results in The Lancet.
Rare copy number variants were almost twice as common in children with ADHD compared to the other children. Researchers commented to Reuters that there was a significant overlap between copy number variants found in ADHD and elements of the genome linked to autism and schizophrenia, specifically in a region on chromosome 16.
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
September 11th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, True Stories
No Comments »
Last week Robert Scoble announced on Cinchcast the news that his son, Milan, had just been diagnosed with autism. I often listen to his Cinchcasts, and the disappointment in his voice was heartbreaking.
Then I began to wonder: If one of my children were to receive a devastating diagnosis, would my first impulse be to share the news on a public platform? Probably not. And that, among a number of obvious things, is what differentiates me from Robert Scoble.
Everyone’s got their transparency threshold. You can see it with attitudes surrounding location applications. The importance of community to each of us varies tremendously. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
August 1st, 2010 by DrRob in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion, True Stories
No Comments »
I’ve been practicing for sixteen years now, doing both internal medicine and pediatrics. One of the joys of that is watching kids under my care grow up and not having to give up their care just because they get older. The spectrum is wide, with some kids growing up in “normal” families with “normal lives,” others in “abnormal” families, and yet others with inherently “abnormal” lives due to illness or disability.
But the kids aren’t the only thing that has changed over the past sixteen years. Their doctor has changed as well. My comfort zones have widened, not getting rattled by “abnormal” as I once did. I used to feel uncomfortable with the mentally and emotionally disabled, now I am not. I used to feel sorry for parents with “abnormal” children. I used to feel bad for kids who were “abnormal.” I still do now, but not nearly as much. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
