What's Happening to the Kids?

This is happening to the kids. Didn’t used to be seen in children...

With mumps making the rounds, it’s good to know that vitamin A can help.

In vitro inhibition of mumps virus by retinoids

These results demonstrate that retinoids inhibit MuV replication in uninfected bystander cells through a retinoid inducible gene I (RIG-I), retinoic acid receptor (RAR) and IFN dependent manner making them refractory to subsequent rounds of viral replication. These observations raise the possibility that pharmacological doses of retinoids might have clinical benefit in MuV infection.

Sudden Cardiac Deaths in Young People

CDC researchers reported a 10% increase in deaths from cardiac arrest in 15-34-year-olds over the seven-year period from 1989 to 1996—a finding reiterated in 2012 by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The increase translated into about 3,000 deaths annually by the mid-1990s. Although more recent numbers are harder to come by, in 2015, the American Heart Association reported over 6,300 “out-of-hospital cardiac arrests” in American youth less than 18 years of age, citing survival rates ranging from about 10% to 31%. A single state (Michigan) reported an average of 35 sudden cardiac deaths a year in children and teens under age 20 as of 2009.

Maternal smoking during pregnancy increases risk of ADHD among offspring up to 3-fold

The higher the cotinine levels were in the mother's blood during pregnancy, the greater was the child's risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later in life, showed an epidemiological study conducted by the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry at the University of Turku in Finland. Globally, it is the first study in which the connection between fetal nicotine exposure and diagnosis of ADHD was shown by measuring cotinine levels from pregnant maternal serum specimens.

Pharma Execs Dig In For A Fight Against Outraged Senators

Senators got their first opportunity to prod drugmakers about the wallet-emptying prices they charge for prescription drugs.

Access To Parks In Childhood Associated With Better Adult Mental Health 

Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark found that growing up near vegetation is associated with an up to 55 percent lower risk of mental health disorders in adulthood. Kristine Engemann, the biologist who led the study, combined decades of satellite imagery with extensive health and demographic data of the Danish population to investigate the mental health effects of growing up near greenery.

"It has been hypothesized that health disparities among African-American women are due to a multi-tiered process," said Johnson. "Studies showing that health care providers are less likely to prescribe black patients analgesics as compared to whites, indicating an implicit bias. Due to mistrust of the health care system, black women with concerning symptoms are often less likely to seek treatment, and when they do, they are less likely to receive appropriate intervention. And history is marred with examples of forced medical experimentation on racial and ethnic minorities, thus resulting in patient-level factors such as mistrust of the health care system and its providers. This mistrust can often lead to the detriment of the patient."

Jacobson v Massachusetts: It’s Not Your Great-Great-Grandfather’s Public Health Law

Given the changes in constitutional law, public health, and government regulation, what kinds of public health laws that address contagious diseases might be constitutionally permissible today? A law that authorizes mandatory vaccination during an epidemic of a lethal disease, with refusal punishable by a monetary penalty, like the one at issue in Jacobson, would undoubtedly be found constitutional under the low constitutional test of “rationality review.” However, the vaccine would have to be approved by the FDA as safe and effective, and the law would have to require exceptions for those who have contraindications to the vaccine. A law that authorizes mandatory vaccination to prevent dangerous contagious diseases in the absence of an epidemic, such as the school immunization requirement summarily upheld in 1922, also would probably be upheld as long as (1) the disease still exists in the population where it can spread and cause serious injury to those infected, and (2) a safe and effective vaccine could prevent transmission to others.

The legitimacy of compulsory vaccination programs depends on both scientific factors and constitutional limits. Scientific factors include the prevalence, incidence, and severity of the contagious disease; the mode of transmission; the safety and effectiveness of any vaccine in preventing transmission; and the nature of any available treatment. Constitutional limits include protection against unjustified bodily intrusions, such as forcible vaccination of individuals at risk for adverse reactions, and physical restraints and unreasonable penalties for refusal.

Yes, says new research. But the exact consequences of the small amount of marijuana that makes it to a baby aren't yet clear.

The researchers also don't know if the levels of pot in breast milk would rise if a woman smokes more.

Still, study co-author Dr. Teresa Baker, co-director of the Infant Risk Center at Texas Tech, said, "We do not recommend the use of marijuana. There's concern for the developing brain exposed to THC [the active component in marijuana]."

Both Hale and Baker said that women should abstain from smoking marijuana while breast-feeding because there's simply no known safe amount.

More information: Thomas Hale, Ph.D., professor and director, Infant Risk Center, Texas Tech University School of Medicine, Amarillo; Teresa Baker, M.D., associate professor, obstetrics and gynecology, and co-director, Infant Risk Center, Texas Tech University School of Medicine, Amarillo; Ronald Marino, M.D., chief, division of general pediatrics, NYU Winthrop Hospital, Mineola, N.Y.; April 9, 2018, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Abstract/Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)

Whitney J. Cowell, Andreas Sjödin, Richard Jones, Ya Wang, Shuang Wang & Julie B. Herbstman. Temporal trends and developmental patterns of plasma polybrominated diphenyl ether concentrations over a 15-year period between 1998 and 2013. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, 2018 DOI: 10.1038/s41370-018-0031-3

More information: Abstract/Full Text

Now Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered the mutation acts like a bad gardener in the brain. It shrinks the neurons' tiny branches and leaves – its dendrite arbors and synapses—that enable brain cells to relay vital messages and control the brain's activity. The shrinkage causes a breakdown in message delivery.

An important message that gets lost? Calm down!

In people with the mutation, inhibitory neurons—whose job is to keep things tranquil in the brain and slam the brake on excitatory neurons—don't grow enough branches and leaves to communicate their Zen-like message, the scientists found. That leads to seizures.

The mutation, CNTNAP2 or "catnap2," works as a team with another mutated gene, CASK, implicated in mental retardation. As a result, scientists have a new target for drugs to treat the disorder.

The paper was published April 2 in Molecular Psychiatry.

Journal reference: Molecular Psychiatry

Too many antibiotics can give preemies a lifetime of ill health 

Today, babies born as early as 28 weeks routinely survive, as do more than half of those born at 24 weeks (although often with significant disabilities). Much of the credit goes to antibiotics, which have thwarted infections such as sepsis and group B strep that a preemie's immature immune system could not have fought on its own. Those successes spurred a steady increase in routine antibiotic use in the NICU. At last count, three of the top four drugs prescribed in the NICU were antibiotics.

Over time, however, scientists began noticing that antibiotics can increase babies' risk of the very afflictions the drugs aim to protect against—such as fungal infections, late-onset sepsis, and a deadly intestinal disorder called necrotizing enterocolitis. In a seminal 2009 study in Pediatrics, for example, Greenberg's colleague Michael Cotten showed that each additional day of antibiotics significantly increased the odds that a preemie would develop necrotizing enterocolitis or die.

Researchers are still debating when the first microbes colonize us—in utero or during birth—but Greenberg and many others worry that early use of antibiotics in infants disrupts the establishment of those indispensable residents. The gut microbiome is practically an organ unto itself, weighing about as much as the liver. It is thought to play a critical role in priming the immune system, and it produces just as many neurotransmitters as the human brain. Genetic and environmental factors, including antibiotics, shape its makeup early in life. Then, around age 3, a quasi-stability sets in and we are "stuck with that architecture," says Gautam Dantas, a microbiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

More information: Ying Wang et al. Just rewards: 17-Month-old infants expect agents to take resources according to the principles of distributive justice, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.02.008

Journal reference: Clinical Chemistry

Breastfeeding is wonderful and healthy for mother and child - these ads will do just as much to publicize (normalize)  the practice as the candidate!

Female Candidates Breastfeed Children In Campaign Ads

In recent years, candidates have tried all kinds of strategies to make attention-getting campaign ads. Throwing a large rock into a pond. Assembling a gun blindfolded. Talking to donkeys.

In two new political ads, however, candidates try something decidedly more commonplace: breastfeeding their children.

One ad opens on Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate Krish Vignarajah breastfeeding her baby and talking about the lack of women in state and federal elected office in her state.

karin van der linden