What a year it has been!

We had some sad times - including the Utah mine disaster, the California fires, and the Virginia Tech shootings.

We also said goodbye to Harry Potter and the Sopranos.

It was not all bad though… 2007 did bring us the iPhone!

We were informed again and again that obesity is ever increasing and it is a serious threat to our future health and our medical system.

And we learned that many toys aren’t safe and it is perhaps time to make a stand to ensure the safety of our children.

Women’s health has made many advances this past year, and I wish all of us wonderful women good health!

On the entertainment side, we bid a sad farewell to Anna Nicole Smith, and we watched with our boxes of popcorn in hand how Lindsay Lohan is seemingly crawling out of her dependency hole, while Britney Spears is diving deeper down.

For sports, we saw Tom Brady pull a nice one out of somewhere to lead the Patriots to a perfect season (that’s for you Supa!), and college football was a rollercoaster ride that has sparked many passionate debates about the BCS system. But many of our favorite athletes fell to scandals - Michael Vick, Floyd Landis, Marion Jones, and a whole lotta baseball players… leaving a lot of wide-eyed kids disappointed by their heroes.

We also watched our politicians gear up for the presidential race that has us wondering if we will see the first female President next year. (BTW - this is not an endorsement!)

Over on the boards, we celebrated the births of many future squawkers, we watched our precious ones grow a year older, we supported each other through the sleepless nights, potty training, magic marker mishaps and terrible two’s. And we marvel at the strength of our guy, Mikey. We shared the good times and the bad, laughed and cried and we can’t wait to do more in 2008!

Love to you all and all the best for 2008!

Posted by Meganlux

Vaccine Controversy: One Maryland county got some unwanted international media attention when it asked parents of potentially unvaccinated children to appear at a courthouse to update their kids’ medical records or get them vaccinated. Word got out that the county planned to jail parents who refused to vaccinate their kids. The state’s attorney insisted that the idea was only to get records up-to-date and get children who were possibly out of compliance back into school. But critics said the tactics amounted to intimidation and complained that parents were not given information about their rights or potential risks and side effects of the vaccines. Furthermore, children without medical records were in danger of being re-vaccinated, protesters warned.

Keeping Safe from the “Superbug”: Tips from the CDC for avoiding or recognizing MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus:

• What to avoid: The bacteria is transmitted through person-to-person contact or by using an infected person’s belongings. So to prevent the infection, wash your hands frequently with soap and water — using soap from a bottle, not bar soap, which can breed the bacteria — or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Avoid sharing personal items such as towels or razors. And keep cuts and scrapes clean, apply antibiotic ointment and cover them with a bandage.

• Recognize: If any cut or scrape becomes red, hot or infected, see a doctor immediately. In its early stages, MRSA infections may resemble pimples or boils, and they’re commonly mistaken for spider bites. It also can manifest as a rash, and may be accompanied by fever or fatigue.

• Hospital: About 85 percent of MRSA infections originate in health-care settings. So hospital patients should be on the lookout for the symptoms mentioned above and notify a nurse if any arise.

• Treatment: Skin abscesses must be drained by a doctor, and patients are then given an antibiotic, one of the drugs that MRSA hasn’t developed a resistance against. More serious infections may require hospitalization, intravenous antibiotics and other treatments.

CPSC and Congress at Odds: Nancy A. Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has asked Congress to reject legislation that aims to increase funding and personnel at the CPSC, among other goals. Ms. Nord’s specific complaints include an objection to the proposed raise on the cap for penalties from $1.8 million to $100 million, which she feels would cause companies to flood the agency with every consumer complaint and incident. Ms. Nord also feels that a complete ban of lead in toys would be impractical.

PPD and Talk: Via Postpartum Progress, Dr. Leigh Ann Simmons highlights a study that finds that talk therapy and support groups can be effective at helping women through postpartum depression. In this study, the investigators reviewed 10 clinical trials that included nearly 1,000 women. The trials tested psychological and social interventions that included cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), counseling, and peer support groups facilitated by a health care professional. They found that women who received any of the psychological or social therapies were 30% less likely to have depressive symptoms within one year after giving birth compared to women who received postpartum care as usual. Additionally, peer support groups appeared to be just as effective as formal psychological care, such as CBT, which is great news for moms who can’t afford a weekly trip to a therapist.

PPD Legislation: Seconding the congratulations offered by Katherine at Postpartum Progress to Rep. Bobby Rush, who, after six years of campaigning, has finally seen his Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act move out of the Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection (pause for breath), where it received unanimous support.

Next step: The House floor for a vote.

The proposed law would require the National Institutes of Health to put more resources into researching postpartum depression and psychosis, as well as providing more support for women affected by the disorders. According to the American Psychiatric Association, postpartum depression affects around one in ten new mothers; postpartum mood disorders with psychotic features affect between one in 500 to 1000 new moms.

You can read more about Melanie Blocker-Stokes here.

More News on Depression: A new study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry finds that approximately one in seven new mothers is identified as having depression either before, during, or after pregnancy. “The fact that [depression] is similar between those 3 time points reinforces the fact that depression is something that happens relatively commonly in reproduction-aged women and can be exacerbated during pregnancy,” said Dr. [Evelyn P.] Whitlock.

Vaccine Research:  A University of Rochester study finds that the new combination vaccines for infants that get the recommended vaccines into a two-month-old in three shots are as safe and effective as the roster that requires five pokes. The study followed 575 healthy babies at 22 sites nationwide. While there was more swelling and soreness at the injection site with the combination vaccine, in none of the babies did side effects require an extra doctor visit. “Vaccine opponents may liken the process of the body processing simultaneous vaccines to a computer running too many applications; the machine grows slow, and the programs, one by one, begin to terminate,” [Dr. Michael] Pichichero said. “But those fears are unfounded; we have found no evidence that a child’s body is at any point approaching a maximum threshold as far as learning to produce immune responses.”

I’d been only sort of following the SCHIP battle between Congress and the White House, and I thought others might be like me, so I took some time to sort through the news and speeches to try to nail a few key facts and debate points.

What is SCHIP? The State Children’s Health Insurance Program was enacted in 1997 as a way to provide health coverage for uninsured children whose families do not qualify for Medicare. The SCHIP programs are jointly financed by federal and state governments, but administered by the states, within broad federal guidelines. Currently, uninsured children in families with incomes at twice the federal poverty level or less - $36,200 a year for a family of four - are eligible for SCHIP coverage. 6.6 million children are currently covered under SCHIP, which is up for refunding.

What is the new SCHIP bill? The House and Senate have passed a compromise bill that would increase funding for SCHIP by $35 billion over the next five years (which would bring the total funding to $60 billion), with the goal of reaching roughly an additional 4 million uninsured children (around 9 million US children are currently uninsured). Uninsured families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty level - $61,842 for a family of four - would be eligible to apply for coverage for their children. States could apply for waivers to cover families earning more than this amount in certain cases; such waivers would be subject to the approval of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The new bill phases out waivers that have allowed states to offer SCHIP coverage to some adults, but does allow for coverage for pregnant women. Dental and mental health benefits are included in the new proposal.

The expansion would be funded through an increase in the federal tobacco tax.

Criticisms and Counter-arguments

Point: The President recently told reporters: “I believe this is a step toward federalization of health care…Their proposal is beyond the scope of the program, and that’s why I’m going to veto the bill.”

Counterpoint: Senator Orin Hatch (R-Nebraska) argued that the compromise bill would cover 3.7 million of the 6 million uninsured US children from families with incomes of 200% of the federal poverty level or less, which “really goes to the heart of what we are trying to achieve” with the program as enacted in 1997.

Point: This bill would give families of four earning over $80,000 access to SCHIP funds.

Counterpoint: This is a talking point I’ve read in several places. Senator Hatch’s rebuttal: “Let me be clear. Our legislation does not permit a state to cover these families unless the Secretary of Health and Human Services approves the state’s application to cover individuals at that income level.” New York’s application for a waiver to cover uninsured children from families earning 400% above the poverty level has so far been denied.

Point: The program would entice families to move from private health insurance onto government programs.

Counterpoint: Senator Hatch argues that the SCHIP bill includes funding incentives and specific guidelines to help states focus their enrollment efforts on low-income, uninsured families. However, the Congressional Budget Office does project that while 3.7 million of new enrollees will have been previously uninsured, about 2 million children will likely be moved by their parents from private coverage to SCHIP.

Point: It’s unfair to increase the tax burden on smokers.

Counterpoint: Cigarette taxes offer a disincentive for smoking, and have been shown to cut teen cigarette use.

Point: The program is expensive.

Counterpoint: Uninsured kids tend to receive medical treatment in emergency rooms, which winds up costing taxpayers more that the SCHIP program would. Also, as a comparison, over the next five years we’ll spend $2.6 trillion dollars for Medicare.

My take, for what it’s worth: It was nice to read Senator Hatch’s address, dry, boring, and completely removed from the screeching rhetoric that has colored much of the SCHIP debate. I tend to trust his assessment. This may not be a perfect bill - there may be some misuse of the program that will have to be addressed, and as a former smoker, I do feel for those who are going to get hit with yet another tax - but it looks to me like the two parties have hammered out a good compromise bill that should address one serious piece of our current health care crisis.

However, that figure of 2 million children being moved by their parents from private to public insurance does concern me. Back to Senator Hatch: “I will not sugar coat it. It is a problem. It is a concern. And, we should take every step we can to keep it from occurring.” I’d like to hear some specifics there.

For a different perspective, George Will has a Newsweek column up about the politics of the debate and how it frames the future of health care, which is interesting, but includes the inaccurate talking point that families earning $83,000 would automatically be eligible to apply for SCHIP.

Feel free to weigh in, as always.

Posted by MommaSteph.

A bill has been introduced in Venezuela that would restrict parents to a list of 100 government-sanctioned names when choosing a moniker for their newborns. 100!

The bill’s ambition, according to a draft submitted to municipal offices here for review, is to “preserve the equilibrium and integral development of the child” by preventing parents from giving newborns names that expose them to ridicule or are “extravagant or hard to pronounce in the official language,” Spanish.

The bill also aims to prevent names that “generate doubts” about the bearer’s gender.

Talk about a nanny state. The NYT article emphasizes that Venezuela has a strong cultural tradition of bestowing whimsical names on children, such as Haynhect, Olmelibey, Yan Karll and Udemixon. (I’m taking their word for it that these names are indeed whimsical. Ugly American that I am, I’m pretty much mono-lingual…)

Less whimsical: The fact that 60 currently registered Venezuelan voters are named Hitler.

Not everyone is sour on the name restriction measure. 27-year-old Temutchin del Espíritu Santo Rojas Fernández, whose first name is a variation on Genghis Kahn’s birth name, is frankly tired of having to spell out his name every time he makes a purchase (in Venezuela, a name and national identity number are required for every purchase that generates a receipt).

But popular opinion is generally resistant to the law and supportive of parental rights.

So…do you suppose “Hugo” is on the proposed list of approved names?

(Via DaddyTypes.)

Posted by MommaSteph.

The latest, surprising, chapter in the ongoing toy safety story: Major toy manufacturing companies in the US are asking for the federal government to impose mandatory safety-testing standards that would apply to all toys sold in this country.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who recently co-sponsored legislation that would impose such testing requirements on all children’s products, said he welcomed the request.

“What a dramatic turn,” he said in an interview Thursday, adding, “These news stories have really shaken the confidence of American families in toys.”

The proposal, which was approved by the board of the Toy Industry Association at a private meeting last week, does not envision a broad federal inspection program.

Instead, companies would be required to hire independent laboratories to check a certain portion of their toys, whether made in the United States or overseas. Leading toy companies already do such testing, but industry officials acknowledge that it has not been enough.

To address these shortcomings, the proposal calls for uniform standards for frequency of testing, to determine at what point during production the tests would be conducted, and what specific hazards, whether lead paint or small parts, must be checked for.

The uniform standard would also establish global requirements for laboratories that do this testing.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has not yet taken a position on the proposal. The agency would be expected to have a key role in enforcing the mandate. Currently, the CPSC has only one full-time employee who tests toys for safety concerns.

In the meantime, the CPSC and representatives from the Chinese government are to meet this week to discuss the recent recalls of toys manufactured in China.

Stay tuned.

Posted by MommaSteph

A few years back, the department of Health and Human Services planned an ad campaign meant to encourage women to breastfeed by referencing research that breastfed infants are much less likely to be diagnosed with diabetes and asthma. The ads were meant to startle: One featured a syringe covered with a bottle nipple; another had an asthma inhaler similarly topped.

But we never saw these ads. Instead the HHS campaign released ads with images of dandelion fields and cherry-topped ice cream scoops (wha? sounds porn-y), as a way to dramatize that breastfeeding may help curb respiratory problems and obesity.

Why the switch? Ask the formula lobbyists, who subsequently wrote to then HHS director Tommy Thompson expressing their gratitude that his staff stopped health officials from “scaring expectant mothers into breast-feeding.”

The formula industry’s intervention — which did not block the ads but helped change their content — is being scrutinized by Congress in the wake of last month’s testimony by former surgeon general Richard H. Carmona that the Bush administration repeatedly allowed political considerations to interfere with his efforts to promote public health.

It goes something like this: Former high-ranking government officials became lobbyists for pharmaceutical companies who also manufacture and market baby formula. These pharmaceutical companies are big time political donors. So the lobbyists get the ears of current high-ranking government officials, like the director of Health and Human Services. And suddenly you get a much softer, less “offensive”, and arguably less effective, pro-breastfeeding campaign.

Duane Alexander, head of the government’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, defended pulling the more aggressive ads, noting that he was concerned that the claims being made by the ads had no basis in science. But those behind the HHS breastfeeding outreach project strongly disagree:

Speaking to the International Lactation Consultant Association in 2005, [Suzanne] Haynes, of the HHS women’s health office, said she was “overruled.” Veteran pediatrician and breast-feeding researcher Ruth A. Lawrence of the University of Rochester, who was on the initial advisory committee brought together by Haynes, said the science undergirding the ads was “entirely convincing. Everyone on the committee had to agree on a finding before it was approved. We were very distressed by what happened.”

Here are two of the original ads:

And here’s one from the revised campaign:

Oh yeah, them dandelions really grab ya! And see how they look like boobies?

And the controversy continues. This past April, HHS decided not to promote the analysis of its own Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality, which found that breastfeeding is associated with fewer ear and gastrointestinal infections, as well as lower rates of diabetes, leukemia, obesity, asthma and sudden infant death syndrome.

The report did not assert a direct cause and effect, because doing so would require studies in which some women are told not to breast-feed their infants — a request considered unethical, given the obvious health benefits of the practice.

A top HHS official said that at the time, Suzanne Haynes, an epidemiologist and senior science adviser for the department’s Office on Women’s Health, argued strongly in favor of promoting the new conclusions in the media and among medical professionals. But her office, which commissioned the report, was specifically instructed by political appointees not to disseminate a news release.

Look, we’re not stupid. We know that lobbies basically run things in Washington. So why not just get it over with and mandate formula feeding once and for all?

(See also, Who Wrote the Breastfeeding Ads?)

Posted by MommaSteph.

A woman I know was concerned when her very precocious son was becoming bored and frustrated at school. He was an early reader - in fact, a novel reader - and quite articulate and curious. The first grade curriculum was just not a good fit for him.

When his mom somewhat apprehensively approached the principal of the local elementary school to inquire about testing to see if her son might be gifted, and to see what programming is available for kids who do test well above the norm, the principal’s answer was short and not so sweet: “I don’t believe in gifted programs. We don’t offer them, and I’m not interested in starting.”

According to John Cloud, writing in Time Magazine, my friend’s experience is not unusual. Mr. Cloud says that in the 1960s, while we were engaged in the race to the moon, educators honed in on gifted students, the result being a huge upswing in the number of Ph.D.s earned by the late 1960s. But soon after, education in the US swung toward more egalitarian models, and the emphasis shifted away from extra resources for gifted students toward inclusion programs that supported students at the lower end of the IQ scale:

Since well before the Bush Administration began using the impossibly sunny term “no child left behind,” those who write education policy in the U.S. have worried most about kids at the bottom, stragglers of impoverished means or IQs. But surprisingly, gifted students drop out at the same rates as nongifted kids–about 5% of both populations leave school early. Later in life, according to the scholarly Handbook of Gifted Education, up to one-fifth of dropouts test in the gifted range. Earlier this year, Patrick Gonzales of the U.S. Department of Education presented a paper showing that the highest-achieving students in six other countries, including Japan, Hungary and Singapore, scored significantly higher in math than their bright U.S. counterparts, who scored about the same as the Estonians. Which all suggests we may be squandering a national resource: our best young minds.

Mr. Cloud writes that we currently spend at least ten times more money educating the mentally retarded than the gifted - $8 billion vs. (at most) $800 million. And No Child Left Behind has apparently lead to even more radical cuts in programming:

The year after the President signed the law in 2002, Illinois cut $16 million from gifted education; Michigan cut funding from $5 million to $500,000. Federal spending declined from $11.3 million in 2002 to $7.6 million this year.

And because many districts limit the number of grades gifted kids are allowed to skip, extremely intelligent children are left to wallow in classrooms that may be “age appropriate” but are intellectually excruciating.

Mr. Cloud profiles a new academy for gifted kids started by a wealthy Reno couple - sort of a “gifted ghetto”. While Mr. Cloud notes that the school is performing an important service by seeking out and supporting gifted children and adolescents who are neglected by their public school systems, he advocates a solution that is closer to home: Ending policies that limit how many grades a child can skip. Let gifted kids work through school at their own pace. Mr. Cloud concludes:

We shouldn’t be so wary of those who can move a lot faster than the rest of us.

If we’re talking broad definitions, of course, all of our kids are gifted, wherever they fall on the IQ scale, and all children deserve an excellent education. But if Mr. Cloud is correct and our system is grossly neglecting our nation’s brightest young minds, we have yet another incentive to re-evaluate our educational priorities.

Posted by MommaSteph.

Eczema Clues: Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong have found an association between eczema and two specific blood chemicals. For the study, 24 children wore wrist monitors that recorded their movements at night. Blood tests found that when the children were itchier at night, “brain-derived neurotrophic factor” (BDNF) and “substance P” were found in the blood at higher levels. The hope is that by honing in on the root causes of eczema, doctors will uncover better therapies to relieve suffering.

Breastfeeding and Obesity: A new study out of Denmark finds that the heavier a woman is when she becomes pregnant, the less likely she is to successfully breastfeed. “Among women who were morbidly obese (body mass index of 40 or greater), 14.4 percent had stopped exclusive breast-feeding by the time their child was a week old, compared with 3.5 percent of normal-weight women. Throughout the course of the study, the likelihood of stopping breast-feeding rose with BMI.” Because breastfeeding in Denmark is almost universal and has many social supports, researchers speculate that there could be a biological mechanism triggered by obesity that interferes with breastfeeding. They also note that some the heaviest women in their study were able to initiate and establish breastfeeding; it may be that for some heavy women, more breastfeeding support, such as from lactation consultants, would help them successfully nurse their babies.

Battle SCHIP: New York Governor Eliot Spitzer announced that his state may sue the federal government over its plan to impose restrictions on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that would require states to insure 95% of poverty-level children before expanding the program to offer coverage to middle-income children in need of health coverage. Also at issue is the proposal that middle-income children remain uninsured for a year before becoming eligible for SCHIP. Governor Spitzer argues that the new regulations conflict with the existing law and with the “moral imperative” the government has to make sure children have access to health insurance.