Nick Jonas, Michael Phelps and the Sickest Generation

By Dan Olmsted

You know we've entered a brave new world when the title of the most popular album among kids today refers to the singer's battle with juvenile diabetes.

"Got the news today, doctor said I had to stay/ A little bit longer and I'll be fine." So opens "A Little Bit Longer," the title track on the new Jonas Brothers album of the same name.
Nick Jonas said it took him just 20 minutes after he got his diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes to sit down and write this haunting melodic gem. The song and his comments about having diabetes are all over You Tube if you want to check them out. Nick, by the way, was born in 1992, which some of you will find pertinent. (His two older brothers and band mates were born in 1987 and 1989, and they do not have juvenile diabetes.)

In the olden days, when I was a big pop music fan in the '60s and '70s, you were supposed to be an adult before you encountered chronic illness and mortality. To both date myself and prove the point, just this morning I picked up Jackson Browne's new album, Time the Conquerer, in which he is sporting a gray goatee and what I'm guessing are prescription sunglasses -- time the conquerer, indeed.

But the young and healthy, not us graying baby boomers, seem to be the sick ones these days.  Take Michael Phelps, the great Olympian. Does anyone on the planet have a more charmed existence or brighter future after eight gold medals?

The only shadow is the fact that he has ADHD. That, too, has almost been "normalized" in our cultural conversation. Either it's over-diagnosed and not really that big a deal, or it's so wonderfully, eminently treatable with fabulous new drugs, or it sends its owner into a marvelous new direction that might never have been possible if he hadn't been so … well, sick.

Just looking at the four top Google entries tells me all I need to know:

1) Michael Phelps' ADHD Hyper Focus Concentration Helps Win Gold
2) Michael Phelps ADHD has not stopped him from success
3) Michael Phelps struggled with ADHD as a child
4) Michael Phelps ADHD shatters the stereotypes

Wow, it's nothing but good news all around. His disability is actually a super-ability. It hasn't held him back, in fact his struggle has led to his success and shattered stereotypes. More ADHD, please!

Finally, Sarah Palin -- to put politics aside -- shows the degree to which special needs are getting to be pretty ordinary needs. She has five kids, and one of them has Down syndrome. Her sibling has a child with autism. So that's two in however many children they have between them. And that's too many. (Spare me the e-mails about how Down is solely genetic.)

Here's what I say: Nick Jonas shouldn't have to write a precociously great song about having diabetes. Michael Phelps is plenty inspiring without having to overcome or harness or otherwise deal with a  developmental disability. Sarah Palin is debatable enough without having disabled children in her family.

On You Tube, Nick Jonas asks for a show of hands from the audience from other kids with diabetes. There shouldn't be ANY, but there are. A pediatrician I know told me that in her relatively small practice with 1,600 children, she has four with juvenile diabetes -- way too many based on historical rates.

This is getting kind of hard to ignore. A little bit longer, and we'll be ruined.
--
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.

Comments

[kim]

here's my weekend:
birthday party at son's 2nd grade, 3 kids in class of 16 pitifully decline brownies (GFCF, but they didn't know) and bananas because "food makes my stomach hurt and I never eat"...birthday party at a swimming pool, one family with a child covered in severe eczema, and her brother who is always scowling, mad, holding his tummy, agressive. (dad is a ped and can't cure any of it, hmmm). just was in the grocery store and there was a toddler covered in eczema, screaming the whole time (and you guys know what kind of scream I'm talking about. not the average toddler meltdown). this is just so sad i can't take it. happy healthy kids are few and far between. my daughter, who has had 5 vaccines and she's almost 5 years old, is the most well adjusted healthy kid we know. it's SHOCKING the differences in her and the others.

[Lisa]

Growing up in the 60's and 70's I knew only one girl who had asthma and no diabetics. No one at my large school had a brain tumor, life-threatening allergies or leukemia. With my children's friends, I cannot even count up all the kids with asthma and allergies. And our family knows approximately 7 kids with brain tumors and several more with leukemia. Something is happening to our children, what will it take before the government tries to figure out the truth.

[MinorityView]

Ah yes, everyone has been saved from awful diseases by those vaccinations. Insidevaccines has been running a series on the widely announced claim that 33,000 lives a year are saved by vaccines. Here is a link to the first article in the series. Two more can be found on the site and two more are in the oven. http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2008/06/16/where-do-they-find-these-scary-statistics/

I personally lived through the epidemics of measles, chickenpox, mumps and even polio. It wasn't as scary as thousands of kids with asthma and other disabling conditions, to be perfectly honest. What a mess!

When you have a sudden large increase in the numbers with a particular chronic condition it cannot be the result of genetics. There has to be some sort of environmental trigger.

[Andrea for class of 2011]

Thank you for commenting here class of 2011.

I wonder what you think can be causing an increase in all of these chronic diseases and mental/behavioral/neurological issues?

Can vaccines save lives and cause harm too? Do you think that is possible?

Could we be trading off acute illness for life long chronic diseases by overusing vaccines that do by the way contain multiple toxic ingredients.

I think if we went back to the days of selectively vaccinating for truly life threatening diseases we would see a lot less of the kinds of issues and illnesses you described in your post about you, your siblings and the kids that go to your school.

[Sierra]

To the poster who said that these things are genetic (ADHD, OCD, asthma, diabetes), that is just not supported by evidence anymore. Many may have an underlying genetic susceptibility, but it is known that these conditions can be brought on by environmental triggers. OCD can be brought on by strep, and can be linked to a high blood histamine level, which can be linked to a disordered immune system, for one example. There has been an incredible growth in how the immune system and genetics are understood since the old days of "genes as fate". Read up on epigenetics for one thing. And, there's always the point that you can't have a genetic epidemic. And no, we aren't just noticing these things more now. That hypothesis has been tested and found to not be true.

[class of 2011]

I have to comment that i was born in 1993. I have multiple disorders, mainly tourettes, OCD, depression, and allergies. My younger brother has ADHD. and my youngest sister has an austim spectrum disorder. thankfully, my other three siblings have not been diagnosed with anything yet. in my high school of 1200, about 50 students are mentally disabled enough to need the supervision of an aid. Out of my friends, one has diabetes, three have asthma,and well, a lot have some type of mental thing like ADHD, OCD, depression, or dyslexia. I agree, my generation has a lot of problems, but vaccinations have kept many from dying of those diseases. And much of this is genetic (ADHD, OCD, depression, asthma).

[Kristin]

When I went to school in the mid-70's to mid-80's there were no kids with autism. Not one. Nobody was medicated. Now I have three kids in the Preschool Disabled program. Two of them have autism. The third somehow managed to escape it. My son's entire class is kids with autism. My girls' classes have a mix. It's very frightening. What will happen to this generation of kids. Because I see lots of kids on the fringe of autism that were never diagnosed. My sons friend came over and I noticed he flapped slightly. We go to playgrounds and run into kids with issues almost every time. These are all kids who were born after the increase in vaccinations. This isn't science-it's common sense.

[Terri Lewis]

Anonymous teacher,

If you are new here, thank you for joining us. If you are not, thank you for your post as someone who has observed large groups of young people closely.

I have long felt that when the teachers, parents, and school nurses are all on the same side, the reckless overuse of vaccines will end.

The parents alone have been laughed at, but we are no longer alone.

Will you help us turn the tide?

Terri Lewis

[another-anonymous-teacher]

To anonymous teacher,

Your data matches with mine and I doubt we are from the same school. We have a much larger high school here so more sick kids.

How ironic that I just had a conversation with a male teen born in 1992 who has asthma. Hs feelings are that he does not trust the medical establishment and hates the pharm companies. He just spontaneously brought this up. They may be a sicker generation but they may be wiser in many ways too.

Thanks for writing about this Dan!

[Diane]

Not only diabetes - throw in kids with cancer and leukemia - heck we've had two deaths from "rare cancers" just recently in my area. When I was in school, albeit a hundred years ago (okay only 30) - we never had all these things ...

[anonymous teacher]

Having taught at the same high school for years, I've grown accustomed to sticking the medical list in my drawer at the begginning of the year. I take the time to highlight my students and know their issues just in case of an emergency.

I still have the list from the class of 2003 and really wish I would have kept the previous ones. In a class of about 300 seniors, there were 12 students on the list. No one had diabetes, ADHD, PDD, Autism, or a diagnosed learning disability that was medicated. The issues were pregnancy, hearing loss, and the like.

Those seniors were born right around 1986.

Recently, I got the new list. In the class of 2009, also aproximately 300 students, 120 students are on the list.

That's right. 120. In ONE graduating class.

Almost all of them have allergies.
Several dozen have asthma.
2 students have Autism or PDD.
Several of them are medicated for ADHD.
Many of them have diabetes.

This group of students was born around 1991.

This alarming problem is not theirs alone. The same can be said for the class of 2010,11 and 12.

One third of our high school students have a medical problem.

I'm sure it's all a coincidence.

[What's normal?]

"The only shadow is the fact that he has ADHD. That, too, has almost been "normalized" in our cultural conversation."

Do you know why it has been "normalized" in our conversation? I mean outside of the fact that 1 in 10 or so have it? Nobody wants to appear vulnerable to the world at large and so they pretend and put their best face forward. Just because you don't see it today does not mean that Michael Phelps was not tormented by others while growing up. Nobody even knows if he continues to feel insecure even today. Just because he is the fastest swimmer in the world does not mean that there are no negatives in his life.

Message to pediatricians everywhere - just because you can't see it does not mean its not there. Health care is not just about physical ailments only. What are you doing to ensure the emotional and mental well-being of your patients? I guess the answer will be "we don't do that, that's what parents do!" Know this, its hard for parents to do what should come naturally to parents if you have poisoned their children. If our kids' brains are on fire, and their GI tracts are on fire, and they are ridiculed and teased in school, or if they are nauseous and sick on your meds, or suicidal even, its hard to establish that feeling of well-being, of being complete, of being a well-rounded individual.

Society will have to face these kids, and deal with them, indulge them, as they reach adulthood. How in the world will these kids become "normal" parents if they are afflicted with a mental disorder themselves? Will they be able to take on the responsibilities of jobs, marriage, parenthood? Will they even be able to give their kids a decent shot at life with DNA that has been tainted by environmental toxins and years of drug use. You don't grow out of ADD /ADHD, in fact it predisposes your child to autism.

Have you thought about what you are doing to the next generation of children? What kind of legacy are you leaving behind by your actions? Or is it entirely normal to be a bit mentally off in these times? Makes a great theme along with crashing economies I think. If this is how our world is going to be like in the future, why bother to fix it. Remember, its cool to be *sick.*

[Kelli Ann Davis]

"I should say I know "sick" means cool. I'm not THAT big of a nerd. I just thought it was interesting."

Whatever happened to "rock"?? As in..."You are totally bodacious, groovy, and you knock my socks off”? (Dan, talk about giving away my age, I think groovy just sealed it for me.)

So, now I’ve got to say: "You rock and you're sick" and *that's* supposed to be a good thing?

[L Land]

I took my daughter to a Jonas brothers concert this summer and heard the song and Nick Jonas talking about his diabetes. I teared up thinking about my mostly silent Nick at home.

[nhokkanen]

Don't forget actor Daniel Radcliffe, who last month announced that he has difficulty with tying his shoes and other motor tasks.

I had started an essay called "Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Dyspraxia" but my ADD interferes with its completion. (Thanks, mercury amalgams!)

[samaxtics]

Last year in our school of approx. 420 elementary students, there were at least 21 students with life threatening conditions: anaphylaxis, diabetes and asthma. I believe 3 had diabetes.

After years of discussing our situation with our son (who was born in the US and had the birth dose of Hep B) to my sister she still went ahead and had her daughter vaccinated with the Hep B vaccine in the 5th grade (which is when it is routinely administered here). Soon after her daughter started having seizures. Coincidentally around the same time as her seizures started happening, her best friend at school was diagnosed with a tumor on her brain stem.

[Michelle]

I'm a co-leader of my son's cub scout den. These are 3rd grade boys, most being born in the years 1999-2000. Of the 14 boys that are in our den 11 of the boys have some combination of learning disability,low muscle tone,sensory issues, asthma,ADHD,eczema,PDD-NOS,high functioning autism or severe allergies.

During the previous school year our school started out with 2 diabetic kids, by year end they had 12. This is in an elementary school of approx. 600 kids. I can't even begin to estimate how big the cabinet is that holds the asthma inhalers.

A week after my son was born he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Back then, in my wildest dreams, I would have never guessed that he would have so many peers with life threatening disease also. Each school year the counselor lets him give a presentation to his class explaining cystic fibrosis and his feeding tube. Every year he comes home and reports to me how many kids afterward approach him to share their illnesses too. He has many classmates who go to the same children's hospital and who use nebulizers. While I'm glad that my son doesn't feel so alone with his disease it puts a HUGE pit in the bottom of my stomach as to what the future holds for our children and country.

[Andrea]

Dan,

Let me start by saying you are incredibly "hip" to be talking about the Jonas Brothers. LOL

My 13 year old daughter is "crazy" about them. She told me months ago about Nick having diabetes and his song about it. I can't wait to show her your article here on AOA when she gets home from school.

Being a sibling of a child who has been made medically ill by vaccines she enjoys reading these kinds of articles. She has a fascination of sorts with these chronic illnesses. As odd as that sounds, she's concerned about kids in her generation that are ill with these diseases. She wrote a fantastic paper last year in science about Hannah Poling and received an A on it.

Yesterday, she told me a story about a 7th grader who had a seizure in school. Her teacher described it to her class how things unfolded in his classroom with the boy. How he handled the situation and what the seizure looked like. How the ambulance came and how the boy had 3 more seizures at the hospital.

As she is telling me this story I was thinking I wonder why this boy who had no history of seizures (this is what she told me though I do not know how she knew that) suddenly had a series of them? Being of the 11 year old age range I wondered what vaccines he could have had recently? Gosh, there is just so darn many recommended for that age group it's hard to even guess. Maybe it wasn't vaccination related at all. Those things do happen coincidentially around the same time kids get vaccines I hear.

[Jack]

To me, the ashtma is such a stark difference. There is no confusing an asthma attack. I had it. And I know it was relatively rare. I carried my inhaler to every sporting even and I was definately the only one. I had to explain to other kids what it was. And now they make them in colors. Now every kid I know under 5 has been on a nebulizer treatment. Sweet Jesus.

[Stagmom]

Oh Dan, you alarmist! The market has responded to these kids. Glucose meters now come in fun colors! And asthma inhalers do too! I expect the new iPod to have a built in Ritalin case to keep those pills handy at all times.

We need "someone" to write a Tom Brokaw style book called, "The Sickest Generation" about the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the WWII heroes.

KIM

[Jeanne]

I should say I know "sick" means cool. I'm not THAT big of a nerd. I just thought it was interesting.

(I'm only posting this because my daughter just rolled her eyes and said, "Geez Mom, you're such a nerd... sick is cool... you know?" I said, "I know." She said, "Suuuuure."

[kim]

i work for a pediatrician. he has allowed me to come in and work as a liason for the sick kids in the practice and some new ones, too, setting them up to be tested for yeast, bacteria, heavy metal levels, etc. make no mistake. i am slammed. ruined indeed.

[karenatlanta]

One too many...bureaucrats ignoring a national crisis.
Ipod, cell phone, Adderall, insulin pump.

[Jeanne]

My teenage daughter told me all about Nick Jonas' diabetes. She was so knowledgeable about it, I was shocked. And then last month my teenage son asked me to put a CD in the car. I asked what it was and he answered, "Forever The Sickest Kids." I almost drove off the road. I don't know if the band means to imply what I get from their name; but, geez... Nothing could be closer to the truth huh?

Forever the sickest kids indeed.

[Maggie]

I'm quite scared for this generation of kids. I was just reading over at Vaccination News about risk of Multiple Sclerosis from Energix (hepatits B vaccine.) If they don't get autism, some other lifelong disability is coming. Lovely.

[Rick Neubrander]

Vaccines and diabetes
- Studies showing an unexplained increase amoung children
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12453886?dopt=Abstract
http://www.uchsc.edu/news/newsrelease/2007/feb/diabetes.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6qev89
http://www.cdc.gov/Diabetes/statistics/prev/national/figbyage.htm Graph showing diabetes doubling from 1980-2000
- Study linking vaccines and authors comments
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/318/7177/193
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/102927.php
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12021127
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12482192
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9020406
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8657391
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1116914
Classen DC, Classen JB. The timing of pediatric immunization and the risk of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice 1997;6:449-54.
Classen JB, Classen DC. Hemophilus vaccine and increased IDDM, causal relationship likely. BMJ 1999;eBMJ:http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/318/7192/1169
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10806126 Pancreatitis following hepatitis A vaccination
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11221171 Life threatening pancreatitis following varicella vaccination: cause, association or co-incidence?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14679101 Vaccinations may induce diabetes-related autoantibodies in one-year-old children