Chronic Illness on the Rise in Children: LA TImes
This article from the LA Times explains that children today are chronically sicker than their counterparts 50 years ago. Despite "well" visits at 2 weeks, 2,4,6,9,12,15,18,24 months and then yearly, our kids appear to be headed downhill as far as their health goes. How will they fare as adults? And how can you say that children with asthma, ADHD, obesity, diabetes, food allergies, autism, learning disabilities aren't "less healthy?" The article points out that there are fewer congential defects (perhaps the result of prenatal testing leading to abortion and the addition of Folic Acid to stave off spina bifida) infectious disease, (yes, there is less chicken pox and measles and mumps, the traditional childhood diseases from which most children recovered) and accidents. Is it a necessary tradeoff? What has happened to childhood in America? Sounds to us that Ms. Roans is saying we are MAKING OUR CHILDREN SICK. Wow.
By Sahri Roans
More than a quarter of all U.S. children have a chronic health condition, new research suggests, a significant increase from the rate seen in earlier decades and a statistic that looms large for the nation's efforts to subdue rising healthcare costs.
But the report doesn't suggest that children are less healthy. The comprehensive look at children from 1988 through 2006 also revealed that health conditions themselves have changed.
Fewer children today are affected by congenital defects, infectious diseases and accidents than they were 50 years ago; instead, cultural, lifestyle and environmental conditions appear to be the root cause of many pediatric illnesses.
"The study speaks to the fact that children need continuous access to healthcare," said Dr. Jeanne Van Cleave, a pediatrician at MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston and the lead investigator of the study. "But with good treatment, a lot of these conditions will go away."
The paper was released online Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., ahead of print publication Wednesday.
Researchers analyzed the prevalence of illnesses by surveying the mothers of approximately 5,000 children. Data from three time periods were analyzed: 1988 to 1994, 1994 to 2000, and 2000 to 2006. In each time frame, the children, ages 2 through 8 at the start of each period, were followed for six years.
The rate of chronic conditions increased from 12.8% in 1994 to 26.6% in 2006. Latino and black youths and males were more likely to have health problems.
The findings mean that children today suffer from different illnesses than those seen in previous generations, said Dr. Neal Halfon, director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities. And many behavioral and mental health conditions, such as attention deficit disorder, weren't diagnosed decades ago.
"We have a whole different set of conditions we're looking at today and a broader set of definitions for illnesses," said Halfon, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. "We're seeing bigger increases in obesity, attention deficit disorder and other mental and behavioral conditions. Part of that has to do with the kinds of environments in which children are growing up."
Obesity and related conditions accounted for a large percentage of child illnesses, although the study reflected previous research showing obesity rates are stabilizing among U.S. children.
But that is little comfort when a quarter of children have some type of chronic health problem, said William Gardner, a principal investigator of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who was not involved in the study.
"Asthma, attention deficit disorder, obesity -- there aren't robotic surgeries to fix these things," he said. "It's a situation where we need to have a really strong primary care system where kids have what we call a medical home and they have regular contact with a primary care doctor or nurse practitioner."
Unlike adults, chronic health conditions in children appear more capricious, with symptoms waxing, waning or even disappearing. Only 7.4% of the children had a chronic health condition at both the start and end of the six-year observation period, Van Cleave said.
Addressing health problems early on is likely to yield large dividends financially for the nation, Halfon said.
"Not that the die is completely cast in childhood," he said, "but it is showing a certain kind of epidemiological trajectory that we should not be ignoring."
Nice link. When I pulled up the page, I couldn't help noticing another article that came up on the sidebar, especially because it is connected in more ways than one to the subjects of your blog:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/02/getting-a-flu-vaccine-from-plants.html
Note the name that has been chosen for the new technology: GreenVax. Of course I thought instantly of the Green Our Vaccines initiative. Am I the only one who finds the timing terribly suggestive?
That's my first comment. The second:
GMO tobacco? Vaccine research funded by the DOD? Yeah right. When the pandemic scare tactic wears off (which is happening awful fast) they will switch to bioterror scare tactics.
Posted by: Eric | February 28, 2010 at 05:18 AM
Kids aren't less healthy, they just have different health problems. Say what?
Nevermind that some of us warned 30 years ago that vaccines exchange acute illnesses for chronic.
If these kids later "recovered" then why all the fuss when we recover our autistic kids? The study said, at the end of the the six year period, the kids were not as sick. Just a coincidence that the time when they were the most sick was when they were the most vaccinated. Say what?
Did toxins in the environment suddenly clear up at the end of the six years? I grew up in Los Angeles where we had more stay-inside-today-because-the-air-is-bad days than I could count and it is much better TODAY. I never knew a child with an epi-pen and maybe there was ONE overweight kid.
It's the environment? It's the environment of stupidity.
Posted by: Cynthia Cournoyer | February 27, 2010 at 04:40 PM
When I taught childbirth classes and worked in labor and delivery back in the 80's, my coworkers thought I was a little nuts because my ongoing slogan to all the parents was "don't abdicate responsibility for the health of your kids to your pediatrician". They have their place ...broken legs, appendicitis....but when did they become the sole authorities on childrens' health? Of course there are some wonderful pediatricians: Liz Mumper, Sid Baker, Jerry Kartzinel, Nancy O'Hara etc, but they've broken from the pack. What distinguishes them from the average doc is the fact that they actually listen, respect and honor what parents tell them. We are the authorities on our children and through doing our own homework, feeding out kids optimal diets, learning about herbs and natural healing for colds, ear infections, stomach viruses, we can minimize the use of antibiotics, drugs used for the ever growing psychiatric illnesses being diagnosed in children and invasive procedures that have damaged this generation of children. I feel it in all the entries on this blog, parents are taking back their power. We just have to wake the rest of the world up!
Maureen H. McDonnell, RN
Saving Our Kids, Healing Our Planet www.SOKHOP.com
RaisingHealthyKidsNaturally.blogspot.com
Posted by: Maureen H. McDonnell, RN | February 27, 2010 at 07:38 AM
BigPharma creating customers for life.
Posted by: Janet Sheehan | February 27, 2010 at 06:52 AM
Antibiotics are the cause of the downward spiral in health in the developed world, they have altered our gut flora and therefore immunity , it is the cause of both autism and the honey bee colony collapse disorder. Antibiotics have ushered us in to a new dark age ..we face the meltdown of our society and therefore civilisation in just a very few years we are an eye-blink away from utter disaster …read my site for an explanation. Please sign up to the newsletter , join the growing band who wish to collectively make their point .. I am corresponding with officials of UKs agriculture/environment watchdogs DEFRA, its vitally important to get the message across, we need urgent research NOW on the basis of my findings . This may be our best and last chance to galvanise some action because its clear the medical profession for many reasons are a lost cause.
Regards Paul Jaep
http://www.yeast-candida-infections-uk.co.uk/antibiotic_impact_on_animals
I have teamed up with friend Gary Smith in this regard .Gary Smith is the author of two influential papers detailing hitherto unknown mechanisms that cancer and pathogens use in disease progression. Gary’s initial paper is Cancer, inflammation and the AT1 and AT2 receptors The second paper published in 2009 is 'Learning from cancer: The adaptive growth, wound and immune responses' Gene Ther Mol Biol Vol 13, 158-185, 2009. Gary is also a contributing author to Anti-Cancer Therapeutics, a recent publication [2009] from Wiley. Links can be found in the Reference section of my site.
Posted by: Paul Jaep | February 27, 2010 at 05:32 AM
"the report doesn't suggest that children are less healthy." What a freaking joke! Interestingly I attended a talk on bio-identical hormones this week. You could not believe how many parallels there were to the autism debacle in the doctor's presentation. He pointed to the 2002 Women's HEalth Initiative which set out to actually show how great HRT (pregnant mare urine) was and lo and behold, they found out that it wasn't so great-high association with heart attacks, breast cancer etc. He kept mentioning that pharma wants you to buy their toxic pharma hormone stuff instead of the cheaper bio-identicals. He said you need knowledge and courage to "think for yourself." "Just because something is common doesn't mean it's normal." (he was referring to breast cancers, PMS etc. but you can see where my mind was thinking about the vaccination/autism connection). Well parents are thinking for themselves and these stupid pediatricians who push these toxic things onto kids like there's no tomorrow will have some culpability in all this.
Posted by: jen | February 26, 2010 at 10:52 PM
Spin, spin, spin goes the toilet. I can see doctors patting themselves on the back when all children are dead. It's just better recognition, they'll say, not rising rates of death. Children were always this dead, but humanity was once denser and more naive about the signs. Imagine all those parents bundling their little corpses up for school, saving for college, planning for weddings-- and even attending their imaginary grandchildren's fifth birthday parties! Silly people.
Posted by: Gatogorra | February 26, 2010 at 09:12 PM
Key words - "really strong primary care system"
Posted by: Shannon Knall | February 26, 2010 at 09:10 PM
pediatric illnesses caused by pediatricians
Posted by: Ralph | February 26, 2010 at 05:30 PM
At what point will the media realize that they are not insolated from this. Eventually their children will be part of this earth quake and they will be swallowed whole just like all the rest.
Posted by: Nora | February 26, 2010 at 05:30 PM
So sad and machiavellian, it looks like a very well defined plan
Posted by: DCannon | February 26, 2010 at 03:35 PM
"'The study speaks to the fact that children need continuous access to healthcare,' said Dr. Jeanne Van Cleave, a pediatrician at MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston and the lead investigator of the study. 'But with good treatment, a lot of these conditions will go away.'"
"'Asthma, attention deficit disorder, obesity -- there aren't robotic surgeries to fix these things,' he said. 'It's a situation where we need to have a really strong primary care system where kids have what we call a medical home and they have regular contact with a primary care doctor or nurse practitioner.'"
This makes me think of news "reports" that came out sometime around 2005 touting that children were "healthier than ever," the claim based at least in part upon high vaccination compliance rates.
According to this report, the "experts" conclude from this study that children are not necessarily less healthy, but now need healthcare more than ever.
Posted by: JenB | February 26, 2010 at 01:58 PM
The school systems I grew up in and then later taught at have changed a lot of things over the years. One of them is school lunches!
School systems used to serve peanut butter sandwich lunches, and peanut butter on crackers with veg. soup or chili.
Then in the 80's they partionied off a large area were no peanut butter was allowed. Because even an undetectable residue left over from another child eating peanut butter became a problem for those allergic to peanut butter.
This same school - Now has banded all peanut butter products! This is after a older woman that worked in the cafteria for years - lost her grandchild - can you beleve it died!!!! From a peanut butter allergy!!
Posted by: Benedetta | February 26, 2010 at 10:55 AM
The medical establishment that pushes vaccines so hard and heavy on infants and children grandly proclaims they have eradicated horrible diseases. Yet, they won't consider their efforts as having this unwanted side effect. Chronic lifelong diseases. But, why should they care? People who are chronically ill can be really great customers of their products for a very long time.
Posted by: Andrea | February 26, 2010 at 09:38 AM
"Hell's Soup of Pharma Sludge" That is awesome. I share your opinion.
As far as kids getting sicker.. no sh*t sherlock.
It astounds me how people cannot see that connection....
Posted by: casey | February 26, 2010 at 09:28 AM
If you want your kids to stay healthy keep them out of the doctors office. They werent brought into this world with a vaccination in hand just an immune system, use it.
Posted by: Michelle | February 26, 2010 at 09:15 AM
A book on this topic that's been out for several years now is "Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies," by Kenneth Bock. He mentions vaccines and other explanations that may contribute to chronic illnesses. It's a great read.
Posted by: sonthamusic | February 26, 2010 at 09:14 AM
I love how they spin the results ("broader set of definitions for illness"). Gag.
My child has a "broader set" of food reactions - to the tune of 40+ foods. Do you have any idea how hard it is to feed a child with that many restrictions? And when we let up a bit, we see the consequences (no, it's not imaginary).
Where in the hell did this come from? I can almost guarantee you it didn't come from nature. It came from hell's soup of pharma sludge (just my opinion).
And what a joke - kids need more access to a medical "home." We have seen the opposite scenario; the more we avoid our mainstream ped the healthier my child gets.
Grrrr . . .
Posted by: Parent | February 26, 2010 at 09:03 AM