Does the Swine Flu Vaccine Work?

FROM NBC: The World Health Organization says a small number of people have died after being inoculated against swine flu.

About 40 deaths have been reported after being inoculated against the virus.

The global health body says after an investigation they were able to rule out the vaccine as the cause of death.

Dr Marie-Paule Kieny/WHO
"The pandemic flu vaccine has the same safety profile as the seasonal flu vaccine. The 65 million doses administered accumulative number across countries and regions."

Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny/WHO
"A small number of deaths have occurred following vaccine administration. All such deaths reported to who have been investigated by the countries. Although some investigations are still ongoing, results of the completed investigations presented to who have ruled out that the pandemic vaccine is the cause of death."

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Kids and Dry Skin

Winter has barely started and we are dealing with dry skin mania at our house. A dermatologist told me to use scent free Vaseline(which is actually pretty hard to find!) My two-year-old has had a rough, red rash around his mouth for weeks. It finally looks better today. We have also used Eucerin lotion and Lanolin to cure his dry skin. Is anyone else dealing with this? What works for you? And how often do you give your kids your kids a bath? I have been trying to do every other night, but they love bath time so it often ends up being every night.

FROM ABOUT.COM:

Treating Dry Skin

If your child's skin has already gotten dry, it can help to:

• apply an over-the-counter (OTC) hydrocortisone cream to areas of your child's skin that are red or itchy.
• if you have been using a lotion, switch to a cream or ointment. Remember that in general, the greasier the moisturizer, the better.
• try a different moisturizer, such as Lac-Hydrin (available in both OTC and prescription strengths) or Eucerin Dry Skin Therapy Plus Intensive Repair Creme. These moisturizers contain lactic acid, which promotes hydration of the skin.
• try a "speciality" moisturizer, which contain multiple ingredients and tend to be more expensive than more common brands, and which include:
  • Cutemol Emollient Cream
  • Mustela Dermo-Pediatrics, Stelatopia Moisturizing Cream
  • Vanicream Moisturizing Skin Cream
  • Burt´s Beeswax Lip Balm
• consider using a nonsteroidal prescription cream or lotion, such as Hylira, Mimyx, or Atopiclair, instead of an OTC moisturizer.
• consider using a wet-to-dry skin dressing, for example, by wetting your child's hands, applying a generous amount of moisturizer to them, and then covering them with wet cotton gloves, which you can leave on for a few hours or even overnight. You should also put some dry cotton or rubber gloves over the wet gloves to complete the wet-to-dry dressing. For other areas of your child's skin, you can simply apply a wet gauze over his moisturized skin and then apply another dry gauze over it for a few hours.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Food Allergies on the Rise?

If your kids are in school, they no doubt know someone who has a food allergy. It is everywhere these days. Some people, even some experts, have said the increase is due to more parents reporting the symptoms. But a new study says that is not the only factor. More kids really are getting food allergies. But why? Here's the story from ABC. Do you know anyone with a food allergy? My kindergartner has one child in his class allergic to peanuts.

FROM ABC: New research from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics offers compelling evidence that the spike in childhood food allergies is for real. The study confirmed past findings that the prevalence for childhood allergies has increased at least 18 percent since 1993, and found that the number of visits to a physician, emergency room, or hospital clinic for food allergy-related care has tripled in that time period. Though the study cannot rule out increased reporting by parents as a contributing factor in this trend, allergists and pediatricians agree that food allergies in kids have become a growing concern.

Dr. Clifford Bassett, medical director of the Allergy and Asthma Care of New York, says "it's a mini-epidemic for sure." What has brought on this mini-epidemic? "That is the question that everyone wants to know the answer [to] and so far there is only speculation as to why," says Burks.

One theory is that certain foods, like nuts, may be introduced too early to children, perhaps as nut oils in creams or lotions used on infants, Bassett says. "Changes in the environment and food processing" is also "thought to play a part," Burks says. The leading theory explaining the effects of these environmental changes is called the hygiene hypothesis.

This theory "contends that immune systems become over-reactive in very clean environments, [like those] associated with the medicine and hygiene practices [used today]," says Dr. Bill Parker, assistant professor at Duke University Medical Center, and advocate of the hygiene hypothesis.

In these super-clean environments, he says, "the immune system essentially lacks a normal workload... however, [it] does what it is built to do, and finds something to attack, often directing its attention toward such harmless things as pollen grains ... even healthy food."

But whether it's exposure to certain foods too early or exposure to germs too late, once a child has an allergy, "the number one treatment is education [and] preventing reactions," Bassett says.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Telling kids about Ghosts

This new study goes against what I have always been told and I don't think I will use the recommendation. I don't like the idea of telling a kid there is such a thing as monsters and then later on telling them that isn't true. It rubs me the wrong way.

Then again, maybe I am being a hypocrite. I do think you can compare the study to things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. We tell kids there is this "fantasy"until they hit a certain age. Then we say, "Oh yah, that wasn't true." Don't get me wrong, I love the excitement and everything that comes with Santa, but I do feel strange fibbing to the kids.

What do you think about this sleep study?

FROM CNN: A new study in the journal Child Development suggests that reassuring kids by telling them scary images aren't real is helpful for those around 7 and up, but for the younger ones it may not be preferred. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that when preschoolers get scared, they prefer to think of the fantastical threat as "nice."

Children ages 4, 5, and 7 were asked questions about stories involving a protagonist of the same gender encountering real and imaginary creatures such as bears, snakes and dragons. They found that the girls tended to suggest that the protagonist avoid the creatures, while boys wanted to attack them.

The study's recommendation that may seem counterintuitive to parents is that even though 4-year-olds recognize the difference between fantasy and reality, they would rather be comforted by a positive pretense than by the notion that "it's not real."

In other words, if a child believes there's a boogie monster under the bed, parents should say that it's friendly or "wants to play" in the heat of the moment, rather than dismissing the fear by saying it's all in the child's head, they said. Later, when he or she has calmed down, parents can explain that the monster was not real, the study authors say.

Dawn Huebner, a psychologist in Exeter, New Hampshire, and author of "What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety," disagrees. If children are old enough to understand the difference between fantasy and reality, they should learn to cope with the idea that the image that haunts them is not real.

Parents can teach their children how to differentiate fears in their heads from actual danger, she said. Concepts such as "false alarms" can help kids understand that the fear they feel does not mean there is an actual threat, and that they can reassure themselves.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Here's why some teens can't sleep

Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome:

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

BPA Re-evaluated

Many plastic baby bottles, utensils, plates, etc. are now Bisphenol A free after studies in animals showed the chemical in plastic may cause developmental delays in kids, among other things. Now a new study shows the chemical is causing erectile dysfunction in men who work in these plastic factories. The FDA is supposed to be re-evaluating the safety of BPA and could put bans in place after their new stance is revealed. The word could come in the next few weeks.

It seems to be pretty easy to find baby/toddler supplies that are BPA free, but I haven't found much when it comes to regular sized plates/cups. I just bought some new Munchkin plates,bowls and cups at Wal-mart. They are working out great so far. I just wish the plates were a little larger.

I interviewed a researcher last year who discovered the potential risks of BPA. Here's a link to his eye-opening findings.

FROM CNN: Bisphenol-A, a chemical found in hard, clear plastic used to make everything from baby bottles to food packaging, may increase the risk of erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems in male factory workers exposed to large amounts of the substance, according to a study conducted in China.

The health effects of BPA have been hotly debated; although some studies have linked BPA to a risk of brain damage, birth defects, hyperactivity, heart disease, early puberty, obesity, and prostate cancer, other research suggests that the low level of exposure from plastics doesn't pose a health risk to adults. (The picture is less clear for children.)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is also in the midst of reconsidering its stance on BPA. In August 2008, largely on the basis of research funded by the chemical industry, the agency issued a draft assessment on the safety of BPA in food packaging, concluding that "an adequate margin of safety exists for BPA at current levels of exposure" from those sources.

The FDA report caused an uproar in the scientific community and was soon contradicted. The National Toxicology Program (NTP), a federal agency that advises the FDA on chemicals and other environmental toxins, released its own report expressing "some" concern about the potential effects of BPA on the brains, behavior, and prostate glands of fetuses, infants, and children, as well as "minimal" concern about earlier puberty for girls.

The NTP classified its concerns over reproductive effects from workplace BPA exposure as "minimal."

Soon after, the FDA's own Science Board released a report that cited the FDA's exclusion of a large number of animal studies on BPA, and concluded that the agency may have overestimated the safety of the chemical. Following the release of these reports and a spate of media attention, the FDA announced that it would reconsider its assessment. In mid-August 2009, the agency indicated that it will continue to review the research on BPA effects in humans and will "decide next steps" by the end of November 2009.

So has anyone found adult sized plastic cups/plates that are BPA free?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Fruity Candy Claim

From MSNBC:
Nestle claims the new Cranberry Raisinets provide 1/2 serving of real fruit in every 1/4 cup and have 30% less fat than the leading chocolate brands and they contain free-radicals. Is it true? Are these a good snack choice according to dietitians? Dr. Nancy Snyderman says don't buy the hype. She says there is more sugar in the Cranberry Raisinets than in Snow Caps!

Cranberry Raisinets: sugar: 30g
Snow Caps: sugar: 24g

Cranberry Raisinets have the same saturated fat, fat and 20 more calories than a box of Snow Caps. So, most parents probably wouldn't consider this a "healthy" option. Good to know! I love chocolate covered raisins so I probably would have tried these thinking they are bit healthier!

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.