Gardasil Vaccine Warning

At the Autism One Conference a couple moms talked to me about the Gardasil vaccine to prevent HPV. They were concerned about the side effects. Today at the television station, we ran this story from the medical company Medstar:

Recently, the CDC reported that, in the last two years, more than 450 youngsters fainted after getting a vaccination. That may explain why some teeangers are taking a new position on the HPV vaccine.

When 13-year-old Lauren Breidigam had a vaccination to prevent cervical cancer, she got more than the typical pain, redness and swelling at the injection site. She conked out. Lauren Beidigam said, "I remember feeling her put the band aid on and then I just went."

Heather Breidigam said, "It was almost like she didn't have a bone in her body and she started to twitch and I had said to the nurse, I said 'oh my gosh, she's out, she's out cold.'" That surprised both Breidigams. They didn't see fainting listed as a side effect on their patient information sheet. It wasn't until after the incident that heather saw it mentioned on the vaccine company's website.

Heather Breidigam said, "I wish, as a parent, I would have known that. I think I would have been a little more prepared." Researchers aren't sure why, but about 10 percent of girls in studies for the vaccine got dizzy or passed out after the shot. Dr. Larry Glazerman said, "That was in both patients receiving vaccine and placebo. the incidence was about the same. so again, is it because you're coming at an adolescent girl with a needle? I don't know, but it certainly might be."

To be safe rather than sorry, doctors are proposing an easy solution. Dr. Larry Glazerman said, "The recommendation as a result of this, is pretty simple. just that you give them a vaccine either sitting down or lying down and you watch them for 15 or 20 minutes just to make sure that they don't have any significant reaction." The vaccine is given in a series of three shots. lauren has two more to go. And, now all the wiser, she'll be prepared. She plans to take them lying down. The Gardasil vaccine protects against HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer and genital warts.

It's recommended for girls ages 9 to 26. For more information and a full list of side effects go to the drug company's website at Gardasil.com

You can also find more in depth information about this story on WHOI.

Where do you stand on this controversy?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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NewsAnchorMom.com Gardasil Controversy

Child misses field trip due to handicap

If you are here in town and you saw this story, it probably got your attention. There are lot of people who feel strongly on both sides of this story. I got this email from a mom in Woodford County, Illinois.

“My son was supposed to go on a field trip with his first grade class and because the train is not handicap accessible, he can not go-nor did the school offer to do anything to help include him. “ Sophia Senn

Sophia's son, Dakota missed his field trip to the zoo. He knew about the trip and had been talking about how he was so excited to go. I went to his house and got to meet him. He is such a sweet kid.

Dakota has Cerebral Palsy and a trach, so Sophia is used to calling ahead before he goes anywhere. The school's principal said he would make sure the Amtrak train the kids were taking was wheelchair accessible. The principal called Sophia and said it was not.

Here's the verbatim from the story we ran on WHOI:

Eight-year-old Dakota Senn is used to being left out. He has Cerebral Palsy and a tracheotomy in his neck. His medical needs don’t allow him to do everything other kids can do. But when he missed his end of the year field trip to the zoo, his mom decided something needs to be done. Dakota said, “I felt a little sad that I didn't go." Sophia Senn said, "We have an 8 year old child. That's how we see him. He wants to be included. He wants to be able to do things."

Sophia says she called Sowers Elementary School in Roanoke a couple days before the field trip to make sure the Amtrak train the kids were taking to the zoo was wheelchair accessible.

Sophia said, "I got a phone call back that next morning, telling me unfortunately the train was not handicapped accessible. I said, I guess then that Dakota misses school and no further arrangements were made. " Jen asked District 60 Superintendent Rohn Peterson:”Why was the parent even called? Why wouldn't the school try and figure out a way for the kid to go before they called the mom and said, you're son can't go.” Superintendent: Peterson said, “Yeah, we probably should have thought through that a little bit. Maybe we could have taken him right directly to Bloomington."

Peterson says the school certainly wasn’t trying to leave Dakota out. He says part of the field trip was riding the train and Dakota often misses school for medical reasons. So when his mom said she would keep him home that day, the principal didn’t think anything of it.

Dakota said, “That kind of makes me mad right now.” It makes his mom and his nurse a little mad too.” Registered Nurse Nicole Bohth said, “"He mentioned a couple times that he wished he could go. That started a couple days ahead of time."

But the school didn’t realize how big of a deal this was to Dakota and his family. Peterson said, "I think communication is the issue and I think we probably failed on our end and the mom should have contacted us as well and maybe expressed some of these feelings."

Peterson says this situation is a reminder for all schools to do everything they can to include kids with special needs, so kids like Dakota don’t get left behind.

We were talking about this story in the newsroom and thought it was awfully strange that Amtrak has a train that isn't wheelchair accessible. So I called Amtrak. Sure enough, they made a mistake. The train was wheelchair accessible all along. Amtrak does ask that you call ahead of time to let them know a wheelchair passenger will be boarding. Basically, Amtrak sent out the wrong form email to the principal at Sowers Elementary School. I have a copy of that email and it clearly states the train is not handicap accessible. Amtrak offered Dakota and his family free roundtrip tickets to Chicago to make up for the mistake.

Superintendent Peterson was very nice. He didn't act defensive. He said it was a mistake that won't happen again. He said he didn't even realize there was a problem until after the field trip was over and it was too late to make any arrangements.

UPDATE: Here's the You Tube video:

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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NewsAnchorMom.com Wheelchair Story

Mosquito Repellent

Now that it's summer vacation, my four-year-old refuses to come inside at night. His friends were playing outside at 8:00p.m. and I saw him start to swat at mosquitos. I made him come inside. I do have mosquito repellent with deet, but I don't like to use it. I don't know if there's any merit to what I think, but putting all those chemicals on my kids doesn't sit well. I do use it sometimes, but I try to avoid it. However, I don't want him to get the West Nile Virus. That would obviously be worse.

We ran this story on WHOI. It made my fears about safety heightened.

"Deet has been the most commonly used mosquito repellent for the last five decades, but scientists believe they've discovered a better one. Ulrich Bernier and colleagues at the USDA and the University of Florida began their search with a database of more than 40- thousand chemicals.

Using sophisticated software, scientist were able to predict new molecules which might be more effective, and safe. The team then created those new compounds in the lab, and compared them to deet. The research so far predicts good repellency and safety, but the researchers say thorough safety tests must be done before the new repellents can be tested on people."

Why are scientists looking at a "safer" repellent if the ones on the market are safe? Ugh! Do you put bug repellent with deet on your kids? Does anyone use the more natural bug repellents that don't contain deet? Do they work?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Childhood Obesity Study

You may have heard about a new study that shows a more positive outlook in the fight against childhood obesity. I must warn you, it's not that great of news, but anything positive is a good sign.

Here's the ABC version of the story:

Childhood obesity is a serious problem that can lead to serious health problems in adulthood. In recent years the number of obese children in the U.S. has increased, but a new study looking at the national trend over the past eight years shows some positive signs.

Brian Gordon is one of thousands who battled a weight problem as a child. He says it wasn't until he became active in sports that the pounds started dropping off. He said, "I gained a lot of weight in middle school and my parents got me into soccer, baseball and wrestling. Things like that."

Doctor Cynthia Ogden is an epidemiologist with the National Center for Health Statistics. She and her colleagues analyzed data from more than eight thousand children and teens ages two through nineteen who participated in national health surveys. Looking at body mass index from 1999 through 2006 they found obesity
levels are stabilizing.

Dr. Cynthia Ogden said, "This was true for boys and for girls. For whites, for African-Americans, for Mexican-Americans, and it was even true when we picked three different levels of high body mass index." 16.3% of U.S. children and teens are considered obese. While the numbers have not increased they also have not decreased, and certain ethnicities continue to be more likely to be obese. Dr.Ogden said,"By race ethnicity particularly among girls we see big disparities where about twenty-eight percent of African-American girls, twenty per cent of Mexican- American girls and about fourteen and a half percent of white teenage girls are overweight or obese."

Alisa Rank is worried about obesity problems. She said,"It's really important to get the education to kids to let them know what can happen if they're not getting exercise in the future. I don't think there's enough emphasis on that."

Dr. Ogden said, "The main concern for teenagers is that if you're too heavy as a teen you're likely to be obese as an adult and that can be a problem." Researchers are encouraged by the findings. they say the public health message remains the same. children and teens need a well balanced diet and regular physical activity.

The study appears this week in JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Don't underestimate a sneaky baby

If you have been following this blog, you will be happy to know, the sippy cup full of rotten milk has been found! I hope I didn't gross you out too bad by posting this picture. I am sure if you have kids, you've seen worse!

My one-year-old put it in a dresser drawer underneath the clothes. Who says one-year-olds aren't old enough to be sneaky? Months ago, I tore up my house looking for the rotting, stinky thing. I am so thrilled to have it in the garbage.

The little one saw it and reached for it when my husband handed it to me. Phew! If he had remembered where he stashed it, he surely would have taken a drink. Yuck! Or as he would say Guck!

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Jenny McCarthy Speech Review

She acted just like the Jenny you remember from the 90's, except a little more mature. She was very funny and really brought a sense of relief to the people in the room. (BTW, she is talking to me while we are taking the picture. It kind of looks like she doesn't like me very much. Funny!)

Jenny spoke to a packed room this weekend at the Autism One Conference in Chicago. I popped a squat on the floor and stared out at the hundreds, probably thousands, of people in the auditorium. I was lucky to be able to see her. There were many, many people who spilled out into the lobby and barely heard her talk.

You have probably heard by now, Jenny has a little boy, Evan, who has autism. She has been very vocal about the struggles she and thousands of other parents are going through. And she has really made a big effort to get the other side of the autism story in the media. She says she has made "Big Pharma" mad. She started her speech by saying, "I am not anti-vaccines. I am anti-toxin." She thinks the vaccine schedule needs to be changed. I know there are lot of physicians who disagree, but whether you agree with her opinion or not, I admire how she is fighting for her son.

Jenny is very passionate about helping her son recover. When I told her I was with the media, she said, "Biomedical treatments. That's what I want you to cover." She says her son has dramatically improved after she started the Gluten-Free Casein-Free diet. It sounds like a nightmare to implement with no wheat, no milk and a lot of other "No's." However, Jenny explained why she believes it works for her son. She says her son doesn't excrete toxins like other people do. She says it's like her son gets a "high" off certain foods. She says so many moms have told her they can't stop giving their kids milk because they loooooovvveee milk. Jenny says that's because the milk is making them stoned. Of course they love it. She said she is so strict about her son's diet, when Evan is in high school his friends will rebel and go drink and he's be like, "No, lets go eat donuts!" I don't know if a medical person would explain autism the way she does, but she made it very easy to understand!

I was invited to the conference to be part of the journalism panel. It was great to hear why other journalists have gotten involved in autism research. And it was very interesting to hear their responses to questions from the audience. This is a picture of David Warner, the Vice President of the Autism Society of Mclean County. He and his wife went to the conference and even saved me some room on the floor so I could hear Jenny.

During the media session, of course, there was a lot of complaining about what the media does and does not cover, but I think overall it was a good session. I would be happy to do it again. I think it is good for parents to hear from someone who cares about kids with autism, but does not have an autistic child. It's an important perspective to keep in mind. After all, if autism hasn't impacted your life yet, it soon will. So my advice is to stay informed. These kids will be graduating from high school soon. Then what? We think there's a health care crisis now, just wait. Even if you aren't passionate about helping these kids, like I am, you should still care about this topic. It's huge.

Here are the other people on the panel:

Mark Blaxill - Age of Autism

Julie Deardorff - Chicago Tribune

Rex Huppke - Chicago Tribune

Dan Olmsted - Age of Autism

Ashley Reynolds - KOMU / Missouri School of Journalism

Kim Stagliano - Age of Autism

I will post more this week about what I learned!

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Indoor Tanning Beds

We talked about the dangers of indoor tanning beds a few weeks ago on WHOI and I just realized I never posted anything on my blog. If you have teenagers, this is something to mention to them.

Dermatologist Dr. Carl Soderstrom did a live interview during our 5pm newscast and mentioned the American Academy of Dermatology says "indoor tanning is out." The rays your teenagers get when they tan are just as likely to cause cancer as the sun. I know I thought it was so cool to have a bronze tan all summer. I even worked as a lifeguard. I should really check my moles.

Anyway, here's a story on ABC with all the details on the dangers of tanning beds.

I hope you had a great Memorial Day and remembered to wear sunscreen. I only remembered to put it on one of my kids. Bad mom.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Organic Baby Formula

I got this in an email and thought it was worth sharing after hearing about how important organic food is all weekend at the Autism One Conference:

The article is from Julia Moskin from the New York Times:

Amy Chase started feeding Similac Organic infant formula to her second son, Amos, as soon as he was born in November 2006."When I saw the organic at Publix, I bought it, no questions asked,"said Ms. Chase, a self-described "yoga mom" in Atlanta.Like Ms. Chase, many American parents have rushed to embrace Similac Organic formula, even though it sells for as much as 30 percent more than regular Similac. In 2007, its first full year on sale, it captured36 percent of the organic formula market, with sales of more than $10million, according to Kalorama Information, a pharmaceutical-industry research firm. (Similac's parent company, Abbott Laboratories, does not release sales figures for individual products.)

Parents may be buying it because they believe that organic is healthier,but babies may have a reason of their own for preferring Similac Organic: it is significantly sweeter than other formulas. It is the only major brand of organic formula that is sweetened with cane sugar, or sucrose, which is much sweeter than sugars used in other formulas. No health problems in babies have been associated with Similac Organic. But to pediatricians, there are risks in giving babies cane sugar: Sucrose can harm tooth enamel faster than other sugars; once babies get used to its sweeter taste, they might resist less sweet formulas or solid foods; and some studies suggest that they might over eat, leading to rapid weight gain in the first year, which is often a statistical predictor of childhood obesity.

Asked about these concerns, Carolyn Valek, a spokeswoman for Abbott Nutrition, the division of Abbott Laboratories that makes Similac Organic, said that sucrose had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and was considered "safe and well established." Ms. Valek said that Similac Organic had no more sweetener than other formulas and that prolonged contact with any kind of sugar could cause tooth decay. In Europe, where sudden increases in childhood obesity are a pressing public health issue, sucrose-sweetened formulas will be banned by the end of 2009, except when ordered by a doctor for babies with severe allergies. The 27 countries of the European Union adopted the new rules according to the recommendations of the group's Scientific Committee on Food, which found that sucrose provided no particular nutritional advantages, could, in rare cases, bring about a fatal metabolic disorder, and might lead to overfeeding.

The F.D.A., however, which regulates infant formula, does not specify which sugars can be used, as long as they are already classified as safe. Nor does it set the amount of sugar per serving, as it does for fats and proteins. Still, a number of pediatricians said they were surprised by the choice of sucrose."I would be very concerned about this as a pediatrician," said Dr.Benjamin Caballero, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an expert in risk factors for childhood obesity. "The issue is that sweet tastes tend to encourage consumption of excessive amounts," Dr. Caballero said. Evidence shows that babies and children will always show a preference for the sweetest food available, he said, and they will eat more of it than they would of less-sweet food."This is how breakfast cereal manufacturers compete," he said.

Ms. Valek of Abbot Nutrition said the company did not "optimize for taste" when developing infant formula. "Our primary focus is to support normal growth through optimal nutrition and quality ingredients," she said. Organic formula, with sales of about $20 million annually, makes up only a sliver of the $2.5 billion formula market, according to A.C. Nielsen,the market research company. Similac Organic, analysts say, is largely responsible for the nearly ten fold growth in sales of organic formula from 2005 to 2007. According to the federal Department of Agriculture,which regulates organic labeling, a product can be labeled organic when 95 percent of its ingredients are grown without the use of certain pesticides and herbicides. All infant formulas contain added sugars, which babies need to digest the proteins in cow's milk or soy. Other organic formulas, like Earth's Best and Parent's Choice, use organic lactose as the added sugar. Organic lactose must be extracted from organic milk, the global supplies of which have been severely stretched in the last three years, driving up the price of the lactose.

I do like a lot of the organic products. I didn't use formula, so I didn't have this dilemma, but it makes me wonder if other "organic" food is really the best choice. At least the pesticides aren't in there! I think I need to be more careful about what I buy.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Autism One

Wow! What an intense weekend. I have never seen so many caring parents fighting for their kids in one place. I just sat down at the computer after three days in Chicago going to seminar after seminar on all aspects of autism. This picture is posted on the age of autism blog.

I have some pictures of me and Jenny McCarthy (the keynote speaker) that I will be posting when I go buy a new cord for my digital camera. It disappeared last week so I can't load any photos right this second.

I went to the conference to be part of a journalism panel. I met a lot of great people, got pushed and shoved by a lot of moms and got very skeptical of all the products that are touted as "helps kids with autism." There were a lot of people there trying to make money. Hmmm..

So I have some interesting posts coming up next week on my experience. If you have kids, there is some information you need to know. Whether your kids have autism or not, some of the information given was eye opening.

Here's a hint.. nutrition, nutrition, nutrition...

I will give you all the details soon.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen