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Sometimes in life you just have to do something you’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to go to the grocery store at 1:00 a.m. in my bathrobe, drink a carton of half-and-half, and pay for it with a check, but after discussing the plan with my wife, I’m instead learning French. Online. For free. I’m sorry, my sweet crème moitié-moitié, maybe next year.
Bank shot
For those of us who, for whatever reason, don’t like children to get preventable deadly diseases, it’s been a depressing year. First came the news that a whooping cough outbreak in Washington state had no effect on pertussis vaccination rates there, then we learned that correcting vaccine misinformation actually makes parents less likely to protect their children than saying nothing. Finally, however, we get a ray of hope, and, like everything else in the vaccine debate, it’s confusing. Like French.
A group of researchers from Indiana appear to have cracked the code to vaccine acceptance, at least for the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine: tell parents how the vaccine will help their children. See how simple that was, people? Any questions?
I have one: What did y’all say that we weren’t already saying?! In their Internet-based survey of 802 parents of infants, the investigators gave subjects four different messages about vaccines, all including the standard Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Vaccine Information Statement (VIS). One group got only the VIS. Another group also heard about the vaccine’s benefits to their children; a third group heard about how vaccination protects the community at large, and a fourth group heard about vaccination’s benefits both to children and to the community.
Two of those groups saw increased vaccine acceptance: the two who heard that MMR vaccines would benefit their children. In my own practice, I tend to emphasize how the MMR vaccine helps children avoid some of the common side effects of measles infection, like severe brain damage, or death, but perhaps there are some benefits I’ve been missing. Does the MMR vaccine, say, improve your complexion, burn fat without diet or exercise, or make it easier to learn a foreign language? If so, then I may be due for a booster.
Take a hike
There is good news from the world of summer camp, and it has nothing to do with a decrease in the number of campers infected with Lyme disease since July. No, thanks to a report from a team of psychologists in Los Angeles, we now know that summer camp is where kids learn all sorts of long-forgotten skills, like how to paddle a canoe, how to start a fire, and how to read human facial expressions.
According to well-validated tests of emotional perception, kids aged 11-13 years who spent just 5 days at a summer camp without electronics saw a dramatic leap in their perception of nonverbal communications, compared with kids who did not have to trade in their iPhones for cans of concentrated DEET. A subgroup analysis that has rocked the middle school literature also demonstrated that despite being without their electronics for 5 days, none of the 51 subjects died.
Children in both groups observed photos and short videos demonstrating emotional facial expressions and body language and were then asked to describe the emotions being demonstrated. The kids who had been to camp did remarkably well on the tests. The kids who kept their electronic devices over the same time period found the images perplexing until they were replaced with the following: at which point they started texting each other the answers. The camp kids then stole the control group’s cell phones and paddled them across a river in a bark canoe, where they added them to a bonfire and made s’mores. The control group appeared to be both sad and angry, but having no way to communicate these feelings, they just went home.
Charlatan’s Web
How do I know I’m a pediatrician and not a businessperson? Because when I hear that parents, kids, and coaches are more aware of sports-related concussion, I think “good news,” not, “Hmm, I wonder if I can use this trend to sell someone some useless garbage in a bottle?” Not everyone, however, is a pediatrician, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken notice.
In an announcement last week, the FDA warned the public about unscrupulous dietary supplement companies peddling products that claim to prevent, treat, or cure concussions and traumatic brain injuries because, you know, there’s stuff that can do that. The FDA’s greatest concern is not that athletes and their families may waste money on this snake oil (Was there every a time when rusty snakes were a common problem?) but that young athletes will put themselves at risk by returning to play before they’re fully recovered, believing that they are actually protected from further brain injury. The companies, of course, have found the perfect market, since the more injured someone’s brain is, the more likely that person is to believe their claims.
I certainly hope the FDA is serious when they say they plan to take enforcement actions against these mountebanks. Or, as I say in my online French lessons, “The cow in a hat gives the monkey with a book an apple and an orange.”
David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP, is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television, and Internet outlets.
Sometimes in life you just have to do something you’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to go to the grocery store at 1:00 a.m. in my bathrobe, drink a carton of half-and-half, and pay for it with a check, but after discussing the plan with my wife, I’m instead learning French. Online. For free. I’m sorry, my sweet crème moitié-moitié, maybe next year.
Bank shot
For those of us who, for whatever reason, don’t like children to get preventable deadly diseases, it’s been a depressing year. First came the news that a whooping cough outbreak in Washington state had no effect on pertussis vaccination rates there, then we learned that correcting vaccine misinformation actually makes parents less likely to protect their children than saying nothing. Finally, however, we get a ray of hope, and, like everything else in the vaccine debate, it’s confusing. Like French.
A group of researchers from Indiana appear to have cracked the code to vaccine acceptance, at least for the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine: tell parents how the vaccine will help their children. See how simple that was, people? Any questions?
I have one: What did y’all say that we weren’t already saying?! In their Internet-based survey of 802 parents of infants, the investigators gave subjects four different messages about vaccines, all including the standard Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Vaccine Information Statement (VIS). One group got only the VIS. Another group also heard about the vaccine’s benefits to their children; a third group heard about how vaccination protects the community at large, and a fourth group heard about vaccination’s benefits both to children and to the community.
Two of those groups saw increased vaccine acceptance: the two who heard that MMR vaccines would benefit their children. In my own practice, I tend to emphasize how the MMR vaccine helps children avoid some of the common side effects of measles infection, like severe brain damage, or death, but perhaps there are some benefits I’ve been missing. Does the MMR vaccine, say, improve your complexion, burn fat without diet or exercise, or make it easier to learn a foreign language? If so, then I may be due for a booster.
Take a hike
There is good news from the world of summer camp, and it has nothing to do with a decrease in the number of campers infected with Lyme disease since July. No, thanks to a report from a team of psychologists in Los Angeles, we now know that summer camp is where kids learn all sorts of long-forgotten skills, like how to paddle a canoe, how to start a fire, and how to read human facial expressions.
According to well-validated tests of emotional perception, kids aged 11-13 years who spent just 5 days at a summer camp without electronics saw a dramatic leap in their perception of nonverbal communications, compared with kids who did not have to trade in their iPhones for cans of concentrated DEET. A subgroup analysis that has rocked the middle school literature also demonstrated that despite being without their electronics for 5 days, none of the 51 subjects died.
Children in both groups observed photos and short videos demonstrating emotional facial expressions and body language and were then asked to describe the emotions being demonstrated. The kids who had been to camp did remarkably well on the tests. The kids who kept their electronic devices over the same time period found the images perplexing until they were replaced with the following: at which point they started texting each other the answers. The camp kids then stole the control group’s cell phones and paddled them across a river in a bark canoe, where they added them to a bonfire and made s’mores. The control group appeared to be both sad and angry, but having no way to communicate these feelings, they just went home.
Charlatan’s Web
How do I know I’m a pediatrician and not a businessperson? Because when I hear that parents, kids, and coaches are more aware of sports-related concussion, I think “good news,” not, “Hmm, I wonder if I can use this trend to sell someone some useless garbage in a bottle?” Not everyone, however, is a pediatrician, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken notice.
In an announcement last week, the FDA warned the public about unscrupulous dietary supplement companies peddling products that claim to prevent, treat, or cure concussions and traumatic brain injuries because, you know, there’s stuff that can do that. The FDA’s greatest concern is not that athletes and their families may waste money on this snake oil (Was there every a time when rusty snakes were a common problem?) but that young athletes will put themselves at risk by returning to play before they’re fully recovered, believing that they are actually protected from further brain injury. The companies, of course, have found the perfect market, since the more injured someone’s brain is, the more likely that person is to believe their claims.
I certainly hope the FDA is serious when they say they plan to take enforcement actions against these mountebanks. Or, as I say in my online French lessons, “The cow in a hat gives the monkey with a book an apple and an orange.”
David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP, is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television, and Internet outlets.
Sometimes in life you just have to do something you’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to go to the grocery store at 1:00 a.m. in my bathrobe, drink a carton of half-and-half, and pay for it with a check, but after discussing the plan with my wife, I’m instead learning French. Online. For free. I’m sorry, my sweet crème moitié-moitié, maybe next year.
Bank shot
For those of us who, for whatever reason, don’t like children to get preventable deadly diseases, it’s been a depressing year. First came the news that a whooping cough outbreak in Washington state had no effect on pertussis vaccination rates there, then we learned that correcting vaccine misinformation actually makes parents less likely to protect their children than saying nothing. Finally, however, we get a ray of hope, and, like everything else in the vaccine debate, it’s confusing. Like French.
A group of researchers from Indiana appear to have cracked the code to vaccine acceptance, at least for the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine: tell parents how the vaccine will help their children. See how simple that was, people? Any questions?
I have one: What did y’all say that we weren’t already saying?! In their Internet-based survey of 802 parents of infants, the investigators gave subjects four different messages about vaccines, all including the standard Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Vaccine Information Statement (VIS). One group got only the VIS. Another group also heard about the vaccine’s benefits to their children; a third group heard about how vaccination protects the community at large, and a fourth group heard about vaccination’s benefits both to children and to the community.
Two of those groups saw increased vaccine acceptance: the two who heard that MMR vaccines would benefit their children. In my own practice, I tend to emphasize how the MMR vaccine helps children avoid some of the common side effects of measles infection, like severe brain damage, or death, but perhaps there are some benefits I’ve been missing. Does the MMR vaccine, say, improve your complexion, burn fat without diet or exercise, or make it easier to learn a foreign language? If so, then I may be due for a booster.
Take a hike
There is good news from the world of summer camp, and it has nothing to do with a decrease in the number of campers infected with Lyme disease since July. No, thanks to a report from a team of psychologists in Los Angeles, we now know that summer camp is where kids learn all sorts of long-forgotten skills, like how to paddle a canoe, how to start a fire, and how to read human facial expressions.
According to well-validated tests of emotional perception, kids aged 11-13 years who spent just 5 days at a summer camp without electronics saw a dramatic leap in their perception of nonverbal communications, compared with kids who did not have to trade in their iPhones for cans of concentrated DEET. A subgroup analysis that has rocked the middle school literature also demonstrated that despite being without their electronics for 5 days, none of the 51 subjects died.
Children in both groups observed photos and short videos demonstrating emotional facial expressions and body language and were then asked to describe the emotions being demonstrated. The kids who had been to camp did remarkably well on the tests. The kids who kept their electronic devices over the same time period found the images perplexing until they were replaced with the following: at which point they started texting each other the answers. The camp kids then stole the control group’s cell phones and paddled them across a river in a bark canoe, where they added them to a bonfire and made s’mores. The control group appeared to be both sad and angry, but having no way to communicate these feelings, they just went home.
Charlatan’s Web
How do I know I’m a pediatrician and not a businessperson? Because when I hear that parents, kids, and coaches are more aware of sports-related concussion, I think “good news,” not, “Hmm, I wonder if I can use this trend to sell someone some useless garbage in a bottle?” Not everyone, however, is a pediatrician, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken notice.
In an announcement last week, the FDA warned the public about unscrupulous dietary supplement companies peddling products that claim to prevent, treat, or cure concussions and traumatic brain injuries because, you know, there’s stuff that can do that. The FDA’s greatest concern is not that athletes and their families may waste money on this snake oil (Was there every a time when rusty snakes were a common problem?) but that young athletes will put themselves at risk by returning to play before they’re fully recovered, believing that they are actually protected from further brain injury. The companies, of course, have found the perfect market, since the more injured someone’s brain is, the more likely that person is to believe their claims.
I certainly hope the FDA is serious when they say they plan to take enforcement actions against these mountebanks. Or, as I say in my online French lessons, “The cow in a hat gives the monkey with a book an apple and an orange.”
David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP, is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television, and Internet outlets.
